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Like the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not have to go through a background investigation in order to get a security clearance. This loophole in the law enables the president and members of Congress to automatically qualify for security clearances, even if they have controversial backgrounds and associations, by virtue of the fact that they get elected to high office in Washington, D.C.

In the case of Speaker Pelosi, who is second in the line of succession to the presidency after the vice president, there is increasing concern about whether she can be trusted with national security secrets. But the concern not only involves her unsubstantiated charges against the CIA over what officials told her about the treatment of terrorists, but her close personal relationship with pro-Castro Rep. Barbara Lee and the "progressive" Hallinan family of San Francisco, once under scrutiny by the California Senate Fact-finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities for their pro-Soviet propaganda efforts.

Pelosi used a Friday news conference to offer up other members of the House Democratic leadership as "human shields" to deflect questions from the press about the CIA controversy. They droned on about the liberal legislative agenda.

At the very end of the news conference, as Pelosi was trying to leave the podium and had already issued an edict that she didn't have anything more to say about the CIA matter, a reporter tried to ask a question about Rep. Steve King's intention to introduce a resolution asking the House to suspend Pelosi's security clearance until the controversy is resolved. The reporter asked, "And were you aware that Steve King is asking for your security clearance to be revoked?" But Pelosi walked away without commenting.

With the help of the mainstream media, Pelosi is obviously hoping that she can stonewall further inquiry. On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Washington Post liberal columnist Eugene Robinson, a follower of the Democratic Party line, declared that he wasn't sure that she was "in such terrible political danger" and that "People underestimate Nancy Pelosi sometimes as a politician."

Pelosi the politician is clearly depending on the press to stop asking questions.

However, since Pelosi and other elected officials don't have to go through background investigations, it is the job of the media to perform this function. In the case of Pelosi, it is long overdue.

San Francisco Democrat

Pelosi has represented the city of San Francisco, perhaps the most liberal in the nation, since 1987, and is a very close friend of Rep. Barbara Lee, who represents neighboring Oakland and Berkeley, California, and is the most vocal apologist for Communist Cuba in Congress today. Lee, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, recently led a delegation to Cuba to meet with the Castro brothers to discuss normalization of relations. But she paid no attention to political dissidents or political prisoners being held on the communist island.

Lee, who calls Pelosi "a magnificent woman" and "one of California's greatest representatives," began her career in the California state legislature as a secret member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a spin-off from the Communist Party. As a member of the staff of Rep. Ron Dellums, Lee was shown to have been collaborating with communist officials on the island of Grenada, according to documents captured after the liberation of that island nation. These revelations have not hurt Lee's standing with Pelosi and other "progressives." Indeed, Lee also served as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

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