Nancy Pelosi Recalls Harvey Milk, Warns Current Climate Could Lead To Repeat

On San Francisco's Treasure Island for an event dedicating a building to Harvey Milk, yesterday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi choked up while recalling Milk's assassination. Pelosi referred to today's political climate, warning that government protesters had to "take responsibility" for their actions. Earlier this week Pelosi had expressed concern for the safety of President Obama.

Pelosi, responding to a question about whether anti-government rhetoric posed a threat of domestic violence, said that protesters on all sides had the right to voice their opposition to legislative proposals in a heated fashion. But then Pelosi -- whose weekly press conferences are legendary for their highly scripted nature and her rote recitation of Democratic message points -- paused and took a deep breath as she recounted the tone of some protests in her hometown. "I saw this myself in the late '70s in San Francisco," she said, a reference to the antigay laws and protests as that city became the flashpoint of the civil rights movement for gays and lesbians. "It created an environment in which violence took place."