She Was Worth the Trouble

Jonathan Last: “One of the many remarkable things about Nancy Pelosi is that she was the first woman to become speaker of the House and yet this historic accomplishment isn’t anywhere near the top of her resumé. She wasn’t a token or a barrier breaker. She was an uncommonly effective speaker.”

“She practiced good politics. The Democrats had a long, successful run under her leadership. She kept her caucus mostly in the center of where the Democratic party was. None of that is really up for debate. It’s the shared opinion of basically everyone who pays attention to this stuff seriously, on both sides of the aisle.”

“Democrats and Republicans differ in their value judgments about the merits of the policies Pelosi helped enact. But if the question is: Was Nancy Pelosi an effective leader and do you wish your party had someone like her? Well, there’s no difference of opinion on that.”

“And besides all that, Pelosi might be the single most self-aware politician of her era. In 2017, when some Democrats tried to unseat her, she explained, ‘I’m worth the trouble.'”