This assertive headline from the Globe and Mail says that Nancy Pelosi will be the one in control. The UK’s Guardian acknowledged Pelosi will be perfoming a delicate balancing act with President Bush, but will have access to a “formidable machine.”
American news agencies have put forward a more sceptical view of Pelosi’s ability to maintain control over the opposing parties in the House. According to this article posted in the International Herald Tribune:
Her pledge to treat Republicans more fairly than they have dealt with Democrats could be “the first casualty of a Pelosi speakership,” said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in California who has written extensively about Congress.
The article also lists “a halting television presence” as one of the fiery leader’s major weaknesses.
And USA Today reported that Pelosi may not be ready for prime time:
Longtime political observer Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, says Pelosi “is no Newt Gingrich. She really isn’t intellectually interesting. Gingrich came up with ideas … With her, I don’t know whether that’s true or not. We have to see if she is really ready for prime time.”
— Caroline Dobuzinskis
