Opinion: Is Nancy Pelosi Running Out of Time — or Prayers for Our Country?

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego / October 16, 2019

Pelosi, a practicing Catholic, repeats sincerely, that she prays for “the President and the country”—every day.

Secretly, I believe, Pelosi has been praying for a lot more. She is praying for time. And for help.

Time to make the case that Trump is “unfit for the office” and must be impeached on the overwhelming evidence that already exists and will soon become public.

And to complete the task before Thanksgiving.

Time to protect the constitution and U.S. democracy, which she says are “hanging by a thread.”

And help for what only “the heavens” can providentially provide.

For example, early on, the Stormy Daniels story drew back the curtain on Trump’s personal venality—as well as campaign finance illegalities—and conspiracy that landed his “fixer” attorney in prison, and named Trump as “individual one.”

That was the beginning.

Add the Access Hollywood tape, the barnyard insults that pepper Trump’s Tweets, and his blatant disregard for the law, the Constitution, U.S. sovereignty, the vulnerable, the now abandoned Kurds, our allies, the planet, the clogged court rulings on subpoenas, and one understands Pelosi’s never-ending litany of prayers.

Other women are less genteel than Pelosi.

Take the bluntness of the champion U.S. soccer team star, Megan Rapinoe, who issued an “unladylike” response to the invitation to be another photo prop at the Trump White House.

“No f-ing way. I refuse to respect a man that warrants no respect,” she tweeted to her massive fan base.

Pelosi has enjoyed help in other unexpected moments and movements.

There are the not-so-famous women, who launched the Women’s march, the #MeToo crusade, and delivered the historical congressional blue wave in 2018 that returned Pelosi to the speakership.

Surely, she is praying that those women repeat their votes of 2018 in 2020 and deliver an even more spectacular wipeout than the Democrats’ 41-seat gain.

These women, even Republicans, now view Trump’s personal and political behavior as lawless, reckless and unbecoming a President. In short, they see him as unfit for office.

A survey by a Republican polling firm found this month that an overwhelming percentage of suburban women worry that the country is headed in the wrong direction (65% to 28%).

They also disapprove of Trump (61% to 35%) and are heavily-tilted toward supporting a Democrat for Congress (51% to 33%).

Pelosi keeps firing back at all Trump’s obstruction attempts to delay release of his taxes, his secret phone calls, his inauguration spending, and foundation accounts, as yet more “attempts to cover up his betrayal of our democracy, and to insist that the President is above the law.”

And she loathes his betrayal of the Kurds that permitted the Turkish invasion and new refugee crisis in Syria.

Then comes the recent, unexpected gift from yet another woman—one who confirmed Trump’s threats against a foreign government to help in his re-election bid.

The woman, a 33-year career diplomat and former Ambassador to the Ukraine, named Marie Yovanovitch.

The ambassador’s opening statement to the House impeachment inquiry was a scathing indictment of the White House quid pro quo—to withhold congressional approved military funds for Ukraine in exchange for their providing interference in the U.S. elections.

Regardless of possible retributions, Yovanovitch stepped smartly into the committee hearing and exposed the rogue foreign policy team of Trump/Giuliani/Pompeo for what it is—unlawful and impeachable in spades.

The ambassador’s very presence—delivered a powerful counter-punch to Trump’s unceremonious dismissal of her—because she refused to comply with his team’s renegade operation.

Another gutsy woman, former Russian policy advisor to the White House Fiona Hill, refused to “look the other way” and added her incriminating testimony.

As Elena Ferrante, the genius of great story telling remarked on the possible dangers women’s story telling,“the harm will always be less than that caused by terrible political and economic mismanagement, with its accouterments of wars, guillotines, mass exterminations, ghettos, concentration camps and gulags,”

Ferrante’s conclusion: “The female story, told with increasing skill, increasingly widespread and unapologetic, is what must now assume power.”

Pelosi is leading that prayer, too.

Colleen O’Connor is a native San Diegan and a retired college professor.