Nancy Pelosi: She’s ba-a-ack!

By BRUCE LOWITT

In yet another surprise move, Rep. Matt Gaetz and his hard-right coalition of Republicans joined with Democrats to re-elect Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House of Representatives, the seat she has twice previously held.

“If Kevin McCarthy thought the job was tough, we’re going to make her life a living hell,” Gaetz, R-Vindictive, said. “She won’t be able to go to the bathroom without negotiating with us and agreeing to one of our typically outrageous demands.”

Pelosi, D-Mastodon, a member of Congress since 1987, said she was initially reluctant to assume the office she held from 2007-2011, the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House, and again from 2019-2023 before the Republicans took control in January and McCarthy began his 15-ballot marathon vote-a-rama to gain the office he had coveted since his sophomore year at Bakersfield High School in California.

But in a meeting following McCarthy’s ouster Tuesday, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-Suave, leader of the House Democratic Caucus and House Minority Leader, reportedly told Pelosi that as much as he might want the speakership, he was afraid he might get knifed in a hallway by one of the more rabid Republicans and didn’t want his children to grow up without a father.

Pelosi, 83, then said she’d give some thought to taking the job.

“If she wants it, she can have it,” McCarthy said. “I don’t know why the hell I ever wanted it. I mean, yeah, there was the whole ego thing – the nice office, whacking the desk with the gavel, the official portrait, better seats in restaurants and at Redsk- … I mean Commanders games.

“Besides, I thought I could convince Gaetz and (Lauren) Boebert and (Andy) Biggs and (Nancy) Mace and the rest of those clowns to give a shit about the country for a change and not just themselves,” McCarthy said. “But when I saw how they didn’t care that (Tommy) Tuberville was screwing the military and that they wanted to shut down the government just to get their way, I knew I was, to use the technical term, fucked. And honestly, I think Nancy’s the only person who can ride herd on those idiots. I mean, she’s really good at this whole Speaker thing, much better than I am.”

He admitted that going on CBS’s Face the Nation last Sunday and blaming the Democratic minority for the government shutdown his party nearly created was the final nail in his coffin, “but, honestly, with the number of lies I’d told and the number of stupid concessions I made to the Gaetz Gang, I figured the Democrats wouldn’t vote to save my ass no matter what I promised them.”

According to a source close to the House Republican leadership who spoke on condition of anonymity, Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, R-Pragmatic, who had spoken eloquently against vacating the speakership, secretly promised Pelosi that if she kept him on as chairman of the House Rules Committee he’d “bend a few rules” to get Gaetz, Boebert, Santos, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan “and several other lunatic-fringe Republicans thrown out of Congress so the House can once again become a functioning arm of the government.”

Pelosi said she finally agreed to take over running the House when she realized she really wanted to get back her spacious Speakers office. “Besides,” she said, “since Paul (her husband of 60 years) has recovered from that horrible hammer attack last year, he said he’s sick of what he called my hovering and told me to get back to doing something useful.”