In ‘The Art of Power,’ Nancy Pelosi knocks Trump but pleads for decency

Nancy Pelosi begins her new book with a plea for a return to standards of common decency in politics. The current climate of threats and attacks m...

Nancy Pelosi begins her new book with a plea for a return to standards of common decency in politics.

"The current climate of threats and attacks must stop,” the former House speaker writes in the opening chapter of "The Art of Power.”

Pelosi is speaking from personal experience, of course, recalling the vicious partisanship that preceded the attack on her husband, Paul, in their San Francisco home in 2022. She traces the rise in aggression back to the firebrand GOP House leader Newt Gingrich. But "The Art of Power” hits shelves less than a month after another equally brazen act of political violence, when a would-be assassin’s bullet clipped former president Donald Trump’s right ear.

The parallel events, less than two years apart, cement the moral clarity of Pelosi’s plea. After the attempted assassination of Trump, Pelosi publicly condemned "political violence of any kind,” in sharp contrast to how Trump mocked "Crazy Nancy” and her family, even as Paul Pelosi was recovering from his injuries.

But they also reveal the conundrum facing readers of this or any other book on contemporary politics: "The Art of Power” is at once of the moment and out of date, overtaken by the rapid-fire political upheavals in the lead-up to the 2024 election.