FORGET “The Devil Wears Prada”; the hot show in Washington is “The Shrew Adores Armani.” In just a few short days, House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi has turned into a caricature of the shrill, petty woman boss.
Armani-loving Pelosi demanded, in heavy-handed diva fashion, that House Democrats back her ethics-challenged antiwar crony, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), as her chief deputy – acting as if she’s the queen whose word must be law.
But it all blew up in her face; Murtha lost 149-86 to Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), a onetime Pelosi rival whom she wants to keep squashed down. So Pelosi’s first move as House leader left her a big-time loser.
“She messed this up so badly, it’s breathtaking. It raises real concerns about whether she can separate her personal issues from the issues of the Democratic caucus,” says a veteran Democratic strategist.
“It’s not just the heavy-handedness, it’s the clumsiness. There can be a stereotype of a woman as petty and personal – and she’s now at real risk of creating that image for herself. She’s reawakened all the old doubts about whether she is ideologically too liberal for this job, and added new ones as well.”
The stereotype of the woman boss as a self-centered witch on wheels who’ll run over anyone in her path has plenty of roots in American culture – “The Devil Wears Prada,” zinging a fashion editor modeled on Vogue’s Anna Wintour, is just the latest incarnation.
So if “Nancy Shrew” becomes the image of the highest-ranking woman ever in American politics – Pelosi will be second in line of succession to the presidency – it’ll be a problem for all women politicos, including 2008 prospect Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Pelosi’s insistence on pushing pal Murtha even forced The New York Times to belatedly acknowledge that the “culture of corruption” is bipartisan – not just a Republican evil, as Times news stories and editorials kept suggesting until the election.
Murtha, after all, is famous for trading votes for pork and got caught up in the 1980 Abscam scandal when he was videotaped telling a phony Arab sheik offering a $50,000 bribe that he wasn’t interested “at this time.” (Murtha escaped Abscam because of a party-line vote in the House ethics committee – prompting special prosecutor E. Barrett Prettyman Jr. to resign in protest.)
But it’s not just Murtha. Pelosi intensely dislikes fellow California Democrat Rep. Jane Harman, and has decided to block Harman from becoming chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee.
The origins of the Pelosi-Harman feud are murky – “It’s almost like two teenage girls in the bathroom with one telling the other, ‘You’re not cool enough to be in my club,’ ” says one Democrat. Some see it as the natural rivalry of two wealthy and ambitious California women.
Others say it’s that Harman (like Hoyer) lacks what Pelosi sees as the requisite level of hatred for President Bush and failed to use her Intelligence Committee post primarily as a platform to attack Bush.
Whatever the reason, Pelosi has made it clear that Harman won’t get the sensitive intelligence post, with its access to America’s top secrets. Instead it will likely go to Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) – despite the fact that Hastings was impeached and removed from office as a federal judge by a Democratic-controlled Congress because of his role in a bribery scandal.
Pelosi was among those who voted to impeach him, but now he’s her guy because she can’t stand Harman. Again, it looks like Pelosi’s putting personal pique ahead of principle.
The speaker-to-be yesterday made clear her determination to use her new post to command center stage when she showed up in a screaming red power suit – instead of the fade-into-the-background gray that she’s favored in the past.
“She has supplanted Hillary Clinton as the senior woman in politics in America, and she will not give up the spotlight easily,” predicts Republican strategist Rich Galen. “If you look at her face, you can see that she’s angry – and the problem for Democrats is that will be literally and figuratively the face of the Democratic Party for the next two years.”
Deborah Orin-Eilbeck is The Post’s Washington bureau chief.