Judging from her interview on “The Daily Show” Thursday, you wouldn’t be able to tell that Nancy Pelosi is one of the most powerful figures in Washington.
Throughout her discussion with Jon Stewart, the House minority leader passed the buck for the government’s failures and acted as if she is completely removed from any position of responsibility.
“I don’t know,” Pelosi said when asked by Stewart why it was so hard for the government to “get a company to execute” something like building HealthCare.Gov “competently?”
“Well, let me get the House minority leader here, I can ask her, hold on,” Stewart said through laughter, mocking her answer. “Wait. What do you mean you don’t know? How do you not know?”
“It’s not my responsibility,” Pelosi said.
Pressed on bureaucratic problems at the Veterans Administration, Pelosi said the failures were “horrible.”
“Seems insane,” Stewart retorted.
“It’s stunning but do something about it,” Pelosi said, as if she was powerless in the matter.
“I was going to say that to you. I was actually going to say that to you,” Stewart responded, seemingly suggesting that the House minority leader might have some power to “do something about it” herself.
When Stewart raised the possibility that the revolving door between government and the world of corporate lobbying might partly be to blame for government’s inability to implement its programs competently, Pelosi said Congress really didn’t have that problem.
“The revolving door is not so much Congress as the executive branch,” she said to a disbelieving host.