Mark Steyn: The Political Comedian

Mark Steyn, introduced to me by dear ole 'Ma, is fast becoming one of my favorite columnists. His mix of humor and political create a poignant and telling column. This week, he takes on Grandmother Pelosi. The whole column is worth a read, but here are a few snippets:

Golly. One only hopes the wee ones understand that, post-coronation, Queen Nancy's ascension to the throne might cut into all this qualitytime. "Gran'ma Got Run Over By Her Reign, Dears,'' as the old song so shrewdly warns. But don't Republicans have families, too? Yes, but let's face it, they creep you out, don't they? If you have the misfortune to be nominated by the Bush administration, your kids getheadlines like ''An Image A Little Too Carefully Coordinated.'' That was the Washington Post's Style Section on Chief Justice John Roberts' moppets: They didn't care for ''the 1950s-style tableaux vivant,'' or the ''freshly scrubbed and adorable'' look from ''a Currier Ives landscape''; they sniffed at the ''seersucker suit with short pants'' of ''towheaded Jack'' and his sister's ''blond pageboy''; they didn't even like the name ''Jack.''

[...]

I would wager that, when the young Nancy Pelosi had ''five children in six years,'' a hefty percentage of that parenthood wasn't planned. She is, in that sense, philosophically at odds with her party -- and,indeed, with her congressional district. San Francisco now registers more dogs that it does schoolchildren. Lest you think I'm being my usual homophobic self, I hasten to add that for once I'm not: It speaks well for the Bay Area that they had to embrace the gay life to match

the collapsed birth rates European cities have managed to achieve heterosexually. Nonetheless, at a time when fertility rates call into question the survival of Russia, Japan, Germany, Spain and Italy, the new speaker certainly presents an unusual model: She appears to be a rare example of a woman who truly ''has it all.'' She had five kids and then became the first female speaker in human history, an event (according to the media) women have been waiting for since Caveman Ug

said, ''Hi, honey, I'm home!'' and clubbed the missus over the head for being late with the saber-toothed meatloaf. It's certainly not the career path feminist orthodoxy has commended these last 30 years, but it seems to have brought Pelosi happiness, and at a time of greater

life expectancy it has a certain logic: Have kids in your 20s, go into politics in your 40s, serve as two-term president in your 60s. You can have it all!



I think the GOP should give up trying to demonize Nancy Pelosi. The Botox gags and bug-eyed photos won't work. Tonally, she seems very normal, in ways that, for example, certain presidentially inclined New York senators can never quite manage. But Pelosi's fellow California

liberals and those gushing feminist columnists ought to ponder why ''the most powerful woman in America'' is quite so untypical: What does it say when it's the exception that proves the ruler?

Two-term President Pelosi? Let's hope note...

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