A Second Hand Conjecture

I was not in favor of the Paulson plan if you haven’t caught that yet. Still, the pitiful display from our congress today set a recent low.

First, faced with an unpopular and contentious bill which she feels for the good of the nation must be passed, we get a partisan and divisive speech from Nancy Pelosi:

Pelosi had said that the $700 billion price tag of the measure “is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush Administration’s failed economic policies — policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.”

Pure horse hockey. More importantly, if Pelosi believes her rhetoric about the importance of this bill the poor judgment, lack of leadership and inability to understand the importance of statesmanship in a crisis should be grounds for immediate dismissal from her post.

Then, we get this pathetic response from the Republican leadership:

“I do believe that we could have gotten there today had it not been for this partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, adding that Pelosi “poisoned” the GOP conference.

Deputy Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) held up a copy of Pelosi’s floor speech at a press conference and said she had “failed to listen and to lead” on the issue.

The Speaker had blasted the Bush administration in her speech and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) asserted that some GOP lawmakers, who had reluctantly agreed to support the bill, might have changed their minds following Pelosi’s remarks.

“Might” have effected them? What whining. If it is false it shows the same tin ear that Pelosi demonstrated. If it is true it is even worse. Either way, did it not occur to them how petty it would look in a moment of crisis?

If these congressman or women really didn’t support the bill and were going to vote for it anyway, the idea that they would change their votes because Pelosi was her normal clueless self is enough to deprive them of my vote forever.  It is even more damning if they thought the bill was necessary and voted against it due to her behavior.

This is a disgrace.

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When you’re Speaker of the House, I guess that, in addition to all your other powers, you can make language mean whatever you wish it to mean.

PELOSI: I’m never certain of anything. Today, I would be certain. I just think that it is the opportunity for our country to move away from Washington.  You know, I’m the Speaker of the House. I’m an outsider in Washington, D.C. .  Business as usual in Washington is not in the people’s interests. It there’s for the special interests.

KING: You would be the ultimate insider, wouldn’t you?

PELOSI: Well, I — you would think. But I…

KING: The speaker of the House isn’t an insider?

PELOSI: Well, they didn’t want me to be Speaker of the House.

KING: But you are.

PELOSI: I had to fight these special interests. And now to make the change, we have to have a Democratic president. And Barack Obama has done more than anyone in terms of passing the toughest ethical bill — ethics bill in Congress, to shed the bright light on transparency on the link between special interests and legislation in Washington.

Even Larry King is incredulous at the notion that a chosen Speaker of the House would not be the ultimate insider!

The amazing thing is that these politicians can get on national TV and make ludicrous statements with a straight face.

Ah, well.  They have got lots of practice at it.

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Pelosi says, “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet.”

Charles Krauthammer points out the incoherence of this:

Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic?

The net environmental effect of Pelosi’s no-drilling willfulness is negative. Outsourcing U.S. oil production does nothing to lessen worldwide environmental despoliation. It simply exports it to more corrupt, less efficient, more unstable parts of the world — thereby increasing net planetary damage.

Democrats want no oil from the American OCS or ANWR. But of course they do want more oil. From OPEC. From where Americans don’t vote. From places Democratic legislators can’t see. On May 13 Sen. Chuck Schumer — deeply committed to saving just those pieces of the planet that might have huge reserves of American oil — demanded that the Saudis increase production by a million barrels a day. It doesn’t occur to him that by eschewing the slightest disturbance of the mating habits of the Arctic caribou, he is calling for the further exploitation of the pristine deserts of Arabia. In the name of the planet, mind you.

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Nancy Pelosi might have finally found a fig leaf for the Left — dying as it is for some form of tangible revenge against the Bush administration for allegedly ruining their lives.  Unwilling (and frankly unable) to impeach Bush and Cheney, or throw half the administration into prison in medieval shackles, she’s dangling the possibility of issuing a toothless contempt citation for Karl Rove. Perhaps it will placate her legions of critics at ThinkProgress, et al. Methinks not though.

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