Q: Professor News, why did Nancy Pelosi, the speaker-to-be of the U.S. House of Representatives, receive such gentle treatment from the news media after the midterm elections?

A: As the leader of the House Democrats, the congresswoman from California was a winner. Winners in either party and of either sex usually enjoy a honeymoon with the news media, at least for a while. George W. Bush certainly did.

Also, as the news media kept reminding us, Pelosi will be the first woman speaker in our history and the second person in the line of succession (after the vice president) should something happen to the president.

But her honeymoon with the news media is coming to an end.

At first, television anchors positively gushed over Pelosi. CBS's Katie Couric asked her how it felt to be "the highest ranking woman in the United States government."

"Let's talk about history," NBC's Brian Williams said to her, "because I know history was riding along with you as you watched the results last night. I know you have thought today about your mother. I know you have thought today about your father, your own children and grandchildren."

The Washington Post's fashion writer admired Pelosi's Armani suits (chic but not too chic).

During the campaign, most Americans knew Pelosi only from nasty Republican commercials that attacked her as a left-wing radical from loony San Francisco.

She sure didn't come across that way when we saw her on TV the days following the elections. She

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was confident but cordial, wearing a big smile and an Armani suit (pale one day, dark the next).

When reporters at her morning-after news conference complained that they couldn't hear her, she said in a joking but commanding tone, "I could use my mother-of-five voice! You could almost hear people across the country saying, "Hey, she's not so bad."

Since election night, we have learned a lot about Pelosi from news profiles. She is 66, a member of Congress for 20 years, wife of investment banker Paul Pelosi, mother of five and grandmother of six. The sixth, born six days after the elections, is Paul Michael Vos, son of Alexandra Pelosi, maker of the HBO documentary "Journeys with George" about President Bush's 2000 campaign. (He liked it.)

Pelosi was born to politics. Her father, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., served in the U.S. House and as mayor of Baltimore. Her brother, Thomas III, also served as mayor of Baltimore.

Pelosi is a liberal and against the war in Iraq, but she is also a pragmatist. And she is tough. As House minority leader, she kept the Democrats in line and on message.

She has told the news media she wants a partnership with the president and the Republicans in Congress. But she has an agenda. To any reporter who asked about her priorities, she quickly ticked them off: "Jobs, health care, education, energy independence, a safer America and a dignified retirement for all."

The news media already are taking a close look at her performance. Last week, news stories raised questions about her support for Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania to be majority leader, who eventually lost his bid. Murtha, the Vietnam veteran who advocates an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, has long fought talk that he awarded favors to certain defense contractors.

"Critics accused Pelosi of backpedaling on a pledge to scrub the House of corruption," wrote the Associated Press.

As any married person can tell you, no honeymoon lasts forever.

Paul Janensch is a former newspaper editor who teaches journalism at Quinnipiac University in Hamden. His column appears on the first and third Sunday of each month. He can be heard at 8:35 a.m. Thursdays on the five stations of WNPR Connecticut Public Radio, including 90.5 FM in Hartford/New Haven. You can reach him via e-mail at paul.janensch@quinnipiac.edu.