Speaker Pelosi went to Netroots Nation, but mostly to stonewall and lie. Here's Smintheus:
The first question was about "inherent contempt": Why hasn't Congress used its power of inherent contempt to jail current and former members of the Bush administration who have ignored Congressional subpoenas? The Speaker talked instead about the failure of the Justice Department to pursue the complaint that the House has sent DOJ. Asked a second time about inherent contempt, and specifically when the House would "put [Karl Rove] into that little cell down in the basement", Speaker Pelosi responded that committee chairs have said they will take care of the matter. Congressman John Conyers, she said, asked her to leave it to him.
Bulls**t. Conyers doesn't blow his nose without asking Pelosi's permission.
The next subject was the FISA bill. Speaker Pelosi said that Democrats will revisit the issue in the next Congress with a larger majority, and try to undo the damage done by the recent law. She shifted the blame for the FISA fiasco to the Senate for sending the House a bad bill. "We had no options," she said. The bill actually enacted was sent to the Senate by the House, however, not the reverse.
Two questions, two lies. Pathetic - but that's Pelosi. Pachacutec blames Steny Hoyer, the power behind Pelosi's throne:
She's a weak Speaker with a serious internal challenge to her authority from the Maryland conservative Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who is very popular among House Dems. He's there for them and he's a very able manager. He staffs their offices and raises money for them religiously.
Better to run out the clock and talk about "expanding our universe" (whuh?) than acknowledge the knives at your back and the fact that Democrats in the House do not believe as we, or the majorities of people in the country, do.
The shortest solution is an organizing solution, and it sounds like the long road. . . but it's the short road. We need to get better at grassroots candidate recruitment and training, starting this November.
We can't not do it.
Exactly.
