Pelosi to be new Speaker of the House!

In what was apparently a unanimous vote behind closed doors, Democrats elected the current Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi (D. CA) to be the new Speaker of the House when the Democrats formally take control of the US House of Representatives in January. However that apparently was where the unanimity ceased. For much of Thursday the rancor continued as Dem's remained divided over whom to elect as the new Majority Leader. Would it be John Murtha, whom Nancy Pelosi was personally supporting and engaging in a lot of "arm twisiting" to get elected, or would it be Steny Hoyer, the moderate from Maryland who has had a contentious relationship with Pelosi in the past and has opposed her on more than one occasion. As it turned out, Steny Hoyer got the nod by a vote margin of 149-86 and this despite Pelosi all but threatening the incoming freshmen Democrats with the committee assignments that they were requesting, which she as Speaker exclusively controls (Quote from Time.com article "Dems tell Pelosi she needs to follow, not just lead": Congressman Steny Hoyer, the man what had waited in line for the job, gave Pelosi's candidate John Murtha a thumpin', as the President might have put it. That there was even a fight at all, however, is because of Pelosi. Against all precedent and good sense, she stepped into the election with not only an endorsement of her longtime ally, but a shocking strong-arm campaign to win the job for him. She all but told incoming freshmen: "That's a nice little committee assignment you're asking for. It would be a shame if anything happened to it."). Murtha is the hawkish Pennsylvania Democrat who supported the Iraq Invasion in 2003 and then in 2005 did a complete 180 and called for the swift "redeployment" (call it retreat) of our troops and him a former Marine. He is also, unfortunately for him, still tied to the Abscam Sting of 1980 in which he was the only Congressman not charged for taking a bribe (which he turned down by the way) from undercover FBI agents posing as agents for a Saudi Sheik seeking investment opportunities and to live in the US. He was offered $50,000 and was recorded as saying: "I am not interested ... at this time". A Grand Jury declined to indict him and a House Ethics panel took no action against him. He is also one of the few Democrats that is Pro Life and Pro Gun (much to his credit). In the end, this probably worked against him as many of the more liberal elements of the Democrats in the House and the incoming Freshmen Class of newly elected Democrats found this aspect of him uncomfortable and supported Hoyer.

Now I am kind of torn. I blasted Murtha in my previous post because on the one hand he denounced Pelosi's and the Democrats Ethic's Reform proposal as "total crap" and yet said that he would support it any way because that is what Pelosi wanted, making him look like a suck-up, and an "ass kisser" just to get elected as Majority Leader. On the other hand while he is far to the left of me on a lot of issues, at least he is generally pro-military (as a veteran myself I appreciate that), and he is solidly pro-life and apparently opposed to gun control - issues that are near and dear to my heart. However, he is still a "Master Politician" who apparently will play loose and free when it comes to ethics (even though he was never indicted or sanctioned by the House for Abscam), he apparently will support whoever will be the most supportive of him even if he does not agree with them, even when it may not be the right thing to do (his support of the Ethics Reform proposal despite his denunciation of it) and he will without hesitation sling mud and hurl invectives at his opponents just to get the votes he needs to win (his accusation against Hoyer as being in lockstep with Bush since the beginning on Iraq). The problem is that most of the politicians we elected and re-elected in the Midterm on all levels of government (local, State and Federal) are just like John Murtha, Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi. If you ask them why, they will most likely respond "Well, that's the nature of the game". I don't think of it as a game. In the next election lets elect some people that really care about the United States, its people, and their individual constituents. Throw da bums out!