Saturday, May 16, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Agency Pelosi
Apologies for not posting very often. I've been busy being employed and girl-friended. I can't say I mind. As always I promise to be better in the future.
I wanted to write briefly about my favorite pol Nancy Pelosi. Her recent row with the CIA is interesting to me in two ways.
First, she is full of it! As the leader of the Democratic party in the house she damned well better have known what the CIA was doing with their "enhanced interrogation" techniques, if he didn't she's incompetent and should be replaced! The idea fact is she got caught. She knew about the torture policy long before she denied knowing about it. And why not? She was running for re-election and it doesn't help her cause to be complicit with a government dominated by the other party. Never mind that she's lying. The idea that her staffer told her and not the CIA is ridiculous on its face and is only to be believed by people predisposed to giving her a pass.
Second, Rep. Hoyer is doing his damnedest to stab her in the back. His response has been, at best, luke warm support for his party boss. Let us not forget that John Murtha was Pelosi's pick for Majority leader and that Hoyer won that election among house Democrats over her objections. He wants her job. His willingness to apply the same standard to her leadership as she does the Bush administration is evidence enough. When he called for the facts to come out and did not rule out an investigation to determine the truth he might as well have declared war on Pelosi's leadership (not that there wasn't open warfare already...).
So what does this mean?
Basically Pelosi is exactly who we thought she was. A bit of a calculating politician who is not overly burdened with details or facts when they do not support her electorial goals. In many ways she is the Democratic party equal of Tom Delay and no less dispicable.
We've also learned that Hoyer is not worried about the Republican party. His open criticism of his party's leadership indicates that he does not believe the R's have a chance in hell in '10. He doesn't want to be minority leader of the house, he wants to be speaker. If he thought the D's were vulnerable he would not dare undermine the top of the party before the midterm. I for one think he is right... on more than one level but that's a different issue. Barring some sort of charasmatic leader emerging the Republicans are boned in '10. They might hold steady but doing much better than that is wishful thinking. That means that we should all be watching as Pelosi and Hoyer sharpen their knives for a leadership fight after the '10 congress is seated.
The Democrats cerca 2010 might fight themselves in a better possition than the Republicans in 2002 despite the electorial win for R's that year. Unlike that Republican party the Democrats are still fairly fresh to their congressional majorities and the party leadership can turn over a few times before becoming feckless. Gingrich fell to Delay in 1998, a change I thought was a net negative at the time. Maybe if Pelosi falls to Hoyer in 2010 the country can chaulk it up as a win.
Required Reading:
John Dickerson
I wanted to write briefly about my favorite pol Nancy Pelosi. Her recent row with the CIA is interesting to me in two ways.
First, she is full of it! As the leader of the Democratic party in the house she damned well better have known what the CIA was doing with their "enhanced interrogation" techniques, if he didn't she's incompetent and should be replaced! The idea fact is she got caught. She knew about the torture policy long before she denied knowing about it. And why not? She was running for re-election and it doesn't help her cause to be complicit with a government dominated by the other party. Never mind that she's lying. The idea that her staffer told her and not the CIA is ridiculous on its face and is only to be believed by people predisposed to giving her a pass.
Second, Rep. Hoyer is doing his damnedest to stab her in the back. His response has been, at best, luke warm support for his party boss. Let us not forget that John Murtha was Pelosi's pick for Majority leader and that Hoyer won that election among house Democrats over her objections. He wants her job. His willingness to apply the same standard to her leadership as she does the Bush administration is evidence enough. When he called for the facts to come out and did not rule out an investigation to determine the truth he might as well have declared war on Pelosi's leadership (not that there wasn't open warfare already...).
So what does this mean?
Basically Pelosi is exactly who we thought she was. A bit of a calculating politician who is not overly burdened with details or facts when they do not support her electorial goals. In many ways she is the Democratic party equal of Tom Delay and no less dispicable.
We've also learned that Hoyer is not worried about the Republican party. His open criticism of his party's leadership indicates that he does not believe the R's have a chance in hell in '10. He doesn't want to be minority leader of the house, he wants to be speaker. If he thought the D's were vulnerable he would not dare undermine the top of the party before the midterm. I for one think he is right... on more than one level but that's a different issue. Barring some sort of charasmatic leader emerging the Republicans are boned in '10. They might hold steady but doing much better than that is wishful thinking. That means that we should all be watching as Pelosi and Hoyer sharpen their knives for a leadership fight after the '10 congress is seated.
The Democrats cerca 2010 might fight themselves in a better possition than the Republicans in 2002 despite the electorial win for R's that year. Unlike that Republican party the Democrats are still fairly fresh to their congressional majorities and the party leadership can turn over a few times before becoming feckless. Gingrich fell to Delay in 1998, a change I thought was a net negative at the time. Maybe if Pelosi falls to Hoyer in 2010 the country can chaulk it up as a win.
Required Reading:
John Dickerson
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