It’s the D.C. version of “Mean Girls.”
Men and women are fundamentally different — and thank Gawd for that. For the most part, women are kinder, nicer, sweeter, and less likely to smash their TV when their football team doesn’t cover the spread. Men are way more violent, short-sighted, and usually gassy.
Advantage: Women.
But on the other hand, women are also more indirect — and that’s not always a positive. If you’ve ever seen a woman greet her “friend” (“Oh my God, Sheila, you look so amazing, I just love that jacket!”), you might’ve noticed that the intensity of her praise correlates with Sheila's physical proximity. ‘Cause the instant Sheila's out of earshot, her entire tone changes: “God, I hate her, like, so much! And that jacket was totally gross!”
Men don’t do that.
Women are like cats: They prance around and display emotions in all kinds of subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways. Some cats love being near you, but get phobic and weird when you touch them. All cats are different.
Men, however, are like dogs: If a dog likes you, it doesn’t matter the breed — it’ll stick its nose right in your crotch!
Other than Spring Break, women almost never do that.
When men don’t get along, they’ll exchange words, talk tough, and might even throw hands. But an hour later, they’re sharing a beer.
All’s well that ends well.
When women don’t get along, they subject their adversaries to a scorched earth psychological assault: The end-goal is to shatter your enemy’s confidence, destroy her reputation, and trigger some kind of emotional meltdown. (Or, at a minimum, at least induce an eating disorder.)
They go for the jugular!
And that’s what’s so fascinating about the “Mean Girl” feud between the Biden family and the Pelosi family. Today’s POLITICO article has all the juicy details.
Since breaking her hip in Europe last month, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi has been deluged with messages, flowers and calls of concern from heads of state, colleagues in both parties and even royalty, most notably Luxembourg’s Grand Duke Henri, who was hosting her when she fell and has been solicitous through her recovery.
Yet it’s who she has not heard from that’s most remarkable, and that has infuriated Pelosi’s friends and family: Joe and Jill Biden.
You can almost hear the whispers in the high school hallway: “Did you hear that Nancy broke her hip, and Joe, like, didn’t even call? That’s so rude! So un-fetch!”
Pelosi’s daughter certainly thought so:
“If I was Lady McBiden, I’d put on my big girl pants, play the long game and think about my husband’s legacy,” Alexandra Pelosi, the former speaker’s daughter, told me Saturday. “There aren’t that many people left in America who have something nice to say about Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi is one of them.”
(Whenever women fight, there’s almost always a reference to clothing. Has anyone else noticed that? Either way, I’m not so sure comparing the president’s wife to the manipulative, ruinous, amoral villain in a Shakespearian play — or using the adjective “big” to describe her pants — is the best way to seek rapprochement.)
Still, the POLITICO article has a decidedly pro-Pelosi slant:
Pelosi has tried multiple times, I’m told, to have a conversation with Biden. But she and intermediaries who’ve also attempted a rapprochement have repeatedly been met with the same response from the president’s top advisers: The answer is no.
“She’s been told they’re not over it, don’t make more overtures because he’s blaming her,” said a person who has spoken to Pelosi about the conversations between the former speaker and Biden’s aides.
Pelosi told people last week she’s struck that the Bidens would leave on such a low note, asking rhetorically why they’d convey such bitterness.
Wanna know how cutthroat the D.C. version of “Mean Girls” was? Well, listen-up, girlfriends: At the White House Christmas party, Joe Biden said hello to the Pelosis — but Jill wasn’t there!
Gasp!
Biden did briefly chat with Pelosi, her husband, Paul, and daughter Christine at a White House holiday party last month. But that encounter only served to remind them of the rupture.
The Pelosi family had not planned on entering the party’s receiving line. When they walked to the front, though, they were warmly greeted by the president, vice president and first gentleman. But Jill Biden was missing.
Any possibility that the first lady’s absence that night was coincidental was, in the mind of the Pelosi family, erased last week when Jill Biden used a Washington Post interview to go public with her anger toward the former speaker.
“We were friends for 50 years,” said the first lady. “It was disappointing.”
Next, the article gets to the heart of the Pelosis’ gripe: Hey, EVERYONE wanted to get rid of Ugly Old Joe Biden! Why single-out Nancy? Like, everyone at school knew Biden was totally un-fetch:
What’s disappointing to her intimates is that Biden seems to blame Pelosi alone for an intercession that most Democratic leaders, then and now, believe was imperative. And that’s after all Pelosi did as speaker to deliver the votes for Biden’s most significant accomplishments, first as vice president and then as president.
The article took an unexpectedly dark turn when Nancy Pelosi fell and broke her hip in Europe. Despite their 50 years of friendship, the Pelosis seriously thought that the Biden White House would deny her a plane, opting instead to let an injured octogenarian suffer:
Desperate to get her the best possible care in the initial hours after the accident, the Pelosis grappled with whether she should go to a U.S. military hospital, which she did, or immediately fly back home for care. And part of that trepidation, I’m told, owed to uncertainty about whether Biden would quickly get her a plane “because we have this wall at the White House,” as one person familiar with the situation put it. (Another source said any concerns abated when White House staff heard the news and were swiftly responsive.)
Imagine that! If Biden’s friends thought he could be that petty, cruel, and vindictive, what does that say about how Biden treated his enemies?
However, the article (which was clearly pushed, assisted, and promoted by pro-Pelosi partisans; my “PR goggles” tell me that the Bidens probably didn’t participate at all) couldn’t deny Pelosi’s role in deposing the soon-to-be-ex-president. In many ways, it was her crowing achievement — the culmination of all the power she had accumulated in Washington:
This is not to understate Pelosi’s role in driving Biden from the race. She was the most critical player in last summer’s backstage political drama.
It’s entirely possible the president would have weathered the crisis were it not for Pelosi’s Morning Joe interview, which took place immediately before her meeting with Biden in the White House residence.
Appearing the week Congress returned from July 4, a moment many Democratic lawmakers were drifting back to Biden and the president was emphatic about staying in , the former speaker repeatedly insisted his decision remained an open question. That pivotal moment effectively ensured it was — and less than two weeks later Biden dropped out.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” isn’t a Shakespearean quote, but it seems quite appropriate here.
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