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| --Tech & Moderator Notes |
| The beginning of the end for Nancy Pelosi (Rantburg Op-Ed) |
| 2010-03-12 |
| by Steve White Moderator, 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 |
| #20 Even keeping her seat (likely) is no guarantee she'll still be Speaker. I hope she gets tossed back into the crowd. Not that Hoyer would be much improvement. I'm hoping for a Republican Speaker. Time to seriously get up on our hind legs. |
| Posted by: mojo 2010-03-12 12:05 |
| #19 She will slip thru da cracks in her botox.. |
| Posted by: crazyhorse 2010-03-12 11:32 |
| #18 Hope you are right doc. We need a good spring cleaning or fall if we have to wait. This woman is like a cat; nine political lives. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-03-12 09:58 |
| #17 The story was on Good Morning America when I woke up -- including the bit about Speaker Pelosi's office knowing about it last October. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-03-12 09:50 |
| #16 "Think about it: if I were Pelosi and I had that kind of dirt on a Congresscritter, he'd damned sure be voting 'yes'. He'd be my bitch until I decided I was done with him." Exactly. Consider this, Massa was a freshman congressman, ultra progressive, gay, and a flake. A safe assumption is he’s one of Nancy’s “retards” Rham was talking about. Damn…if she can’t whip that cat…suppums zup. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2010-03-12 09:33 |
| #15 Dr. Steve, this is the single best commentary on this affair I have seen--and I'm an op-ed junkie, so I've seen a lot. Well done. |
| Posted by: Mike 2010-03-12 06:48 |
| #14 Couple of Nancy quotes: Upon becoming the Speaker of the House -- the most ethical Congress ever. Today, saying about Massa, "poor baby, poor baby Pelosi appeared on Bloomberg to discuss Massa. Said Pelosi: "This is a sad case...This is a very sick person. He has been diagnosed with cancer. Perhaps his judgment is impaired because of the ethical issues that have arisen and he is no longer in the Congress. Poor baby. Poor baby. Sometimes we really exagerrate our own importance in a lot of these things." |
| Posted by: Sherry 2010-03-11 22:25 |
| #13 Oh, and if you were wondering Mr. Racalto worked for The Honorable Mr. Frank from 1996 when he began his congressional servicinge and by 2001 he was earning $36,000 per year, rising to $50,000 per year in 2008, whereupon he moved under The Honorable Mr. Massa at $135,000. *sublimely happy sigh* Gorgeous use of the sarcastic honourable, devastating use of the curve of the salary over time, and the double entendre is simply to die for. I give it a nine point nine nine repeating out of ten, Mr. Spemble. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-03-11 22:11 |
| #12 Drudge bats from the opposite side of the plate IYKWIMAITYD Teh Ghey stories hit too close to home for fun for him |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-03-11 20:51 |
| #11 Lex: I would agree that DeLay/Abramhoff was the bigger issue for a lot of people. What the Foley affair did was crystalize matters for a fair number of voters in 2006 who hadn't really been following along. They were disgusted but didn't know why, and one financial/insider scandal sounds like another. Then a sex scandal came along. That grabbed the attention of those who hadn't been following, and gave them a perfectly acceptable reason to vote against the Pubs. Will the Massa affair do the same to the Democrats? Don't know. People are far angrier than they were in 2006, as witness the Tea Parties. But it's still early in the election process, so Massa may be nothing more than old news and a sick joke by November. no mo uro: Yep, it does look that way, doesn't it. Massa was tolerated until he went off the reservation. Now that his vote isn't reliable he's being tossed. The problem with that theory is that it does seem that this was coming to a head (as it were); Massa's problems were going from rumor to insider news to more open circulation. He may have been tossed under the bus because well, they couldn't wait any longer. Think about it: if I were Pelosi and I had that kind of dirt on a Congresscritter, he'd damned sure be voting 'yes'. He'd be my bitch until I decided I was done with him. That's the smarter play. Nimble: I was wondering why there wasn't a peep from Drudge. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2010-03-11 20:38 |
| #10 The MSM has been absolutely silent on another almost unanimous vote in the US House today--the Impeachment of a federal judge in Louisiana! Not a word. They really DO NOT the word impeachment being mentioned in public right now. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-03-11 20:00 |
| #9 Never underestimate the Democrats' capacity for circling the wagons around their ideological friends. The only reason that Massa fellow was forced out was he threatened a NO on their precious Healthcare takeover of Government bill. (And yes: I meant it that way.) |
| Posted by: eLarson 2010-03-11 19:37 |
| #8 Disagree, Doc. This like Foley is small potatoes. The big scandal that brought down the GOP was DeLay-Abramoff. The Dems aren't there yet. |
| Posted by: lex 2010-03-11 19:17 |
| #7 Dr White, you forgot to mention the most nefarious aspect of this whole affair. This guy's behavior was not enough to make the leadership move him along UNTIL it became apparent that he wasn't going to vote for socialized healthcare. That fact could take us in several different directions, but NONE of them are good. Nancy Pelosi will already go down as the worst Speaker in the history of the republic, but she can salvage whatever shred of goodness (if she even cares about such things) possible by leaving ASAP. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2010-03-11 18:22 |
#6 Couldn't find who the 1 was. The resolution isn't even on Thomas yet! Imagine that! But this didn't take long:The Washington Post reported Thursday that staff in the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., were told in October of concerns that Massa "was living with several young, unmarried male staffers and using sexually explicit language with them.'' Oh, and if you were wondering Mr. Racalto worked for The Honorable Mr. Frank from 1996 when he began his congressional servic |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-03-11 17:43 |
| #5 Great catch, Dr. White. Interesting that Drudge hasn't picked this up. It would be too bad if Barney Frank got caught up in this scandal, too. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-03-11 17:14 |
| #4 Who was the 1? |
| Posted by: DoDo 2010-03-11 17:10 |
| #3 the House voted 402-1 today Wow. Just... wow. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-03-11 16:39 |
| #2 I hope you're right, Doc, but I doubt you are. Pelosi has proven many times that she has no problemw with lying and cover-ups. She screwed the CIA - did that really bite her? Not so much that I know. I am hoping that demise of the healthcare bills will be the political end of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama. But I'm not holding my breath. |
| Posted by: Spot 2010-03-11 16:34 |
| #1 Political opportunity is a repeated theater in history. The excuse found to be used rather then the most direct approach for action. Way too many pols know they're literally one step ahead of the real pitchforks and tar. Many proverbial rats have been literally jumping the ship. This provides the 'excuse' for the survivalist Donks on the Good Ship Congress to for an inparty coup. Will they take it? BTW - the 'Ides of March' are just a few days way. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-03-11 16:30 |