I think I need to know more about this one....

Nancy Pelosi. Third in line to the presidency. Liberal democrat from San Francisco. I've sort of silently applauded the ascendancy of a woman to a high post and ignored her ever since.

Oh, I've heard the rumblings that she's a divisive figure. And I do think that she stepped in it during the bailout with some of her partisan comments. When you need to reach across the aisle, perhaps it's not the best idea to hold out your hand and slap them in the face as they reach out toward you.

But it is a different world today than it was only 3 weeks ago when we were worried about all that. Today, the Democrats have picked up 19 seats in the house with the potential to pick up six more if all contested races go in a sweep for the Democrats. I read with interest her comments in this article.

But Ms. Pelosi said Democrats could open the 111th Congress in January with efforts to adopt measures blocked by President Bush, including ones to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and embryonic stem cell research. She said Democrats had no choice but to chart a centrist course. “The country must be governed from the middle,” she said.But Democrats on both sides of the Capitol were just beginning to digest the new faces in their expanded caucuses.

The party just won resounding victories in the executive and legislative branches. The country said that they wanted liberal visions to be named to the Supreme Court. Why in the world do they get that the way to go is to the middle? The middle is what you play to get the job.

You know, this sort of reminds me of Jesse Jackson who seems (to me) to have floundered once he reached his stated goals. Then he just start grumbling about how the young people don't understand and we have to continue to FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, even though the FIGHT has largely been won. He has to FIGHT because FIGHTING worked in the past and let's forget that he DID manage to change the world and the world largely accepts his ideals as being the morally superior ones, he has to FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT against the Man or the machine until the rest of us begin to think he's gone off the deep end. He screams about the fight until he begins to look bitter and eventually says something ridiculous like he wants to castrate the new generation of their movement. It's Michael Jordan and Brett Favre thinking they can stage a comeback. It's John McCain who can't fathom a world in which VICTORY, and WINNING means anything other than obliterating your enemy on a battlefield. We will fight another HUNDRED YEARS! A THOUSAND YEARS! WE WILL FIGHT!!! These people who once captured our hearts and imaginations, who seemed so visionary in their time, are just cardboard cutouts in the new reality.

Speaker Pelosi, you got about as big of a mandate as you can imagine. I don't think the people want you to continue to be mousy about this. We want change and not the little stuff.

Damn straight we want stem cell research.
Damn straight we want universal health care.
Damn straight we want out of Iraq.

I also want massive investment in new energy technology. I want Pell Grants and student loans and lots of 'em. Forget no child left behind. I am sick of playing to the lowest common denominator. No more teaching the test. It doesn't work. I want gay marriage. I want gays in the military. I want the military to drop their moral clauses that cost people their jobs for things that don't affect their employers or their employment. I want to stop taking from the sweat and labor of the working poor and middle class to feed the greed of the already rich. I want the Democrats to show, once and for all, that our economic policies make more sense for the prosperity of this nation than the Republican vision of creating a ruling class. I want a world where women and minorities can be certain that they aren't being systematically marginalized with respect to pay and opportunity. I want clean air and clean water and I want my country to commit to the global environment. I want third-world countries to get the tools (like condoms for fuck's sake) they need to make realistic family planning decisions. I want hunger to be obliterated.

I don't think we're going to get any of these things by playing to the middle. We've given these people a clear mandate. On what planet is it advisable to squander this and play to the middle?

I'm thinking maybe Pelosi isn't up for the job. Being a divisive figure isn't always the answer. Maybe this isn't a job for a partisan player. The world has changed and I'm worried that Pelosi is a one-trick pony. Railing against the opposition isn't the future. We need someone with vision in this position. They need to find that person and quick.

What's Up with the Republican Party?

Are they just having a group meltdown or something? After failing to get behind Sunday's bailout plan, some members of the House leadership blamed the failure of the bill on a harsh, but hardly over-the-top speechlet by Nancy Pelosi on the House floor. After the failure, the coward Republicans jumped on her like white on rice and said that her speech caused otherwise supportive representatives to vote against the bill--the same bill that everyone seems to agree is necessary to keep America from plunging into a deep and lasting economic recession.

This is an obvious and blatant lie. Congresspersons don't have feelings. Well, at least not in the performance of their jobs. If they did, they would never have been able to say the things, point the fingers and compromise in the way that politics demands. And as Barney Frank aptly put:

Frank: “We don’t believe they had the votes and I think they are covering up the embarrassment of not having the votes. But think about this: somebody hurt my feelings so I will punish the country. I mean that’s hardly plausible. And there were twelve Republicans who were ready to stand up for the economic interest of America but not if anybody insulted them. I’ll make an offer: Give me those twelve people’s names and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are, and maybe they’ll now think about the country.”

My question is: what the heck is going on with the Republicans? After ruling Congress for 20 years with an unstoppable coalition, they have fallen apart and it's every man for himself. Is it GWB's low approval? Is it that their positions aren't resonating with the majority of Americans anymore? Is it that they are showing themselves to be the self-serving slime that most politicians are? Even then, party leadership can usually hold things together over the short-term to act in everyone's best interest....or at least the best interest of the party.

I can't imagine that if the economy tanks the Dems are going to be the one's left holding the bag. Can these guys not see beyond next week, or is November the only thing that matters to them? Sadly, I suspect the latter.