Joe Klein reviews Pelosi by Molly Ball.
“In Ball’s account, Pelosi is as tough as bullets. She knows how to count votes, how to negotiate (both from a position of strength and from a position of weakness) and how to herd her tribe; she knows what can get passed, against the odds — like the Affordable Care Act — and what can’t. She has the courage to tell her fellow female House members face to face, with tears in her eyes, that government-funded abortions have to be removed from the ACA for it to get through. These are lost skills in American politics, atrophied in the modern-day rush to preen and tweet. They are small-room, off-camera skills. Ball makes a convincing case that no woman could have made it to the top without them.”
