Spiteful Pelosi cannot lead

I got an email from someone sneering about today’s vote, “…the republicans had their widdle feelings hurt and decided to punish the country rather than pass the bill…Pelosi should probably have played nicer, but the GOP acted like babies…”

First off – all the headlines are blaming the House Republicans for killing the bill – that is wholly predictable of the press – but it was The Pelosi’s own Democrats who backed away from the bill and kept it from passing. The Democrats could have done this on their own, and did not. If the bailout bill was everything good they said it was – and it was apparently good enough for the fearless leader Obama to claim all the credit for it – then Pelosi-the-Vicious should have had her usual lockstep results from her crew; she did not have that.

Secondly, Any regular reader of this column knows I have no great love for the GOP in either house, but I don’t know that I agree with the assessment that the party was out to “punish” the country. Perhaps instead they were trying to demonstrate something.

Pelosi got up there and insulted the very people whom she insisted give her political cover on a bill she said she WOULD NOT JUMP for without the GOP; she then proceeded to play politics and lambaste them. The GOP gave two messages with this vote:

The first to Pelosi: “don’t shit where you eat, and don’t poison your meal ticket…”

The second to the rest of us: “yes, this is urgent, but there is also some political opportunism at play, so read into that what you will….”

It should not be too much to expect the Speaker of the House, when she is looking for political cover from the right, to be able to suspend her hyperpartisan game-playing for one vote. She couldn’t do it. She shows herself to be no leader, and to have her priorities a bit screwed; she puts party before country. And her friends even before her party. After all, Democrats in challenged seats? She gave them a pass on the vote.

The Democrats have done nothing but gameplay, distort, politicize and misinform on this issue and within this process. The Congressional GOP is no bag of winners, but I’ve never seen a less competent, less wholesome, less trustworthy bunch than this crew assembled by Leader Pelosi.

Let them go back to the drawing board, and maybe – just maybe – this time Pelosi can manage to lead with a bit of maturity and civility and actually put the interests of her country before those of her party. I doubt it, actually. I don’t think she’s capable of it because I suspect she is deranged by her power and her hate, and her insecurity – which causes her to overcompensate – and maybe by something else, too.

Increasingly Vicious Pelosi reminds me of the chihuahua that used to sit on my neighbor’s porch and snarl at everyone in her rhinestone collar. We children used to wonder what it would be like to just walk up to that creature and boot her in the ass – to send her sailing across the road. But none of us had the nerve, or the stomach, to kick a dog.

The woman is incompetent, petty and unworthy of her high office. She should be made to step down. Put Hoyer in her place. I believe he’d manage to lead responsibly.

And now the House will not reconvene until Thursday. That’s some crisis, isn’t it? One they can take days off for?

Glenn Reynolds: If things get better over the next couple of days, it’ll make it harder to do a deal and make them look irrelevant; if things get worse it will make them look like they slacked off at a crucial time.

Allahpundit: Pelosi wins! Dems now get to make the bill as expensive and horrible as they want, and the GOP must vote for it. I dunno. Will The Pelosi add ACORN back to the mix? If she does, the GOP should – for once – come together in the sort of unity we routinely see from the Democrats, and say, “you want it this way? Now it’s all yours, honey!” Let her vote it in with her party, and face the consequences.

Dr. Mark Perry, Prof. of Economics & Finance at U. Michigan takes a look, makes a few graphs and wonders where is the credit crisis?

Yeah. And you know…if things get better without them, there’s the whole credibility issue. As if they have much, now.

David Berstein talks about the kind of speech you give, when you are in leadership, that matter is “urgent” and you want something from the other side. It was not the speech The Pelosi gave.

Meanwhile, Obama is still talking out of both sides of his mouth and still getting away with it. Go figure.

Related:
Small Dead Animals
AJ: Since Obama wanted all the credit, doesn’t he get all the blame?
Jeanette thinks there are some smoke and mirrors, too.
Ace is in a milder mood than me. He also notes that Barney Frank, who should be resigning his place on committee, also thought it was time to play more games.
Kim at Musing Minds has The Pelosi’s transcripts
Obi’s Sister says Impeach Pelosi! Well, hell, throw Reid and Frank into the mix, then.
Michelle Malkin: about as angry as I’ve ever read her
Megan McArdle Pelosi Screwed up. Big time.

Pelosi cut a deal in which, as far as I can tell, every single Republican in a safe seat had to vote yes so that the Democrats could maximize their no votes. Given that the Republican caucus is pretty much in open revolt, this was beyond moronic. She then spent a week openly and repeatedly blaming the Republicans and the Bush administration for the current crisis. The way she set things up, it was “Heads I win, tails you lose”: vote for the deal and I’ll paint you as heartless reactionaries bailing out your fat cat friends. If you’re going to do that, you’d better make sure you have some goddamn margin for error in your own party. She didn’t. Then she got up and delivered yet another speech blaming the Republicans for the bailout deal she was about to pass.

Perhaps this primer would be useful to the artless Mrs. Pelosi

Me? I praying.