Are Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats living up to the public's expectations? Hardly. Their approval ratings cannot even reach a paltry 30 percent, according to an article in yesterday's Washington Post, putting the legislative branch in as sorry a state as the notorious Mr. Bush. As for Ms. Speaker, she does not fare much better; her approval rating stood at 36 percent last month.
Yet the Post goes on to give a quite positive analysis of Pelosi's leadership: She skillfully orchestrated a "100-hour agenda" that managed to push through the House the Democratic leadership's "six goals for '06" by Jan. 18. All the while, her leadership has created a more unified party, the Post says.
So why has the public turned sour on the Democrats already? As it is pointed out, only one of the Democrats' initiatives has actually made it into law-- a raise in the minimum wage. All others have met their demise in the Senate, with the exception of an expansion in federal funding for stem cell research, which the president vetoed.
But in my opinion, the accomplishments of Pelosi and house Democrats should not be overshadowed by their low approval ratings. It is true that both Congress' failure to reform immigration policy and its stunted reprisals to Mr. Bush's ongoing Iraq war are enough to merit strong recrimination from the public. However, it must be noted that the Congress has made some important steps in moving forward legislative change that would have never happened under Republican rule. They are small steps, certainly, but that is the way democracy is supposed to work: It is meant to be a slow and deliberative process. The different branches of government, as well as the different parties, should cancel out each other's excesses, which is what they are trying to do. Now if only sparing the lives of hundreds more American soldiers weren't considered an excess.
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