Thursday, November 16, 2006

You're stuck with her now

A good column today from Robert Novak about Nancy Pelosi and her "leadership" since the election.

Novak has been around so long he is one of the few pundits left who can speak first hand about the Sherman Adams scandal. He sometimes ah....overstates things a bit, however in this piece he makes some interesting and highly plausible assertions.

The money paragraphs are these two:

"Pelosi's mistake confirms longstanding, privately held Democratic apprehension about her abilities. Their concerns do not reflect the Republican indictment of her as a reflexive San Francisco liberal. Some of her most trenchant congressional critics are on the left wing of the party. These colleagues worry that her decision-making may be distorted by personal considerations.

Hoyer is the most accomplished Democratic legislator in the House, widely respected on both sides of the aisle. He, not Pelosi, would be preparing to be speaker had he not lost to her in a 2001 contest for minority whip, thanks to nearly complete support from her huge California delegation. That put Pelosi ahead of Hoyer on the leadership escalator. While Hoyer would win a secret poll of the Democratic caucus as more qualified, Democrats cannot turn aside the first female speaker."

If Novak is close to the truth, the next couple of years will be highly interesting. Watching the Democrats live with the stench from their own finely hewn political correctness petard shall be great fun.