New Speaker of the House (elect) Nancy Pelosi was dealt a very public black eye yesterday when Steny “K-Street” Hoyer defeated Jack “You can bribe me later” Murtha for Majority Leader.
Stuart Rothenberg at Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire on Pelosi’s first loss:
Having said that, Nancy Pelosi’s decision to pick a public fight with her second in command, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, is so incomprehensible, so politically stupid that it has raised eyebrows among political journalists and insiders of all type.
For weeks, I have been suggesting that Pelosi will be a lot smarter and more subtle that her conservative critics warned, and that she won’t drive the Democratic bus off the cliff. But now I’m not so sure. [...]
Nancy must know that if she wants to get anything done, she’s going to have to filter it through Hoyer, as he clearly has more support and backing via the Moderate and Conservative factions of the Dem caucus.
So, after putting her chips on Murtha, she’s 0-1 early in the season.
If Nancy doesn’t change her intention to give the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee to Rep. Alcee “Impeach Me” Hastings (D-Fla.) instead of to Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), Nancy will have be staring up a steep hill with an 0-2 record.
Even the LA Times is lambasting Nancy to “not snub Harman”:
Hastings, like Murtha, seems an unlikely choice for a leadership role in what Pelosi has been advertising as “the most honest, the most open and the most ethical Congress in history.” Hastings was impeached as a federal judge and removed from office in the late 1980s (although he was acquitted of bribery in a criminal trial in 1983).
A litany of explanations have been adduced to explain why Pelosi would bypass Harman, an expert on intelligence matters who has won the respect of both parties while criticizing some of the Bush administration’s excesses in the war on terror. None of them is persuasive. Harman has earned this chairmanship.
I expected Nancy to be a crude, strong handed, and exceptionally effective Speaker for her party. And she still very well could prove to be exactly that. But with her incomprehensible backing of Murtha, and her apparent preference for Hastings…she looks to be…well…exceptionally inept.
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Gaus at Blue Crab Boulevard thinks that the L.A. Times is trying to give Nancy a sublte warnign about how they might cover her decision should she go with Hastings instead of Harman:
They are strongly advising that Alcee Hastings would be an extraordinarily bad choice for that job. They are also telegraphing here. It will be hazardous to Pelosi’s future press coverage if she does this.[...]
[...] Alcee Hasting’s name is not a common household item of discussion. Yet. I read this as saying that the name and Pelosi’s decision if she proceeds will become a common item of discussion. This could well turn into another lose-lose for Pelosi in a hurry. Frankly, having Hastings, a man who was tried, convicted and removed from office by the Congress for official corruption, would be a real blow to Pelosi’s stated goal of running a clean shop. And the press will make sure the world knows it if she continues. [...]
Damn…this blogging-from-a-minority-perspective thing looks like it’s going to be a lot more fun than I had initially expected. Thanks, Nancy.
You mean: “not snub Harmanâ€:
Damn…this blogging-from-a-minority-perspective thing looks like it’s going to be a lot more fun than I had initially expected. Thanks, Nancy.
I’ve noticed you’ve seemed to take to it. I can imagine it hasn’t been fun trying to come up with defenses to the inanities of the 109th Congress and the Bush Administration.
(Speaking of… I hope you comment on Bush’s ‘lessons’ from the Vietnam War.)
Fixed the Hastings-to-Harman error in the original post. Thanks.
Only an egomaniac would go ahead and appoint Hastings to this position. Having already been hammered in the press over Murtha, Pelosi will have no choice but to appoint someone else and that “no choice” will come from certain high visibility people like Hillary Clinton. Hillary, if nothing else, is not stupid. This appointment would not only be a scandal for Pelosi, it would be disastrous for the party and its next presidential candidate. I’d bet $100 right now that Hastings will not be appointed.
However, Pelosi does have a very big ego and will draw the line when it comes to appointing Harmon. She will bow to no one after the humiliation she has already suffered from her own party and will appoint somebody else .. who I don’t know.
Now, I don’t know the democrat party very well, but I do know human nature and the human nature of women in particular. Just my 2 cents, and yes, Robbie, this is fun..lol
Robbie – I’m sincerely happy you’re enjoying the experience. I hate to break it to you, though, that it may become a little tiresome. Especially if the Dems continue to make good choices like Hoyer over Murtha. Most people don’t really care that much about Nancy Pelosi – they’ll just be happy to see good government prevail. The “insider” stuff is pretty thin soup.
Now, I don’t know the democrat party very well
Democratic Party.
What’s with Republicans? Liberals go to the trouble of pronouncing the opposing party correctly.
In any case, I’m glad everyone is happy with their new status in Congress. After a little ethics reform, a minimum wage hike, and a reduction in the cost prescription drugs we should all be even a little be more happy.
I had no idea this was such a touchy subject until I googled it after your comment, Preston.
Gee, I think I’ve been the victim of subliminal messages from Newt.lol
I apologize.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap, but it’s just a weird tic pervasive among most Republicans.
I assume the wording is intentional but it is so petty that it’s hard to believe that they think they are scoring some political point with it.
Anyway. I think Glenn Greenwald gets the last word on Pelosi’s choices for Democratic leadership positions:
The Bush administration has spent six years completely obsessed with personal loyalty to the President and intolerant of the slightest independence. The entire Congress was kept strictly in line for the last five years. Every official who showed the slightest independence was replaced by obedient Bush loyalists. Yet Pelosi does nothing other than support an ally rather than an opponent for the position immediately underneath her, and that makes her some out-of-control egomaniac consumed by personal vanity and emotional impulses.
“The Bush administration has spent six years completely obsessed with personal loyalty to the President and intolerant of the slightest independence. The entire Congress was kept strictly in line for the last five years”
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Tell that to Justice Miers!
Tell that to all the illegal aliens waiting for amnesty!
Ask the President how he stopped the 700 mile border fence!
One thing you can count on is that liberals will rewrite history at every opportunity.
Jim- It’s true that Bush screwed the pooch when he tried the crony pick instead of the conservative dog whistle pick for Supreme Court. But counter examples of Congressional weakness weigh much heavier particularly if you look at ‘conservative’ support over NCLB, the Medicare prescriptioin drug bill, the war in Iraq, and any number of proposals they would have opposed had, say, Bill Clinton brought them to Congress.
In fact, any Democratic president in the last 40 years would have begged for a Congress as compliant as this one.
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