(h/t Scarce)
Lil' Luke Russert made a fool of himself when he asked this offensive question to now-returning Nancy Pelosi about her role as the Democrats' chief House leader:
"Your colleagues privately say that your decision to stay on prohibits the party from having a younger leadership," Russert told Pelosi in a room packed with reporters. "What's your response?" A group of female lawmakers standing behind the Democratic leader immediately began to boo and heckle Russert.
One woman shouted "discrimination" at him several times."Oh, you've always asked that question," Pelosi sarcastically said to Russert, after a pause. "Except to Mitch McConnell." McConnell, who is the minority leader of the Senate, is 70 years old. Pelosi is 72 years old.
Pelosi suggested she was only asked the question because she is a woman. Raising children, she said, led her to start her political career later than her male colleagues.. "I knew that my male colleagues...had a jump on me because they didn't have children to stay home [with]," she said, calling Russert's question "offensive." "You got to take off about 14 years from me because I was home raising a family."
Offensive for sure, but it shows something pretty revealing. Lil' Luke has no information about the different leadership moves that are being made in the Democratic party. If Pelosi stepped down, Steny Hoyer would be made leader, opening up a position for Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who would then become the new leader in waiting.
You have to hand it to Nancy Pelosi. When emblem of establishment media nepotism Luke Russert asked if she shouldn't clear the way for younger leadership, being all old and stuff, she managed to both convey her disdain for the question (helped by cries of "discrimination" from some of the women of her caucus) and give a substantive answer that should make plenty of people, if not Baby Russert, think a little.Pelosi began by pointing to the men who are not asked if they are old and standing in the way of younger members—Mitch McConnell and Steny Hoyer alike. No, she's the one who gets the question.
But: "Let's for the moment honor it as a legitimate question although it's quite offensive but you don't realize it I guess."
