Nancy Pelosi: Barack Obama Apolitical and Nonpartisan, Republicans Hate Him

Looney tunes

Striking a tone of disgust, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi ridicules the GOP as obsessed with its loathing of President Obama and hell-bent on hurting him politically, regardless the cost. She assigns little to no blame to the president (even though Democrats privately say that's laughable) and instead portrays him as saintly, above reproach and the victim of jealousy or something worse.

After 26 years in the House, she says, "I haven't seen anything like it. I haven't seen anything like it."

Throughout a 50-minute interview on Thursday in her second-floor Capitol office, where the late Speaker Tip O'Neill used to receive supplicants, Pelosi was sharply derisive about the scorn Republicans have for this president.

"You know why it is," she said. "You know why it is. He's brilliant, … he thinks in a strategic way in how to get something done … and he's completely eloquent. That's a package that they don't like."