To the editor:

We have all heard the adage, “actions speak louder than words.” This could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at Nancy Pelosi, our new speaker of the House. I want to believe she will stand by her words, but will she?

Nancy Pelosi publicly says that labor unions are essential for workers’ rights and once accepted the Cesar Chavez Award for contributions to the labor movement. However, she is part owner of a restaurant, hotel and vineyard that are strictly non-union.

She has been one of the harshest critics of the George W. Bush deficit, yet has voted for some of the largest increases in spending. Pelosi has now called for “civility” and “integrity.”

This is wonderful, of course, but at the epicenter of the Washington Bush-hating crowd has been Nancy Pelosi, calling Bush “incompetent” and “dangerous.” Are we to believe she will brush aside her irrational hatred for Bush for the next two years? Again, we will need to see it in her actions. She says a possible Bush impeachment is “off the table.” Is it?

Pelosi laid out the “first 100 hours agenda” for Democrats in control that included limits on lobbying, raising the federal minimum wage and breathing life back into the 9/11 Commission findings.

What I’m seeing in reality is Democrats raising taxes, dismantling the defense budget and the military, and banning any further U.S. oil drilling, to name a few.

Tom Shewmon,

Linwood