O.K., I’ll give you Harry Reid as an exhibit of a Democratic “leader” not worthy of the name. He backs off and pre-compromises with the progressive agenda far too much with his senate colleagues (IMHO). But far too often on this site have I seen an equating of Nancy Pelosi as just as bad or worse than Reid in the same regard (here, here, and here just as examples). Worse, some on the blogs see her as not up to the job of a Democratic leader or Speaker of the House.
Au contraire, mon frere!
I hope we were all watching today, or we could catch the repeat tonight, as Speaker Pelosi personally dismantled the Repug noise machines of the week concerning the AIG bonuses. No, the bill will probably not pass the Senate. No, perhaps it wasn’t even a constitutional bill. But the air went out of the Repug attack machine today faster than the Hindenburg today.
Ms. Pelosi suckered in the Repug hypocrites today: those who along with the Bushies formed this disaster in the first place. They fell for it like the bunch of palookas they are(I know, an insult to palookas!). With apologies to Cosell: “Down goes Cantor! Down goes Cantor! Down goes Cantor!”
(See Lawrence O’Donnell’s takedown of Cantor this morning in this video, and his insightful comments arguing my point in this diary)
Some republicans voted for the Big, Fat, Idiot position, only to literally scramble to the Speaker’s desk to save themselves and change their vote. Some blindly followed Rush and voted against reclaiming bonus money from the bailout recipients. The incineration by TV ad will now come to the die hards in 2010. Imagine the ads:
"Your Gooper congresscritter X voted to help their FRIENDS at AIG keep their big fat cat bonuses. Good Dem Congressperson would have voted to recover those bonuses. Who should be your new congressperson now?"
In the end, the enemy was in disarray, and Pelosi (and Obama) claimed the field. They now have a chance to reclaim the narrative. We’ll see if they can clean up this mess, but today belongs to Pelosi. She has shown in the past three months (with deft scheduling and quick legislative action) why she has the smarts and guts to get the job done. Will Reid gain some insight from her actions? Probably not, but President Obama has taught me to hope!
(P.S. To those that I quoted from their diaries -- I didn't do this to disparage or take a cheap shot: they were just the first diaries I found in a search that equated the leadership roles of Pelosi and Reid).