Nancy Pelosi vs. Cindy Sheehan

The punditocracy may laugh now at this possible match-up (Sheehan announcing that she may run against the Speaker), a titled heavyweight against a scrawny street punk on the scales of campaign funding. But as a majority of the public demands, with increasing stridency, the end of this hemorrhaging in Iraq, Pelosi’s and Reid’s approval ratings are hovering near Dick Cheney’s—elected to abort the war, they have presided over its escalation. Meanwhile, Sheehan is hardly an unknown, has a massive base of support among Democrats, and after camping outside the fantasy ranch in Crawford during the blistering Texas summer, it’s not likely she’ll wilt under the heat of King George’s stubborn smirk.

Pelosi makes all the good gestures, but then capitulates in the final quarter. In March, yet another war funding bill ($100 billion) was about to be approved by the House that included a provision forbidding military operations against Iran without congressional approval (“You may continue this bollixed war, but don’t start another one!”). A few days later, Pelosi attended the annual conference of one of her and her party’s largest investors—AIPAC—where her speech defending the bill was roundly booed. I don’t know if the runny mascara was from nervous perspiration, or actual tears, as she hurriedly fled to Capitol Hill for emergency surgery. By dawn, she had removed the offending tumor about Iran, and stitched up the bill with a realpolitick rationalization: “Of course, we’re not really going to attack Iran. Mercy, no! I abhor any kind of unseemly aggressiveness. But to prod Iran forward, we must not take the stick off the table.”

If only Ms. Pelosi would apply this same strategem to the domestic front, she might successfully contain our own fundamentalist megalomaniac—but no, the impeachment stick is off this table. Here, too, she is bucking the trend: 46% of the public, in a recent poll, is all for impeaching the Evil Cretin. But it will never happen with this reverse Teddy Roosevelt philosophy: Speak loudly, and drop your stick.

The House did just pass a resolution for withdrawal by Spring 2008 (CNN, almost as “fair and balanced” as Fox, megaphoned this belligerent headline: “Bush Blasts the House!”). The King will certainly veto it. Then Pelosi and Reid will dance another mournful jig, pleading, “Oh, we tried. We really, really tried!”

Nancy, dear, your heart’s in the right place, but your purse is plumped by foreign lobbies who would like nothing better than a perpetually escalating Crusade in the Middle East, whatever the cost in American blood and treasure. But the nation is begging for a virgin warrior with the moxy to wield the big sticks in the Homeland—defunding the war, impeachment. As has been said about many of our adversaries, "Force is the only language he understands." There is no better candidate than Cindy Sheehan to lead that insurgency, for many reasons, but one overriding one. His name is Casey.

Whatever Cindy Sheehan's prospects for election, her candidacy just may be the stick to prod Nancy Pelosi forward, or at least arrest her unseemly backpedaling.