Hangin' in the Office With Nancy Pelosi

Hangin' in the Office With Nancy P.
By David Swanson
January 17, 2008

By David Swanson

I had been to Nancy Pelosi's office in the Cannon House Office Building before. In fact, I'd been there several times and usually had a pleasant stay, often very quick and efficient, other times prolonged by everyone's enjoyment of the songs my friends in pink were singing, and as often as not resulting in new friendships with fine officers of the Capitol Police who accompanied us out. This time was going to be different.

Just a few of us went by there on Wednesday. No cameras. No songs. And no signs, since we'd already left those at the door with our Capitol Police friends, who continue to get the wrong impression about us. We walked in and said "Good afternoon," which they apparently mistook for the voice of the Filipino Monkey saying "We are come to slaughter your children."

Fearing our murderous threats, the police chose not to accompany us down the hall to Pelosi's crib. And, in fact, we were on a very devious mission. We were accompanying a 60-year-old retired college professor who had decided to walk 500 miles from his home to this office in order to ask for 5 minutes of Pelosi's time. John Nirenberg's story of the march he has now completed is at http://www.marchinmyname.org [1]

John attracted a fair amount of attention on his way to D.C. and was able to meet with some members of Congress when he arrived. He said that his own conscience felt much better to him, having completed his walk. But it would not be truly complete until he sat down with Nancy and told her why he'd come: to ask her to put the power of impeachment back in the Constitution.

Nancy P. turns out to be one hip chick. The first thing you notice in her rather bare office is a large glossy magazine prominently displayed on a table. On the cover is a big photo of Nancy with Rudy Giuliani:

Of course we thought this was way cool, and we planned to ask Nancy if she really knew Giuliani and what he was like in person as soon as she got there.

Also in Nancy's office is an ugly sofa, a couple of boring desks, a young woman who pretends to be helpful, and mostly bare walls. Through the door to the left is a larger room where a couple of young men are wandering around, eating lunch, not saying anything to us or each other, and looking more bored than anything else. High on the far wall of the side room is a huge map of Pelosi's district in San Francisco. This is her district office. Her Speaker's office is across the street in the U.S. Capitol.

In fact, the young woman told us that Nancy was actually over there in the other office so we'd have to go over there if we wanted to see her. But when we asked how we could get in there, she helpfully pointed out that we couldn't.

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