Crazy Nancy Cashing In
Well, allegedly:
Here is a sterling example - of Republican incompetence. First of all, why wait until two weeks after this bill passes with 94% support to point out that Pelosi seems to have a gaping conflict of interest nested smack in the middle of it? D'ya think that maybe, just possibly, if this conflict had been shouted from the rooftops while the bill was being debated, the minority could have made enough of an issue of the Speakerette lining her hubby's pockets to at least get some genuine PR mileage from it, and maybe even stop the bill altogether?
But more importantly, why bring up facts in an ethics accusation? What has been the Left's MO in such gambits for years? "It's not the absence of evidence, it's the seriousness of the charge." For the love of God, don't concede ANYTHING - just make the charge, keep making it, get the entire GOP caucus to making it, shout it long and loud enough to bulldoze that neoBolshevik Nora Desmond reject right back to the city by the gay, er, BAY. And you keep right on making accusations until the entire Donk legislative junta is so tied in knots that they can't even think about going after the hapless Bush Administration.
Ambitious, er, ambitions, to be sure. But if you don't aim high, you'll never get off the ground - or out of the minority.
Here is what Representative Hensarling should have said:
"The absence of hard evidence that [Crazy Nancy] is setting herself up as a robber baronness is sufficiently ominous that it warrants a full-scale investigation of her finances, and necessitates that she step aside as Speaker until a determination of the extent of her ethical crimes can be made."
Republicans on both sides of the Hill then use every parliamentary gimmick in the book to grind the 110th Congress to a zero-degrees-Kelvin halt, and keep it paralyzed, until the Democrats are driven into retreat. It's the only thing that may save the country from the leftward slide in which it is obliviously ensnared.
That's what Republicans should do. What they did do is kinda-sorta half-heartedly try to shut the stall door after the horse pooped on their shoes, galloped away to another state, sired several foals, and watched each one of them win the Triple Crown in succession. And while they were doing so they doubtless dutifully dined on their own earmarks, thrown to them like table scraps to a mongrel from the ruling Donk table.
Being in the minority is definitely habit-forming. Just not for Democrats. Small wonder Crazy Nancy didn't so much as blink. As bug-eyed as she is, I doubt she even can.
Republicans are accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of including a provision in a water redevelopment bill that could benefit property her husband owns in San Francisco.
Aides to the San Francisco Democrat denied any connection, noting that the waterfront improvements were requested by the Port of San Francisco and the four rental properties in question are at least a mile away.
Republicans, who raised the issue more than two weeks after the bill passed the House, offered no evidence of benefit to Paul Pelosi's real estate holdings.
"I don't have any facts to say anything untoward has been done here," said Representative Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the Republican Study Committee.
"She should explain to the American people what the earmark is all about and convince people there's no financial benefit to her," he said.
John Hart, a spokesman for Senator Tom Coburn, R-OK, said that "on its face it appears to be a conflict of interest."
Pelosi's project was part of the $15 billion Water Resources Development Act that passed the House April 19 by 394-25 and pays for hundreds of projects around the country.
Pelosi's measure would authorize $25 million to improve San Francisco port areas, and also would put some areas off limits to navigation so cruise ships could dock.
Her investor husband gets rental income from four buildings in a nearby commercial district.
Here is a sterling example - of Republican incompetence. First of all, why wait until two weeks after this bill passes with 94% support to point out that Pelosi seems to have a gaping conflict of interest nested smack in the middle of it? D'ya think that maybe, just possibly, if this conflict had been shouted from the rooftops while the bill was being debated, the minority could have made enough of an issue of the Speakerette lining her hubby's pockets to at least get some genuine PR mileage from it, and maybe even stop the bill altogether?
But more importantly, why bring up facts in an ethics accusation? What has been the Left's MO in such gambits for years? "It's not the absence of evidence, it's the seriousness of the charge." For the love of God, don't concede ANYTHING - just make the charge, keep making it, get the entire GOP caucus to making it, shout it long and loud enough to bulldoze that neoBolshevik Nora Desmond reject right back to the city by the gay, er, BAY. And you keep right on making accusations until the entire Donk legislative junta is so tied in knots that they can't even think about going after the hapless Bush Administration.
Ambitious, er, ambitions, to be sure. But if you don't aim high, you'll never get off the ground - or out of the minority.
Here is what Representative Hensarling should have said:
"The absence of hard evidence that [Crazy Nancy] is setting herself up as a robber baronness is sufficiently ominous that it warrants a full-scale investigation of her finances, and necessitates that she step aside as Speaker until a determination of the extent of her ethical crimes can be made."
Republicans on both sides of the Hill then use every parliamentary gimmick in the book to grind the 110th Congress to a zero-degrees-Kelvin halt, and keep it paralyzed, until the Democrats are driven into retreat. It's the only thing that may save the country from the leftward slide in which it is obliviously ensnared.
That's what Republicans should do. What they did do is kinda-sorta half-heartedly try to shut the stall door after the horse pooped on their shoes, galloped away to another state, sired several foals, and watched each one of them win the Triple Crown in succession. And while they were doing so they doubtless dutifully dined on their own earmarks, thrown to them like table scraps to a mongrel from the ruling Donk table.
Being in the minority is definitely habit-forming. Just not for Democrats. Small wonder Crazy Nancy didn't so much as blink. As bug-eyed as she is, I doubt she even can.
posted by JASmius at 9:01 PM
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