I’m certain that three lines into this column, there are certain readers who will shake their beautiful blown-out tresses and say “doesn’t she have anything more important to write about?” I respect that, because before I decided to tackle this topic, I also had a moment’s hesitation. Is the fact that Nancy Pelosi decided to get her hair done really an issue of national importance?
And of course, I concluded that it is.
It’s not so much the “doing” of the hair, which is a fairly mundane activity for most women with unruly mops. That goes doubly for women in the public eye. I remember whenever I would appear on television, my mother would call me up and before even commenting on my scathingly brilliant logic or spot-on observations, she’d say something about my hair. Usually negative. Actually, always negative.
So Nancy Pelosi had every right to get her hair done last week, even though she was violating the regulations she herself championed to restrict the spread of the coronavirus.
As the first and only female Speaker of the House of Representatives (so
far,) Annunziata D’Alessandro Pelosi is one of the most visible women in the world, and she has to look her best while adoring and hostile eyes turn their gaze upon her.
I don’t even have much of a problem with the fact that she didn’t wear a mask during the entire Wahs-Trim-Blow Dry. While I kept my mask on my face during every stage of my most recent salon visit, I would have preferred to take it off. A breathing human with bad hair is often preferable to a perfectly-coiffed-corpse.
But Nancy pushed for the regulations that we all wear masks, everywhere, including while we shower.
And Nancy is a big fan of wearing masks that virtue signal her virtue, singularly, when addressing the journalists. And Nancy supports Gavin Newsome’s draconian decision to shut down or severely restrict salon services during the pandemic Without an end.
So a little thing like hyprocrisy, as in “Rules for Thee but Not for Me” wrankles.
But it’s more than just mere hypocrisy on Nancy’s part.
When Mayor Kenney traveled down to Maryland to have some crabcakes and some respite from Philadelphians’ prying eyes (yeah, that worked out well,) I was annoyed at the garden variety hypocrisy. And he did apologize, albeit belatedly. But it was an apology. When I reached out to the mayor’s office for some comment about his getaway to my birth state, the press office responded with “the mayor certainly understands the frustrations of local restaurant owners who have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic. On Twitter yesterday, he apologized to those hurt by his decision. He looks forward to indoor dining resuming locally next week on September 8th.” It wasn’t a great, Catholic, wear the hairshirt and fall on your knees mea culpa, but it really wasn’t bad. I say that in retrospect, after considering the reaction of Nancy Pelosi, who was not at all happy to have been discovered, sans mask, at the salon.
Far from seeking forgiveness, or even acknowledging that she had done anything wrong, the Speaker of the House offered this gem: “I take responsibility for trusting the word of the neighborhood salon that I’ve been to…many times. It was as set up, and I take responsibility for falling for a set up.” And then, if this weren’t enough of a study in California Chutzpah (or Baltimore BS) she added:
“I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up.”
Digest that for a moment. Nancy, who violated her own deeply-held principles on pandemic shutdowns, on wearing masks, on being “all in this together,” blamed the person whose livelihood is being destroyed by those principles. And she wants an apology.
Allo, Marie Antoinette, tu as un coup de fil de 2020. (For those of you who didn’t major in French, that would be “Hello Marie Antoinette, 2020 is calling.”)
Those who grew up in the Philadelphia area would likely call this the Abscam Apology, which is basically “Youze set me up, youze bums.” While there are situations where entrapment is a legitimate defense to committing an offense, it is hard to use when the person who ends up committing the offense did so without pressure, willingly, and tipped the alleged “entrapper.”
I am not a criminal defense attorney, and my friend Jeffrey pointed out
that if you lure someone into doing something they might otherwise not do, there might be a good case of “You made me love you, I didn’t wanna do it, I didn’t wanna do it” and so forth.
But here, Nancy was the one who made the appointment, went to the salon, sashayed from shampoo chair to trim chair to blow out chair with grace, and did it with the full knowledge that it was in violation of the very regulations she trumpeted. So it’s really hard to swallow the “set up” excuse her supporters are trying to shove down our throats (through our masks).
And unlike Jim Kenney (I can’t believe I’m actually saying something positive about him,) Nancy Pelosi is deflecting the blame from herself to a private citizen. In bringing the full weight of her authority, popularity and presence to bear against the salon owner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives has triggered an avalanche of bad publicity, slurs, and death threats directed at the poor woman.
But she is the one who deserves an apology. Une apologie pour la reine Marie Annunziata!
If this is not an example of the pathetic, tone deaf nature of the virtue-signaling preachers of the progressive gospel, I honestly don’t know what is.
But in the next two months, I’m sure I’ll find out.
Christine Flowers is an attorney and a Delaware County resident. Her column usually appears on Sunday. Email her at cflowers1961@gmail.com.
