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The beginning of the end for Nancy Pelosi (Rantburg Op-Ed)
by Steve WhiteModerator, Rantburg Defender-Scimitar & Times-Picayune March 11, 2010, 1430 CT Mark this date on your calendars. This is the day that Nancy Pelosi's term as Speaker of the House began to end. Sometimes the end of a politician's career is indistinct. Scandal sometimes unfolds over weeks and months, and it isn't clear exactly when a politician's peers and the public reach the conclusion that said politician just isn't worth it. But this one is clear. As reported in the Corner this afternoon, the House voted 402-1 today to open an investigation of the House Democratic leaders and their handling of ethical allegations concerning former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY). The question is a simple one: what did Nancy Pelosi know and when did she know it? The issue isn't just Mr. Massa's behavior and whether he violated House rules. That's bad enough for Speaker Pelosi and it conjures up images of the Mark Foley affair in 2006, which blew away whatever pretense the Republicans had then that they were fit to continue to govern. The Corner notes the comparison to the Foley affair in 2006, but this is worse: apparently Rep. Massa had hired young gay men, underpaid them, and required them to live in his home. As the article says: In hindsight, Democratic insiders wondered about activities that before had just seemed odd. They said Massa hired a surprisingly large percentage of young gay men, and paid them so little that staffers were forced to live in the house with him. Nor has the last shoe dropped. While the national media has soft-pedaled Mr. Massa's problems, newspapers are starting to jump on the story. Today's big article is in the New York Daily News, and editors around the country are texting their political reporters demanding that they 'match' the story. A feeding frenzy will start; it is one of the things the media is good at, and once started it will continue until the story, and the people behind the story, have been devoured. It is becoming clear that Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer and other key members of the Democratic leadership in the House were aware, at least to some extent, of Mr. Massa's problems and did nothing about it. Did they know about Mr. Massa's 'massages'? Did they know of his living arrangements? Did they know about his payroll and who was on it, and why? Did any of the staffers complain and if so, did that news reach the leadership? If so, what did they do about it? We don't know what they knew and didn't know, and so far other than the usual denials, no one is talking. That's the problem, and that's why today marks the first day of the end for Speaker Pelosi. The last day will come whenever the Speaker, and perhaps others in the Democratic Leadership, decide to put the House above their party and principle above politics, and resign their leadership positions. This will be painful for them and it will cost their party heavily in the midterm election, just as the Foley affair cost Republicans in 2006. More than just a sex scandal, the current affair puts into focus what is wrong with the House today, as surely as the Foley affair did in 2006. Greed. Corruption. Abuse of power. Abuse of process. These are age-old problems and too many times such stories are buried as just politics as usual, as 'inside baseball' for Washington. Sometimes it takes a sex scandal to make clear just how corrupt the current leaders are. This is such a time. Speaker Pelosi should resign now. She should make clear what she knew, how she failed her responsibilities, and step aside so that new leadership in her party can step forward and begin to fix the many problems in the House. The alternative is the water torture of the 24 hour news cycle, as drip, drip, drip the details will come out. That will be the end for her party. It will also be a warning to the other party should it win power. Politicians being who they are, the Republicans likely won't learn from the experience. Pity. Posted by: Steve White 2010-03-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=292396 |