House Speakerette to be Nancy Pelosi demonstrates her keen political insight by supporting a man with a tendency to babble incoherently on Sunday news shows to be her number two.
House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) endorsed Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) yesterday as the next House majority leader, thereby stepping into a contentious intraparty fight between Murtha and her current deputy, Maryland's Steny H. Hoyer.
Pelosi deserves credit for manufacturing a win, though given some early judgments, one has to start to wonder how much of it was her and how much credit should go to Rahm Emmanuel - who was passed over for whip to accommodate the Congressional Black Caucus.
Ambitions of Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois to be majority whip, third-ranking in the House Democratic hierarchy, were torpedoed by Congressional Black Caucus insistence on the post going to Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina as an African-American.
Welcome to Democrat rule, where you have to meet your quotas and all the roads appear to turn Left. We've got Reid's land deals, Murtha as an old ABSCAM hand ... and the LA Times finally gets around to pointing out Pelosi's fondness for earmarking. And Charlie Rangle couldn't take his Chair without insulting an entire state.
Of course, with Hoyer opposing Murtha, I wonder if he'll ultimately acquiesce given that, to use his words, Murtha was slavishly devoted to Pelosi.
Yes, this is going to be a fun group to watch, if only the stakes for the entertainment weren't so incredibly high.
"We're all Bozos on this bus"
Posted by: Harry B Heisler | Monday, November 13, 2006 at 12:09 PM
Murtha is a man of high principles. When a bribe is insultingly low, he sticks to his guns and turns it down.
Posted by: Purple Avenger | Monday, November 13, 2006 at 02:03 PM