Nancy Pelosi has more trouble than I realized earlier today. Not only is the media firing warning shots, but she has an incipient rebellion on her hands that could fracture her ability to lead. This one could be a train wreck.
Eighteen members of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of conservative House Democrats, wrote Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Thursday imploring her to choose Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) to chair the House Intelligence Committee next year.
"Congresswoman Harman has served as Ranking Member of the Intelligence Committee with skill and distinction. … She has helped lead the bipartisan reorganization and reform of our intelligence community and has served as a strong voice for Congressional oversight of the Administration and its national security policies," wrote Reps. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.), Mike Ross (D-Ark.), Stephanie Herseth (D-S.D.), Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and others. "Both our Caucus and Party have counted on Congresswoman Harman to answer forcefully and credibly to partisan critics who have questioned Democrats’ commitment to protecting our nation."
….
Hastings’ candidacy may soon get a boost from the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). At a luncheon Wednesday, the CBC voted to back Hastings for the post. The group is drafting a letter to send to Pelosi, an aide said.
The dueling letters will likely raise the stakes for the Speaker-to-be. Coming on the heels of a divisive race for majority leader, her decision has the potential to alienate one of two powerful groups: the 44-member Blue Dog Coalition or the 43-member Black Caucus.
There is, I think, a way to make a save on this potential disaster, but it will take a lot of skill and a lot of persuasion. Somehow Pelosi has to get Hastings to withdraw himself from consideration. If she can, she can get out of this. If not, she'll be in trouble with one or both powerful blocks she needs to be effective. So far, despite all the congratulatory hype up until now, she has not shown herself to be adroit enough to pull this one off.
I’m telling you…she’s not going to be long in that seat. They’ll let her get the gavel “officially” in January…but she’s just keeping the chair warm for Rahm.
I might be confused, but wasn’t it one of Harman’s staff workers that was responsible for secret intelligence documents leaks?
How would this fit in with her standing on the committee?
First, Gaius? Fix your block quote up there, buddy!
Next, those Blue Dogs are gonna tear any kind of hegemony Dear Leader Nancy thinks she has into tattered dreams in record time. Anchoress is right about Rahm Emmanuel. Go back and look at the video of Pelosi’s nattering away about her boy Murtha. Rahm’s standing on the side, hands on hips, and his facial expression is screaming “Will you shut up and introduce Steny already, you loser!”
It’s a good thing somebody proofreads this site! Thanks.
A Miserable Failure:
Nancy Pelosi can’t possibly be so foolish and out of touch as to think she can appoint Alcee Hastings after the shellacking she took over the Murtha blunder.
It’s crunch time and Pelosi’s got a choice, swallow her pride, reject the Black Caucus, and appoint Jane Harmon (or a third party candidate), or go full speed into the abyss, only to see her image and authority disintegrate into a laughable caricature of comic book proportions.
With a Hastings appointment, Pelosi’s position as Speaker would quickly deteriorate into a temporary and purely ceremonial ritual, with Steny Hoyer actually calling the shots while Pelosi stands around grinning and trying to look relevant.
The new tone is an interesting one.
The problem is, as has been discussed on this blog and elsewhere, that the nutsroots didn’t win the election and they don’t know it. Pelosi, Murtha and their ilk still think that they, and not the centrist candidates of Rahm Emanuel won. The fact is that the change this election wanted was not one of politcal spectrum, but of whom will run the government.
Republicans were seen as wasteful, corrupt and inefficient. So the change was not so much as going down a new fork in the river of the politcs, we didn’t take the left fork, but rather who would steer America down the middle of the river.
And savvy political operatives like
rat faceJames Carville know that the middle course…”common sense”…is what is wanted. EvenSchmuckyCharles Schumer has spoken of it. And smart politicians know that this was not the mandate the nutsroots claim, as does their propaganda organs like the LA and New York Slimes, and that this is just a trial marriage. They will not let the Party set itself up to be blasted the way Hillary did in ’94.bottom of the article
http://www.nydailynews.com/11-17-2006/news/politics/story/472181p-397307c.html
For all the focus on the Democrats, a former Bush official who predicts a coming bloodbath between the White House and disgruntled conservative Republicans brushed off the Pelosi-Hoyer tussle as much ado about process.
“The Democrats are the sideshow,” he said. “Bush self-destructing is the big story in town.”
Arlo, are you saying that Chimpy McBusHitler, the World’s Dumbest Dictator, hasn’t done so already? Are you saying that the forthcoming impeachment and the frog-marching of Karl Rove and the rest of Shrub’s Neo-Haliburton-Con buddies to Pelosi’s People’s Courts isn’t a bloodbath?
/sarc
Unknown former Bush official could be the White House purchasing officer for the Chef’s Pantry. And which Conservatives? Buckley type conservatives who decry an activist foreign policy? Bucannon type conservatives who decry Bush’s open borders? Coburn type conservatives who oppose his ratcheting up spending on social programs? Robertson type conservatives who decry his failure to openly call for a complete end to abortion?
He’s been under fire from them since Day One.
That’s the problem when people believe the hype that a political party is a monlithic noise machine. It isn’t true for the Democrats and it isn’t true for the Republicans
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