"Rep. Pelosi did what was right for the country, and what's right isn't always what's popular."

[bigtree]

Eugene Robinson: Nancy Pelosi Undone By Her Own Success

{snip}____ The GOP was only able to make Nancy Pelosi an issue because she was so effective as speaker. Obama came to office with a long, ambitious agenda. Pelosi had a big majority to work with in the House, but it was ideologically diverse -- Blue Dogs, progressives, everything in between. Somehow, she managed to deliver.

Some of the votes she won looked impossible. On health care reform, there appeared to be no way the House could ever be persuaded to pass the more conservative bill that had passed the Senate. At one point, she told me she could only find "maybe a dozen votes" for the measure. But she and Reid managed to find a workable set of modifications -- and a clever parliamentary maneuver to pull the whole thing off.

I was at the Capitol that day when the House passed the landmark health care bill. Tea party groups were protesting outside, egged on by Republican members of Congress who came out onto a balcony and led the catcalls.

Pelosi did what was right for the country, and what's right isn't always what's popular. Democrats may decide they need a less-polarizing figure as minority leader; if they do, well, that's politics. But I'd love to see her stay in the Democratic leadership -- and I'm betting that eventually she'd find a way to take back the gavel that she pounds with such righteous authority.


read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/04/AR2010110406625_pf.html

[asjr]

1. I wonder how many Blue Dogs will now become

Republicans and run again next election?

[Pirate Smile]

7. They wouldn't be able to win the primary against the real Republican that beat them.

It is why Ben Nelson isn't going anywhere. He couldn't win a Republican primary and the Republicans who will run against him are already starting to declare.

Parker Griffith did us a favor in showing that switching parties was a HUGE loser for any blue dogs. The Republicans are taking out conservative Republicans like Bennett in Utah for simply being willing to actually LEGISLATE with the other party. RINO's or DINO's need not apply.

Party switchers are toast. The tea party is trying to take down standard Republicans.

[and-justice-for-all]

2. "led the catcalls..."

Seig Heil!, Sieg Heil!, Seig Heil!

[polichick]

3. Good article, as Eugene's usually are. Just wish Pelosi hadn't taken...

...impeachment off the table.

I LOVE her fighting spirit - and her boldness in standing up for progressive policies.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

5. Do the Party's leaders work independent of the Executive?

Is it reasonable to believe that the Speaker and Obama would get in a spat over impeachment in the first weeks of his presidency? Or that Reid would have "gone nuclear," a strategy that clearly would undermine Obama's singular goal of bipartisanship in the first few months of Obama's presidency?

I have believed that the leaders, especially Reid, were kneecapped by the Obama Adm. Some of us expected our leaders to fight for us and were disappointed every time they acquiesced. I believe their intention was to fight for us. I believe they got orders not to. This -- not fighting for "change we can believe in" -- is what lead to the 2010 outcome, and I think you have to pin that failure on Obama, not Pelosi or Reid.

[polichick]

6. I see it the way you do - "kneecapped" is a good word for it...

imo Pelosi especially fought for "change we can believe in" as much as the WH allowed.

[nevergiveup]

4. I only have few political heroes at the moment

and Nancy Pelosi is one of them.

[dkf]

8. Except we apparently were hired to fix the economy, not to do what we thought was right.

If the legislation went beyond thinking about next months unemployment report it was probably off track.

[SidDithers]

9. K&R...nt

Sid

[zbdent]

10. When it comes to taxes, the Repubs/Teabaggers remind me of little kids ...

you know ... they'd rather scream and run away (and complain loudly about the pain and illness) than take the medicine (which admittedly does taste foul) that will fix their problems.