Redstate

There's an old saying that "No one is completely useless; they can always be used as a bad example."

You know that old saying about what to do when you see an enemy about to commit suicide?

Well, you think that might apply to faction fights, too?

we need to have her in front of a camera at all times, the more she talks the better.

...my thought is that there are people who aren't Republicans who would want that to happen, and for precisely the same reason as you.

Smagar -- haven't you read the memo?  Do NOT blow our Lord Rove's deep-cover mole in the DNC!!!

-TS

Lord Rove Sidius to you Sophist. And don't you forget it, or he'll attenuate you with his sith mind rays.

yes, that's a movie reference too.

-TS

I have been wondering what is up with that face. I though maybe  she had that terrible affliction that causes your skin to freeze. I just never understand why people just don't age with grace. If it is an illness that is too bad, but if it is not dealing with the reality of age and gravity it says something.

1.  People Are Stupid

    1. You are stupid

    2. I am stupid

    3. Everybody else is stupid

2. There are two types of (stupid) people:

    1. Those who are aware of the fact that People Are Stupid

    2. Those who are oblivious to this fact

3. Those who are aware of Stupidity have an advantage

    1. They can more effectively deal with the stupidity of others

    2. They can be on guard against their own stupidity

4. Everyone should be understanding of the stupidity of others

    1. Since I am stupid, I should forgive others who are stupid

    2. Because Stupidity is a part of the human condition, it cannot be helped

This causes me to think that there must be something to the demind side theory to economics, because there certainly seems to be some validity to the demand side theory of stupidity.

She has that frozen face of most Hollywood, Beverly Hills matrons. Why they let her on national TV to speak for them is the question of the year. I never thought they could find someone who makes Dick Gephardt seem like a fireball.

Going on the assumption that the moonbats indeed haven't taken over the Democratic Party, then there must be reasons why the rational, calculating element of the Party would want Nancy Pelosi front and center for them.  

Playing "Red Fred," and imagining myself as a DNC operative, these are the benefits I would posit from having Nancy Pelosi as the Minority Leader:

1. She pleases the moonbats, and keeps them energized.
   
   
2. She's good at keeping the rest of the House Democrats in line.
   
   
3. She's a good strategist in terms of getting things accomplished within the rules/procedures of the House of Representatives.

But, that doesn't explain why the Dems keep putting her front-and-center before the news media.  I see her more than I do Speaker Hastert.  

Seems to me the Dems don't HAVE to put Pelosi front-and-center.  She didn't, for example, have to give the Democratic response to the State of the Union.  They could have had a more PR-savvy figure, like Hillary, do it.  They could also pressure her to limit her appearance before national media, and instead focus on speeches before the faithful (e.g., MoveOn.Org rallies), which draw less media attention.  In other words, they could be maximizing whatever benefits she offers as a Queen of the Moonbats and House Democratic disciplinarian, while minimizing the risks she poses of Foot In Mouth In Front of MSM Microphones Disease.

But, they don't seem to be.

The easy answer is that the Dem leadership agrees with Pelosi, and thinks she's doing the right thing.  I hope that's the case.  If it is, I relish the 2006 battle for Congress.  

But, I think it's dangerous for us to presume that our opponents have all gone batty.  I can't imagine that the saner side of the Democratic party--HRC, Lieberman, Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad--see no peril in their party becoming percieved as the party of Kos, Dean and Moonbat Pelosi.  What else might they have up their sleeve?

From my admittedly uninformed vantage point, the costs of having Nancy Pelosi as House Democratic leader and leading spokeswoman of the Democratic movement far outweigh the benefits Red Fred listed above.

What am I missing?

Moe hit on it upthread. The DLC wing of the party needs to break the back of the Kurse/MoveOn/Moore wing of the party. Think short term loss for long term gain (although I think their short term losses will be longer than they think).

The only logical explanation is that the DLC wing, the Sane Democrats, are playing a triangulation game.

They know that one of the most effective epithets against Democratic candidates for national office is "Liberal".  They want to have HRC take the White House in 2008; they've gone so far as to produce a TV series to lay the groundwork.

One of the things that HRC will need in order to do the "I'm A Centrist" thing is to have a foil, a true, easily-recognized Liberal, against which she can emphatically disagree.

If she does so vs. MoveOn.org and DKos and DU and the Moonbats, she's demeaning herself.  She's the Senator from NY; she can't be seen to be arguing with a bunch of bloggers.  But if she does so vs. the Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, then she's got the right game going.

HRC and the DLC wing may have decided to let the Party be seen as the Party of MoveOn, so that when HRC repudiates it in three years, she will be seen as being "non-partisan", a "unifier", and so on.  Because they recognize that no matter how "centrist" HRC moves, the base of the Democratic party, the Moonbat-wing, will not abandon her for a Republican.  They recognize that their party is so desperate to get back into power that their faithful would never, never, never consider voting for a Republican, or even a Third Party candidate (Ralph) who splits the Dem vote.  

HRC needs to appeal to the moderates who went for Bush in 2004, and in order to do that, she must have a Sister Souljah moment with an authority figure widely perceived as Liberal.

-TS

Doesn't it still strike anyone as a little out of touch to ask, "What didn't go right?".

that even if it did happen the way Pelosi described, he may have just been asking for her views on what went wrong? Bush has been faulted before for not listening to dissenters, maybe this time he just wanted her input?

Now was the emphasis on "what" as in "What didn't go right?" or was it on "didn't" as in "What didn't go right?".

Pelosi:  I think it was on "go".

suggests to you that they would ever be that canny and well-coordinated?

You know that when plastic woman shows up at the White House she and Bush greet each other like Seinfeld and Newman.

But seriously, you expect the President to just say 'Oh my gosh Nance, you're totaly right.  Why didn't I think of that.  Quick, to the bat phone and fire him."

Instead, the President asked her to back up her position.  Shocking, I know, to dare to ask her to actually have facts at hand.  Saying 'Because' is supposed to stop working when you are about 5, but apparently that doesn't deter her at all.

Howard Dean is one example I can think of.

-TS

is to take Pelosi's version of the tale at face value.

I also think it's fair to want Pelosi to spell out what she thinks went wrong.

Perhaps she'll point out the bombshell Paul Krugman dropped in the NYT this week.  You know--the one about the USS Bataan the Navy ship with lots of medical assets that didn't get fully and quickly utilized in the relief effort?

But, it did

If we are to believe Pelosi, she referenced the poor response (which, whomever is at fault, is fairly well acknowledged by both sides) in response to the President asking why Brown should be fired.

Bush's response, on one reading (and apparently the reading Pelosi took), could be taken as expressing an ingorance or denial that there was anything wrong at all with the way Katrina had been handled.  You read it differently, as Bush asking Pelosi's opinion on specifics.  I'll stay away from how badly that would violate Bush's modus operandi, and simply say we're interpreting it differently.

If she is to be believed, though, this is the kind of ambiguity that would normally be cleared up almost right away through subsequent discussion.  And if Bush was being genuine, I'm sure Pelosi wouldn't be the type to turn down a request for advice from the Prez.  After all, she gives/rants advice to him all the time from the floor, and then without an invitation.

if she keeps giving interviews like this .  

To CNN, no less

PELOSI LOSES IT [Jonah Goldberg]

On CNN. Partial transcript. Th fun kicker is bolded at the end:

KYRA PHILLIPS: Just another reality check. Congresswoman Pelosi, as we continue to follow, of course this developing information coming in. The hardest part. And I think it's far from over. We are going to continue to hear about people that have been trapped. I mean, you are talking about such a swath of a region here. It's just hard to listen to that, and to have to talk about that. And no doubt, it will be never ending. But I want to ask you, as you stand here and continue to criticize the administration, and criticize the director of FEMA, I do want to tell you the White House coming forward today. Scott McClellan coming forward today, and basically disputing your account of your meeting with the president. And I'm looking at it here saying that, you said you urged the president to replace the embattled FEMA director because of the poor emergency response to Hurricane Katrina. Um, however, McClellan saying that this is, that that's not what you discussed with the president. That you were discussing other things with the president, and that things are being twisted here.

REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: That's absolutely not true. Mr. McClellan wasn't there. So he couldn't possibly know. What happened was, I said to the president, Mr. President, we can begin to help these victims of Katrina become whole again. First thing you can do is to replace Michael Brown as the head of FEMA. To which the president said, why would I do that? And I said, because of what happened last week. And the failure of FEMA to be the real link between the federal government and the people in need in our country. The social compact to which the president said, what didn't go right last week? That's what happened in the meeting. I stand by that. If the president thinks everything went right last week, and he wants to keep Michael Brown there, then I think that's going to be a cost to the American people and livelihood. But if he wants to then say that it didn't go right last week, then he should replace Michael Brown.

PHILLIPS: But if we go back. I mean, we can go back year after year after year and we can talk about FEMA. And what went wrong within FEMA. And should FEMA be under the Department of Homeland Security. But if we want to be historical here, and we want to go back in time, I mean, we can go back to the Times-Picayune and the investigation that when reporters revealed that time after time, moneys were asked for from all types of various politicians. And politicians you worked side by side with. And laws that you yourself vote on, and moneys that should have gone to Louisiana to take care of the problems with regard to the flood control systems. And I think it's unfair that FEMA is just singled out. There are so many people responsible...what has happened in the state of Louisiana.

REP. PELOSI: That is true. And I'm sorry that you think it's unfair. But I don't. I think it's unfair to the people who lost their family members, their live, their livelihoods, their homes, their opportunity. And FEMA has done a poor job. It had no chance.

PHILLIPS: What about all the warnings from the Army Corps of Engineers? Years ago. Saying there's a problem with these levees and with this city.

REP. PELOSI: Kyra --

PHILLIPS: It's Kyra.

REP. PELOSI: If you want to make a case for the White House, go on their payroll.

Moonbat Nancy Pelosi, and Race-baiting Howard Dean.  I eagerly look forward to the 2006 campaigns, when I can look Democrat supporters in the eye and ask "Are these the kinds of people you think are qualified to lead the country.  Would you like people with ideas and judgement like this to lead the country?"

Yeah...bring on 2006

Yeah, but when it comes to stupidity, Pelosi is a supply-sider.

What am I missing?

They probably put her on TV because she insists on it. The question is, why is she in a position to insist on such a thing? How did she even get that job? I say she has pictures of somebody in bed with a chicken.

somebody in bed with her.

I'll stay away from how badly that would violate Bush's modus operandi

It doesn't at all. Right after he was inaugurated, the press gleefully reported that Bush held a meeting with the Joint Chiefs in which he asked, "Why do we have a military?"

The press would have us believe that he asked this because he doesn't know. Feh. This is a standard question to find out who in this place can think.

Playing possum with a question like, "Really? What went wrong?" is how you separate the people who are ranting from the ones who know something you don't. That is exactly Bush's style.

OK, ya got me. I laughed out loud.

when HRC does her Sister Souljah thing with Pelosi and carries the moderates along on a manufactured centrist platform.

-TS

that turned on Howard Dean and took him out.

The constant replays of the scream by all of the media, including or especially the MSM, did the trick.

Did I not say the DLC wing of the Democratic party already?

=D

-TS

Please extol us with your intimate knowledge of exactly how Bush thinks, acts, or operates in his daily management of the WH, Cabinet, and Executive Branch.

Or, you must be a Member of Congress and have been personally lobbied by him so you know his style.

No, wait, you are a Texas legislator who had numerous interactions with him during his tenure as Governor.

No, none of these?  So how exactly do you know his 'modus operandi' so well?  Ah, yes.  The media.  Those neutral, dispassionate observers of all they survey.

Please.

of his colon.

which movie?

However, I am still confused by your equating the DLC wing of the Democratic party with the MSM. Which tv station or newspaper does the DLC own?  I know the MSM parrots the Democrats talking points and serves as their attack dog against Republicans, but I am unaware of any ownership by the DLC in a MSM venture.

Howard Dean appeared to be the MSM darling during the early part of the campaign. Then they found out how vapid he really was. Every media source seemed to turn on him overnight. He was like a shark who gets bitten during a feeding frenzy and becomes dinner himself.

when you can have the milk for free?

Do you really think the MSM "turned on" Dean because they found out how vapid he was?  That doesn't exactly explain how they've come to re-embrace the man today.

No, Dean was judged 'unelectable' by the Democrat elites (the folks I equate with the DLC wing), and their MSM attack dogs went to work on him.

At least, that's my take on that situation.  YMMV.

-TS