The Higher Ground of Values

I had the privilege of being in the audience today to hear three Members of Congress speak today: Congressman Al Green, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (if Newt Gingrich can be Mr. Speaker Nancy Pelosi can be Madam Speaker, thank you very much).

Obviously, getting the leader of the Democratic Party to come to Houston on a hot August day during the summer recess is a big deal and the room was full to overflowing to the extent that I was starting to wonder when the fire department would show up.

The Speaker spoke. She spoke a lot. There was a lot to speak about. Obviously uppermost on the minds of lots of people in the room was the monstrosity of a budget bill that House Republicans recently passed, one that promises an end to Medicare and Social Security. One that undoes a bunch of good things that the Affordable Healthcare Act made possible. One that trades our future so that the rich can buy just one more trinket.

And Speaker Pelosi framed the argument just right I think. In the past, evangelical conservatives have placed a lot of stock in Values Voting. Their values being religious in origin. Speaker Pelosi frames the argument as Values Voting as well, but not the usual fare of Republican homophobic and misogynistic values. Putting it another way, a better way, that it isn’t about who is getting what tax break, it’s about what we Americans value most is just the ticket, I think.

And hopefully, in this short clip, I have captured the essence of Speaker Pelosi’s message.

Grand Old Pornophiles on Nancy Pelosi and S – E – X

You have to love what the leadership of the Republican National Committee has devolved to since massively losing the general election last November. The party of Reagan, the party of Lincoln, has undergone devolution to the party of dirty old bald ugly white guys.

And what is more, apparently they know it.

The RNC produced an ad that equates the Speaker of the House, a woman that is second in the line of succession to the presidency after Joe Biden, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, to the sinister 007 counter agent Pussy Galore.

These guys just don’t get it do they?

They thought it was funny and clever. They even made reference to Goldfinger’s method of torture: painting gold paint all over the body of a woman who betrayed him. A torture that, in the film, eventually killed the woman.

They even put Nancy Pelosi’s photograph down the rifled barrel of a gun as one will see in the beginning of any of the James Bond films produced since 1964. Their fantasy, it would seem, is to put a bullet in the head of the Speaker of the House.

Then paint her with gold paint, all the while obsessing over the fact that Nancy Pelosi is a woman.

Someone, that is, with female body parts.

How embarrassing is that?

Well, someone down at the RNC noticed that this commercial just might be offensive to women, who, at last count constituted 51% of the voting public.

They pulled the ad.

Try and find it on You Tube. It’s gone.

Too late, though. You can still see the ad on any given website. Like this website where you can download it. Or, actually, right here.

Yes that is a naked lady right at the end. A naked lady painted with gold paint.

What I await with baited breath is another ad from the same people that superimposes the video images of our Democratic female office holders with video clips from “Girls Gone Wild.”

It is only a matter of time.