The NY Times gives her a push.
This really pisses me off. When did the NY Times decide it was their job to staff leadership positions on Capitol Hill?
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You are here: Home / Nancy Goes Under the Bus
harlana
I apologize for being OT, but please indulge me just this once on behalf of the unemployed. Extended benefits are set to expire Nov. 30! Perhaps we can squeeze out one last drop of compassion from Congress before winter begins, both literally and figuratively. Thank you for your consideration.
cleek
about 150 years before the first blogger decided it was his job ?
The Moar You Know
You expected something different? She’s been the most effective Democratic leader since FDR’s tenure.
Every politician and media organization in this nation wants her out for exactly that reason.
4tehlulz
When didn’t it?
thomas Levenson
I think we may need a tag “the liberal New York Times”…
The Grand Panjandrum
From the same editorial:
Ah yes, the ubiquitous and ever powerful independent voter.
The Grand Panjandrum
@The Grand Panjandrum: It was good to see that the NYT is onboard with Eric Cantor.
El Cid
Bullshit.
You could put someone like Shuler in charge, and play country music all the time, and have him wear a cowboy hat and praise Southern white working class culture every 2nd sentence, and the moment he or she started pursuing a strong Democratic agenda, suddenly he or she would be the wildest eyed Communist that Republicans had ever seen.
Remember, Eric Cantor said that ‘compromise’ with Democrats / Obama was only possible if Obama et al agreed with the Republicans 100%.
How does this suggest that non-Pelosi leadership would have any more success doing anything other than agreeing with Republicans?
General Stuck
You know what pisses me off. This whole notion from the left wing, that it is dems in office, whether Obama or Pelosi, or whoever, are responsible for what Americans CHOOSE to believe. Every ignorant right wing meme has been challenged and disputed by dem politicians, including Pelosi, many times. Maybe not quite the number of times the winger wurlitzer has been spewing out the bullshit, but enough times to give people the other side of the story. Whereupon it is up to them, the American voters, to make decisions of who and what to believe. This notion that getting into an eternal R2/am not food fight with the wingers over urban myths, will offset idiots from choosing to believe idiotic urban myths is laughable, but still the NYT’s and all the other liberal concern trolls keep right on with the concern trolling and wasting our precious time.
dmsilev
Did the GOP leadership resign after two successive repudiations from the voters in 2006 and 2008? No.
Exercise for the day: Explain, without using the IOKIYAR concept, why This Is Different.
dms
Walker
As Steve Benen points out, this is particularly infuriating because she was Minority Leader in 2006. Do they think she did an awful job then?
Dennis SGMM
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Would those be the same skeptical independent voters who re-elected George W. Bush? Seems that their skepticism has a very short half-life.
different church-lady
The world is made of three kinds of people:
1) Winners
2) Losers
3) Velcro that only sticks to type 1
Bill H.
With the public’s approval of Congress at something like 11% or so, why does either party think that electing the same people as leaders in Congress is a good idea? Perhaps they think that approval of the American public is irrelevant?
JenJen
For a really good laugh, have you seen the “secret letter” Fox News has been pushing?
FOX Exclusive: Defeated Democrats pen letter to implore Pelosi to step aside
When I first saw this this morning, I thought, “That’s weird. Who signed this letter? How many signed it?”
Well, TPM was wondering the same apparently, noting that exactly nobody signed this letter, it’s only “circulating” and the Fox story has been updated, now calling the letter “draft language.” WTF? TPM is right when they say that Fox News is apparently concern-trolling the shit out of how Democrats choose their leadership. What the hell is going on here? Mind your own beeswax, NYT, Fox News and Eric Cantor. Why, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say the GOP is mighty a-skeered of Nancy. :-)
Maude
When did the NY Times decide it was their job to staff leadership positions on Capitol Hill?
About the same time they decided that a war in Iraq was a great and fun idea.
Benjamin Cisco
I see the Old Dead Lady is laying the groundwork for our upcoming fascist overlords.Turns out the rubes were worrying about the wrong “ism” the whole time.
__
Color me shocked. Stunned even.
Martin
@Bill H.: It depends on what part of Congress they’re pissed at. Given the nature of the complaints, I’d put it all on the Senate and the filibuster, personally.
The public wants more jobs programs. The House passed more jobs programs. LOTS more jobs programs. They all died in the Senate.
David Hunt
@Walker:
You beat me to it.
different church-lady
@Martin:
And yet Harry Reid kept his job. Imagine — it’s almost as if the voters were… incoherent or something…
The Grand Panjandrum
@JenJen: Shoddy reporting and misleading headlines at Fox? Say it ain’t so!
Upper West
Of course, NYT, having someone like Steny Hoyer as leader will make a great difference. He will never be demonized like Pelosi was. Personally, I’d go in the other direction — Charlie Rangel or Maxine Waters would be great.
El Cid
@General Stuck: You might find it interesting to listen to the most recent episode of the public radio show “This American Life.” In it, a loyal Democrat interviews as many Democratic politicians and consultants and pundits as he can to ask why they avoid apparently strong responses to Republican attacks, and to a one each simply refuses to do so. For example, refusing to strongly explain the health insurance reform as necessary due to the machinations of insurers, saying specifically that they wish to avoid looking like they’re calling insurers the bad guys. The same way on letting Bush Jr. tax cuts for the rich expire. (These are not the top leaders such as Obama or Pelosi or members of, say, the now dominant Progressive caucus, but would appear to me to be significant in broader areas of the nation.)
Poopyman
Thrown under the bus? Seems to me the NYT bus is broken down on the side of the road. I doubt it’ll make a whit of difference, but it’ll be interesting to see who tries to use this to bolster their -argument-concern trolling.
And @JenJen:
Standard issue Republican ratfucking, is all.
Mnemosyne
I know I’m supposed to be beyond being shocked by how blatantly the MSM stacks the deck for the Republicans, but this is really insane. First you had them insisting that Pelosi was totally going to give up her seat and retire (despite the fact that she had just been re-elected with 70 percent of the vote), and now they’re trying to publicly pressure her to not run for Majority Leader?
Fortunately, it sounds like Nancy is flipping them all the big ol’ bird, but if you had any doubt at all that the New York Times and other MSM outlets are openly cheerleading for the Republicans and pushing their memes, here’s your proof.
(See also the AP story that Corner Stone found that deliberately misquoted Robert Gibbs to make it sound like the White House was giving in on tax cuts for the upper class. I only figured out it was a lie by going to the White House website and looking at the transcript of the press conference.)
ETA: We’re all lucky that Pelosi is Italian (who married a fellow Italian) because her natural reaction to this kind of pressure is going to be, “Fuck me? No no no, fuck you!” That’s just kind of how we are. ;-)
Ash Can
Hopefully, a comfortable majority of the House Dems will recognize that the NYT et al. are full of shit.
JenJen
@The Grand Panjandrum: You are NEVER going to believe this, because it’s pretty far-fetched, but just bear with me…
Drudge is featuring this “secret letter” story too!! It’s true. I swear.
Martin
@different church-lady: Voters nationally were electing Reid to Senate Majority leader? How did I miss that? That wasn’t on my ballot!
General Stuck
@El Cid:
If i read your comment correctly, you are basically saying that dems in general, are just too nice of people to go where the wingers go with harsh rhetoric. If so, I would agree with that. But I also see this false one sided favoring republicans standard promoted and fueled in the media to the point it is understandable why dems, especially dem politicians are reticent to make stark, bottom line style of speech. But still, dems do say what they need to say at the Pelosi and Obama levels. I have heard them say it with conviction, though without the loud, often abusive, and repetitive tone the wingers use. Therefore, it is still the responsibility of the voter to discern what is and is not true. I don’t really want another party of complete screeching assholes. The voters will sooner or later get it and take seriously learning about issues and the difference in dem and GOP governance, or they will not and someone will need to stick a fork in us, because we will be done.
different church-lady
@Martin: “Change” or “anger about HCR” or “I want more jobs” was not on anyone’s ballot either, but if you read the news you’d be convinced they were, ya dig?
Bob L
If the other side is that pissed out her they want her out, ’cause conservatives are just so concerned for what’s best for the Democrat party, then Nancy has been doing her job and needs to stay.
Bill H.
@Martin:
Okay, got it. They love Congress and are just pissed off at the filibuster. I am certainly glad you cleared that up.
I will, then, disregard all articles discussing the “governing elite” and such, assuming that they are just babble.
Michael
Our future is that of Franco’s Spain or pre-Peron Argentina.
When our “Seven Days in May” scenario pops (led by wingnutty USAF cadre), John Boehner will be propelled into the illusion of power, caretaking the government until “orderly” national elections can be held. GOP will net out about 70% of votes, what with the wholesale disenfranchisement, election fraud and chickenshit fucking fear from white moderates.
Once that is done, we can have the show trials where Barack Obama is called the tyrannical Hitler. It will all be a great success – and Joe the Plumber will make a fine President.
Chicago Todd
“What they need is what Ms. Pelosi has been unable to provide: a clear and convincing voice to help Americans understand that Democratic policies are not bankrupting the country, advancing socialism or destroying freedom.”
Correct me if I am wrong but if the
pressarmy of stenographers were not printing all this crap up without facts, context, or just saying these people are lying, perhaps people would not believe it. Example: death panels, killing grandma, and government health care may lead to euthanasia as said by John Boehner — all of this consistently appeared in the NY Times with nary a lied called during the 2009, the year of the health reform debate.Pelosi’s job is to legislate and the NY Times job is discredit the batshit crazy things people say. Perhaps they forgot.
El Cid
@General Stuck: Please don’t wrongly characterize my comments. If you care to, listen to the interviews. It’s not about being jerks or assholes, it’s about truthful and effective responses.
I could possibly take the absolute approach that always and forever it must be the fault of external forces for any Democratic Party setback or lack of success, and the politicians and consultants etc. involved are basically perfect strategists and rhetoricians, and to evaluate and notice any lack of correct approaches is the exact equivalent of being a GOP hack, a firebagger, or generally unpleasant person.
But this would seem to me to be both dishonest and stupid.
Kryptik
Fuck all, the fix really is in, isn’t it?
No one’s going to fucking let the Dems crawl out from this. It’s going to be 2 fucking years of doing their best to ensure that Dems, liberals, progressives, and just generally anyone left of Lieberman and Limbaugh will be utterly marginalized and fucked over into as little power as possible while the fucking plutocrats and toadies win their way into utterly fucking over anyone who doesn’t have the good faith and ‘hard working spirit’ to be a millionaire.
Fuck all, just fucking make it stop, make it fucking stop, I get it, you fuckers won, you have the whole fucking country and you’re not going to ever fucking let it go until it’s a fucking fiefdom, just…fucking, stop, please…
Lavocat
When?
Back when they thought it was cool to hire asshats like the lot they’ve now got on the editorial page.
Seriously, Ross Douthat makes the cut? Please.
I stopped reading The Gray Lady back when they became lead cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq.
They’re nothing but a zionist rag masquerading as The Voice of Reason.
mds
@El Cid:
the Cubs would win the World Series. The point isn’t to avoid Republican slings and arrows, the point is to have a right-wing DINO as the public face of Democrats. Because otherwise enough voters might eventually remember that, barring asswipe outliers like Shuler, there is more than a dime’s worth of difference between the parties.
General Stuck
@El Cid:
I simply do not understand your comments half the time. I am sure it is a wavelength difference to blame. If you have a rebuttal to my comments, then why don’t you spell it out in plain English instead of requiring that I spend my time watching a teevee or radio program for your message to be revealed.
I will almost always hold responsible voters for making their personal decisions when presented with both sides of an argument. Regardless of the tone and tenor of that presentation. If others want to blame democrats because they don’t act more like republicans, that is their problem. and the pro left can generally suck my dick as I do consider them by and large an entity of opposition to what I want in the political arena.
Zifnab
It’s an opinion section. The guy is voicing his opinion. Are you not allowed to disagree with the idea that Pelosi is the most ideal Minority Leader? Yes, she is legislatively accomplished. But no, the editor doesn’t believe whipping votes is going to be critical against a lockstep majority that doesn’t need Dem votes anyway. Maybe he’s totally wrong.
But the Democrats DO have a serious messaging problem. Arguing that they should elect an effective messenger as their Minority Leader might be putting the cart before the horse. I honestly don’t know how much good John Boehner did for the GOP between ’06 and ’10. Lord knows he didn’t get much legislation passed.
But I don’t think this quote
identifies the NTY Editor as some kind of insidious fifth columnist looking to sell out the leadership position to the most conservative Democrat in the House. I think he’s just opinionating, and he’s got a valid point.
Martin
@Bill H.: I don’t think they love Congress, but if you look at what the non-activists are pissed about, I can see why they’re pissed at the Senate. I have a hard time seeing why they’re pissed at the House when so much of the things the voters seemed to be asking for actually got passed there.
Look, I don’t buy this ‘everyone was pissed at Democrats’ narrative because it’s way too blunt and doesn’t explain why some states moved even more left in this election. For the same reason, I don’t buy the ‘everyone was pissed at Congress’ narrative.
They aren’t pissed at Congress because of its name or it’s mere existence. They’re pissed because something did or did not happen. So what did or did not happen? If you aren’t willing to even explore that question, then you’re just Politicoing this conversation.
balconesfault
@El Cid: What you said, which is pretty much my comment over on FrumForum on the relevant thread.
If the NY Times believes that swapping out Nancy for some new face will result in said new face not being immediately attacked as a liberal communist out to give all of white America’s hard earned wealth to blacks and illegal Mexicans while handing our national security over to rabid Muslims they’ve become dangerously stupid.
What’s next – an OpEd on how we’d have Cap and Trade legislation already if Obama had only been willing to embrace bipartisanship?
Zifnab
Jesus Christ, do you people even read the links? You just took John’s bitch and ran off a cliff with it.
Where on earth in this four paragraph opinion piece does the NYT suggest Pelosi should be replaced with someone more conservative? The only thing I’ve read is that the editor thinks the post should be given to a better communicator.
When did “better communicator” become “DINO”? By that logic, Obama’s ’04 convention address would have put him just to the right of James Inhofe.
Kryptik
@Zifnab:
The problem is given the realistic choices we have, if Pelosi is forced out there’s no way we’re getting anyone more liberal, and given the general fellating of the whole ‘Dems are the ones that have to compromise, they got their stupid lib agenda rejected!’ by the general media, it’s kinda not hard to see where it’s going.
GregB
CNN is just whoring Newt Gingrich’s new book which is titled, Valley Forge.
Fucking gag me.
I hear Newt may be running for president!
trollhattan
Maybe they’re doing it for better relations with Comcast? Nancy SMASH still has mad skilz y’all, so it’s definitely time to get rid of her. Whoever the blue dogs want is fine by me.
[headdesk]
kth
This “tradition” that House speakers quit the leadership/leave the House when their party loses the majority is a fake fact, pure and simple:
Dennis Hastert left Congress after 2006, but he had been tainted by the Abramoff scandal.
Tom Foley lost his House seat in 1994, so the decision wasn’t his to make.
Between 1947 and 1955, the House flipped 4 times, and in each case but the last, the losing party retained its leadership.
How something that didn’t happen becomes accepted fact among the Villagers, I’ll never figure out. Though it probably pertains to the fact that they don’t read much, and their heads are filled with things they hear when they “do lunch” with other Villagers.
Martin
@Zifnab: I agree. I wonder what the reaction here would be if Olbermann came out and said that Dems would be better off with someone like Barney Frank (who he has on his show repeatedly, and who is very good at taking down GOP positions and explaining what the Dems are trying to do.) Would MSNBC be ratfucking the Dems now? Were they ratfucking the Dems when Olbermann came out against HCR?
Zifnab
@Kryptik: Orly? What about Anthony Weiner out of NY-9? He’s the guy that went on a rant against Republicans for not whipping votes on the 9/11 fire fighters support bill. If I can’t see him as Minority Leader, I’d love to see him go toe-to-toe against Cantor as Minority Whip.
What about Waxman? What about Dingle? What about half the members of the Progressive Caucus? Is Pelosi really the most liberally liberal in the entire House?
Again, I’m not saying Pelosi isn’t the best person for the job. But this whole “She’s as good as we’re going to get” schtick has always been a load of bullshit.
Dems did a much poorer job selling their agenda than Republicans. You can tell with a dozen different polls, suggesting only 1 in 10 folks know they got tax cuts or identifying broad support for almost every element of the HCR bill but no support for the bill itself. Messaging remains a huge problem for the party.
eemom
It was a truly obnoxious editorial. That is all.
master c
fuck the blue dogs. She’s great.
trollhattan
Here’s an actually useful piece on Pelosi from yesterday’s paper. She still has what Phil Burton (the last genius in California politics) saw decades ago. (Although, “operational” has to be the most off-handed compliment ever.)
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/11/06/3163669/is-pelosi-poised-for-a-comeback.html
Sly
@different church-lady:
“And yet
Harry Reid kept his joball Senate Republicans kept their jobs. Imagine—it’s almost as if the voters were… incoherent or something…”Fixed to put the blame where it is due.
Nellcote
The job of the majority/minority leader is to keep their caucus together as best they can when it comes time to vote. Speaker Pelosi has done an excellent job of this, even blue dogs will admit. Being a great communicator is not the primary job skill. It would be good to get Weiner, Franks, Wasserman-Shultz etc. out there more doing the press duties as they give good sound-bite and that seems to be what the msm responds to.
Kryptik
@Zifnab:
Like I said, realistic choices. While those two would be good candidates, the combination of seniority issues and the whole ‘TOO LIBRULZZZZ!’ meme will likely leave Waxman or Weiner totally out of the picture. That’s the problem. They may be interesting choices, but they’re not realistic choices, not with the shit sandwich on our plate, and I suggest that’s something that the NYT Ed. board knows full and well about.
Skippy-san
Good for the New York Times. After an election like this one-where Pelosi became the defacto face of the Democratic party and Republicans were able to successfully use her to distort the facts, it is absolutely stupid to allow her any where near the leadership. The Democrats should be putting nails through her hands and hanging her from a cross upside down. She is poison-and will drag the rest of the party down with her.
Not getting rid of Pelosi will make 2012 twice as hard as it already is. I support the President-but I have no use for Pelosi and no thinking Democrat should either. Putting in as leaders proves the party is tone deaf and that the “whiny left” is exactly that-whiny.
I can’t think of a better candidate to be run over by a bus ( except for Palin).
Kryptik
@Skippy-san:
Oh, fucking please.
If you’re going to slam Pelosi for being made ‘the face of the Democratic party’ and used as an all-purpose boogeyman, then why let Obama off the hook? After all, he’s had shitload more baseless boogeyman-ing done against him than Pelosi.
And unlike a certain Senate Majority Leader, she actually managed to have the organizational and logistical chops to get shit done on her side.
Throwing Pelosi under the bus at this point is basically saying you want the Democrats to lay down and paint ‘WELCOME’ across their collectively prone bodies so the Republicans can walk all over them. Because it’s very very unlikely we’re going to get a Speaker who will push back against the GOP in the house, as all the realistic other candidates are Blue Dogs out the ass.
brantl
They decided this the first time they had written something in the Times, and quoted the New York Times to someone else, without having the intellectual integrity to say that they wrote it in the New York Times.
Pompus putzen.
aimai
@General Stuck:
General Stuck, what, are you stuck again? El Cid is one of the clearer commenters here, always has been. If you can’t figure out what he’s saying you might try doing a little re-reading. Also, you could in fact listen to the NPR piece which a ton of people heard right before and after the election.
aimai
aimai
@Skippy-san:
Fuck off and die. Two thirds of America’s voters have literally no idea what the minority leader does, or why, or what the majority leader does for the matter of that. Keeping Nancy in place simply means that the Dems are working with the most effective leader they’ve had in decades. That’s her job in the house. Not “communicating” with the people–the Dems ought to be hiring people for that not putting it up to a closed vote within the dem caucus anyway. Nancy’s job is armtwister, fundraiser, and progressive voice. She’s always been kickass at that and it would be good to try to reward the steadiest members of our democratic caucus instead of sucking up to temporary/fragile members like fat young frat boy blue dogs like Health Shuler or old versions of same like Steny Hoyer.
aimai
brantl
Hey, Skippy-san. Grow a brain. Pelosi got a shitload done in the house, the Senate sat on its hands. If Pelosi had had to change the house rules, she’d have done it.
Skippy-san
@Kryptik: She can push back all she wants-in fact the more she does the more the Republicans will be thanking their respective God. She will make their job easier, rather than harder.
It’s deluding yourself to say “she is an effective leader”-she was the leader of a legistlative body that does not have the procedural rules that the Senate does, for one thing. Second, the major reason health care took so long to pass was because the Republicans were able to use her image to convince average Americans that “liberals were ramming this down our throats”.
The demographic heart of America is not in San Francisco, New York or Boston. And that heart is a lot more conservative than she is-or the die hard “progressives are”. They don’t care about fringe issues like DADT etc, they care about keeping their job. They may be misinformed-but it matters not because they vote. The customer that the party needs to persuade is not going to be convinced by her in any way shape of form.
But go ahead, put her in the leadership position. And enjoy life under our new teabagger overlords-because their Hobbsiean hell will last a long time if the Democratic party does not wake up and smell the coffee.
Kryptik
@Skippy-san:
Again: Oh, fucking please.
You’re basically blaming Pelosi for being Nancy Pelosi. The fact of the matter is, she got smeared and bashed for things either totally unrelated to her job, character assassinations, and total misrepresentations of her efforts. You’re not actually appraising her on her ability to do her job and get shit done, you’re appraising her on the “HISTORY’S GREATEST MONSTER!!!!!” image Republicans have painted of her. And to that, again, I say, what about Obama? He’s been demonized in much the same way, do we completely shuck him and replace him with someone more ‘palatable’ to teabagger tastes?
And what makes you think even someone more ‘palatable’ will not get the same treatment Pelosi got? The fact is, no one is going to be immune from the smear efforts, by sheer dint of having a (D) beside their name. That’s sin enough for the GOP and the slavish idiots that hang on their every words.
And as far as trying to represent the ‘demographics’ of the ‘Heartland’, that’s not what the fucking position is all about, and if we went by that, then what fucking point is there to having liberals at all, apparently, since the “Heartland” seems to hate them some goddamn liberals.
kronk
get rid of nancy! how dare they…awesome.
El Cid
@General Stuck:
First, I’m just as happy, perhaps much happier, than you to generally blame the nation in general and in particular amazingly stupid and lazy generations of voters for consistently and ignorantly screwing themselves, the nation, and the world over.
I can’t help you with your inability to comprehend the difference between “acting like the GOP” and more coherently and publicly and, yes, energetically backing the political defenses (or promotion) of Democratic policies in the face of GOP attacks, and in particular Democratic politicians and consultants who agree that such approaches may be successful but do not wish to annoy the powerful and look too much like ‘radicals’.
I also can’t help you with the notion that to suggest that Democratic politicians’ approach to issues and presenting them are in any way irrelevant or unrelated to the voting public’s knowledge and opinions of them.
Yes, I can emphasize as much as I want such factors as the media propaganda system and false GOP attacks.
But the countercase would be to suggest that Democratic politicians would be unable to, if they so chose, to present messages in so awful a way as to drive people away.
If it is logically possible that Democratic politicians and advisers could act in such a way as to undermine public understanding of their policies and likelihood of receiving votes, it is thus possible that they could act in such a way as to improve those factors.
If the latter is not possible, the former is not possible, and thus Democratic politicians have no active role in whether or not their policies or parties are supported and receive votes, and thus have no need whatsoever to interact with the public on any of these matters, and this is entirely determined by external factors such as media coverage and GOP attacks.
The program to which I pointed involved a man researching and interacting with politicians and advisers who — granting that the piece could be logical and empirically supported or wrong or far insufficiently supported, a different though important question — were aware of strategies that might be more generally effective but did not wish to do so for reasons of offending powerful forces such as corporations and/or a tradition of being hostile to message collaboration.
I cannot conceive of how to make these points any more clearly, and any failure on your part to understand them points either to a lack of capacity or a general unwillingness.
Linda Featheringill
From the right wing point of view, one of the dangers of having Nancy as Minority Leader is that she will probably continue to offer legislation [and bills that actually address real problems in the US] than the entire Republican Caucus.
And somebody might actually mention this to the press. And keep mentioning it.
And then the whole world will see that she is doing her job as a legislator and the Republicans are gumming up the works.
The republicans need to:
1. Silence Nancy and thereby make it easier to silence the Democrats
2. Completely muzzle the press
or
3. Actually go to work.
maus
What was that? The blue dogs failed miserably? Take that as evidence that we need more blue dogs? Thanks for the advice, fuckasses at “even the liberal New York Times”.
@Linda Featheringill:
What’s the use in mentioning Dem successes to the press if the press doesn’t mention them to the people? They don’t regurgitate our press releases and talking points as they’ve been conditioned to do for others.
Mnemosyne
@Skippy-san:
Silly me, I didn’t realize that when conservatives made Botox jokes about Pelosi that they were actually making substantive criticisms of her policy positions because, what, her policy was that Obamacare should force everyone to get Botox injections and the Republicans were just trying to draw attention to that policy position of hers?
Mnemosyne
Oh, and for confused people: unsigned editorials are considered to be the opinion of the newspaper as a whole, as opposed to the opinion of a single columnist, which belongs to that columnist alone.
The position of the New York Times as an institution is that Pelosi should go. This isn’t like saying that if David Brooks said it, it must be the opinion of the paper as a whole. If it’s unsigned, it is the official opinion of the New York Times on the issue. If Olbermann said it on his show, it would be Olbermann’s opinion and we’d all be pissed at him, the same way we get constantly pissed off at Brooks for saying stupid shit.
If MSNBC ran a 30 second spot with a narrator saying, “This is the opinion of MSNBC News,” then that would be the equivalent of this NY Times editorial.
General Stuck
@El Cid:
Oh, go fuck yourself El Cid, jeesus christ, you wasted all this bandwith to say what, through a bunch of pious blather that dems could do a better job in refining their message. I have no disagreement with that, and you provide an excellent example of the problem by pecking out several extra paragraphs of barely decipherable pseudo intellectual clap trap, when you just could have said they needed to do a better job at messaging.
My point that Pelsosi and Obama themselves have done this repeatably, and only idiots would think they have not clearly and often told the public that Death Panels were not part of HCR and that old folks need not worry about any cut in their medicare. Liberals as a group, starting with you, could certainly speak more directly in common terms, but not those two leaders, they already did. And guess what, seniors and white tribal members still chose to believe the wingnuts, I suspect because they represent the white tribe and dems don’t. it isn’t all that complicated.
General Stuck
@aimai:
Resident pointy head snob comes down from ivory tower to scold inadequate stuck, that El Cid is way too brilliant and rare to not be understood. My pardon, ms Modo light. Would you like some manup obama tea?
Koz
Well, yes. And who Nancy Pelosi is, is bad.
Koz
Sometimes you just have to thank God, that sometimes your team is just hilariously fucking stupid.
For a House minority, as far away from a majority as the D’s are, without major regional or factional dividing lines, there is no shit to do. Your team is playing the outside game at least 85% of the time, and your renewing the Wicked Witch of the West as the lead lunatic of this asylum. Good luck.
Mnemosyne
@Koz:
Ah, typical Republican hypocrisy. It was perfectly okay for the Republicans to stand together and block every possible bill that came from the Democrats, but suddenly you clutch your pearls at the idea that the Democrats might take a page from your book and play the same game against you.
I look forward to your constant shrill cries of “Upperdown Vote! Upperdown Vote! Not letting the majority vote is unAmerican!“
Skippy-san
@Koz: Thank God there is at least one other sane person in this room.
What I am saying is that the idea that the Democratic party is going to succeed by being more liberal is a fantasy. If the party wants to get back in the majority it has to make the case that it is relevant to people in States other than traditional blue states. Democrats used to get elected in Red States . Pelosi does nothing to help that cause.
And yes-she is that bad. Pat Schroeder all over again.
Nick
Clearly, if Obama had used the bully pulpit.
Nick
@Koz: I’m always interested in how Republicans present things as “your team, my team” like we’re the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers. I’m not even sure why we’re still a country if we’re not all on the same “team”
Koz
Well, of course it was. The American people wanted the GOP to do that, before the GOP establishment figured it out even.
Well, they would if they had any brains. As it is, apparently Nancy Pelosi is going to be Minority Leader, so much for that idea. You do know what the “outside game” is, right?
maus
@Koz:
With substantial arguments like this, it’s no wonder your “side” is filled with intellectual powerhouses.
Why don’t you head back to Freep?
Koz
That’s just a personal trope of mine. I don’t think it’s necessarily conventional usage of any party. Though, the passage of the Obama health care bill changed the rules on that in ways that I don’t think people on your team have any appreciation of.
Koz
Gawd you are such a drooler, why do you bother trying to understand politics in the first place?
You’re thinking of the Senate. In the House of Representatives, the majority party doesn’t cry anything. It gets the up-or-down votes that it wants (and more importantly, avoids the vast majority of up-or-down votes that it doesn’t want).
General Stuck
@Skippy-san:
You do realize that Mr. Koz is a long time moronic right wing troll, don’t you? And hasn’t had a substantial thought in his head probly since conception.
edit unless you are out spoofing, then this comment will self destruct in 5 seconds.
mak
The very fact that Cantor or anyone else on the R side thinks Nancy should be replaced is really all the reason I need to back her for the gig.
Triassic Sands
It is ridiculous for the NY Times to criticize Pelosi for not doing a better job of communicating, when the prime communicator for Democrats should have been Barack Obama. He’s the one with the bully pulpit and he doesn’t have to worry about the day-to-day mechanics of passing legislation. I’m afraid the failure was his, not Pelosi’s.
If Democratic House members want to change leadership, that’s up to them. But if they are looking for a new leader, they certainly shouldn’t look to Blue Dogs, who opposed much of the legislation Pelosi got passed and who failed miserably in last Tuesday’s elections.
I think politicians often stay around too long and occasional changes in leadership can be rejuvenating. Voluntary retirement is too rare. However, before I would support a replacement for Pelosi, I’d have to know who her replacement would be and why he or she is better suited to the job than Pelosi. Somehow, I doubt the Democrats would come up with a convincing candidate. Needless to say, Heath Shuler is not a sensible choice.
Nick
@Koz:
Yeah, passing our agenda did unfortunately destroy the country. I’m all for dividing up. I’m not really interesting in being the same nation as people like you
Nick
@Skippy-san:
I know, that’s why it’s fucking falling apart.
maus
@Nick: Exactly, people ruling with their hearts and their dicks rather than their brains.