Good for incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for saying "no" to letting Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., chair the House Intelligence Committee. She hasn’t named a chairman yet, though it apparently won’t be ranking member Rep. Jane Harmon, D-Calif., who is by far the most qualified. In passing up Hastings, Pelosi risks further alienating the Congressional Black Caucus, also unhappy with her treatment of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. But with all due respect to the caucus: Does it really want to hitch its credibility to that of an impeached federal judge (Hastings) and a guy who had $90,000 in his freezer (Jefferson)?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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53 Comments
Rhonda appears you are saying that it is ok for him to be a member of congress (with his illegal actions) but he is not able to me a chairman? Sounds like you are placing a double standard here. He was elected by his people (they knew what he had done) so they thought he was qualified to be in congress. But you want to pass judgment on him? Who do you think you are?
What’s the Right going to cry about now?
sts, is that you??
I’ll join Rhonda in supporting Ms. Pelosi for deciding not to appoint a former “judge for sale” to head the House Intelligence Committee. Really a no brainer though. He never should have even been considered.
Another Pelosi mistake. She just upset the Congressional Black Caucus.
Can we find RHonda another job? I mean she clearly is not cut out for objective journalism.
She’s over on another thread panting about seat belts. Then we get her here CLEARLY showing her right wing bias.
Rhonda? RIght wingers? And yes Nancy Pelosi too?
We WON the damn election! Let’s put in who we want on these commitees. I don’t give a frogs fat ass what the right thinks!
“Culture of corruption, Culture of corruption, Culture of corruption” screamed the left.
Now JR wants an impeached Federal Judge as head of the intelligence committee.
Here’s a hint JR. It’s the VOTERS.
JR: Surely you didn’t think Hastings a good choice! From a political standpoint, I would have loved to see Hastings appointed. It would have been open season on Pelosi. But as an American first, an impeached “judge for sale” is hardly who I want in that important position.
I think the Black Caucus has a credibility problem. It seems character doesn’t matter as long as you are Black (unless you are Clarence Thomas). They were even Clinton’s strongest supporters after he committed perjury (that’s lying under oath). Statistics would say that 90% of them think that OJ Simpson didn’t do it, also. Oh well. Typical Libs.
It’s not a surprise. In order to look at sensitive documents and attend sensitive hearings one has to have a security clearance. People that do security clearances would naturally exclude people that have compromised their jobs with bribe, graft or by other means.
Same would happen to any citizen applying for a sensitive job.
Evidently there may be more to the story than we are getting here about Hastings and the people re-elected him because maybe he was a better choice than his opponent.
Kind of like the joke about the cannibal elected governor of an island. When the reporter asked the people why they elected a cannibal to be governor and why weren’t they worried, the people replied, “Oh, he won’t eat us mon, he only eat non-citizens.”
The reported filed the story and has disappeared never to be heard from again.
fleettwood,
Is the accent on the first ‘t’, or the second one?
***********************************
I’ve refrained from commenting on the Hastings/Harman dust-up because I didn’t want to stray into a trap set by the media for Pelosi. And I’ll continue to do so.
Whoever Speaker Pelosi chooses, for whatever reason, is fine by me. I trust her judgment to select a Chair who will pursue the oversight responsibilities of the Committee, and will not be beholden to any special interests.
I say again:
Ms Pelosi has no freakin’ idea what she’s doing.
cf-All of the letters are silent.
Why don’t cannibals eat clowns?They taste funny!
Pelosi is really starting to piss me off.
She is SUPPOSED to be pissing off the stupid right wing. Anyone they disapprove of should automatically get appointed.
Elections have meaning.
KSGN,
That’s some penetrating and informed analysis. Thanks for sharing!
Occam’s razor.
Occam’s Razor be damned: I prefer the more complicated explanation.
After twelve years out of power in the House, there’s realigning to be done and constituencies to be placated. And the Democratic Party, as the more diverse and heterogenous of the two major parites, presents a more difficult set of managerial challenges than did the Republican Party in 1994.
Of course, the hysterical, Republican-dominated media really only knows how to report one storyline: “Democrats splintering!” To see how this is done, look to any story by the NYT’s Adam Nagourney. When it comes to other storylines, like “Republicans lie about WMD” or “GOP out of step with mainstream Americans,” not so much.
As for Pelosi, these battles have to play themselves out. She’s in an unenviable position, but I have no doubt that she’s the only one with balls big enough for the job.
More to the point, I think it makes sense to govern the Democratic Party from the nominal Left (where Pelosi actually is, rather than where DC shills try to place her on the ideological spectrum) and to try to manage the center, rather than governing from the center and trying to manage the Left. It’s easier to move toward the center from the Left than it would be to move toward the Left from the center. And if party activists like me on the Left aren’t kept in the loop, we can wreak havoc on all the “centrist” aspirations of the Blue Dogs.
The grassroots/netroots isn’t going to let itself be punked by the Democratic Party the way the religious evangelicals got punked by the Republicans. We were right about opposing the Iraq mess, right about defeating Bush’s attempt to destroy Social Security by “rescuing” it, and right about every other bullshit Bush “Administration” policy that supposedly “moderate” and “sensible” people were supposed to accept.
Nancy Pelosi has my full support. Once the legislative agenda gets underway, I think Democrats are going to remember that they once liked the taste of Republican blood. And that when they do, it can be good for the American people.
cf-Please ID who this “Republican dominated media” are. I find that facinating. Though the rest of your post was drivel.
Kinda funny how the Repubs screamed bloody murder when they were so sure Hastings would be Pelosi’s pick, but now that she’s by-passed him, they’re screaming about that.
Face it, Republicans and Conservatives, you aren’t going to agree with anyone she chooses unless it’s someone from YOUR party.
Karma, baby.
fleettwood,
When Mark Halperin of ABC goes on the record saying that his network hasn’t been “fair” to conservatives, that’s a pretty good sign that thirty years of being mau-mau’ed by the Right has done its trick.
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200611060008
The Right batters the media, and the media responds like a battered spouse. “Oh, I’m so clumsy: I gave myself that black eye,” becomes, in the mouths of media whores like Mark Halperin, “oh, we journalists are so liberal; we can’t help ourselves. It’s our fault that Republicans pick on us.”
Whenever I hear fleettwood and his ilk snivel about “liberal bias,” I conclude that the media must have actually done its job and reported something factual.
As for the ‘drivel’ remark, well, fleettwood, you obviously found my remarks interesting enough to read and respond to. That makes you a consumer of drivel. CF’s drivel, to be precise.
While this doesn’t precisely make you my bitch, it definitely puts you in the bitch seat.
Nancy Polosi said she would see to it there would be no corruption from her party in congress. She has started to do the right thing by bypassing morons who hide money in their freezer and accept bribes.
I guess the JRs of this country see it differently when they chide Nancy for not doing what got the repugs thrown out in the first place. Seems to me they want it both ways, but putting people whose morals are in doubt, in my opinion, is the right thing to do.
Part of this election was to change the status quo, not perpetuate it. JR, you need to get your collective together. The status quo as it is in washington today sucks.
My bad. It should read, putting people in power whose morals are in doubt is, in my opinion, is NOT the right thing to do, and Nancy seems to think so as well. Good for her.
cf-That was all very drivelly, but I think you made my point for me. You are the one who said the “Rebublican dominated media”. I asked for examples and got none.And what is this “bitch” talk? Are you Homosexual?, If so, that is OK.
fleettwood,
Read much? Then you MIGHT have seen the reference to Mark Halperin’s memo regarding the conscious effort to self-correct for a supposed “liberal” bias. It was in the message above, in there among the “drivel.” Thinking persons who have taken that as what CF meant by “Republican-dominated media.”
But if not, no matter! Here’s a leaked internal memo from Fox News VP John Moody.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sullivan40/297763007/
Takeaway line: the memo instructs Fox News employees to be “on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress.”
I likes the ladies, fleettwood. Maybe too much for my own good. But I’d say you’re now my bitch to the power of two. I’ve made my case and provided evidence, and you’re stuck in the ditch.
Ooops–should have read “thinking persons WOULD have taken that as what CF meant…”
Good to see that CF is back and in fine form.
I wonder who the right-wing shills are going to whine about now that both Murtha and Hastings have been scooted aside.
Rush O’Hannity Malkin Coulter will have to find new whipping boys, and their right-wing shills here on the WEBlog have to change their talking points yet again.
None of their worst fantasies about the left-wing takeover led by a SAN FRANCISCO! liberal seem to be panning out . . .
What you CONservatives should be worrying about are people like Tiahrt and Roberts. Tiahrt may have a chance in two years just because Wichita is so damn dumb. But Roberts is a dead man walking.
Once we find out all the rotten corpses he’s hidden as Intelligence Chair, the entire country is going to want his head on a pike.
cf-I am still waiting for evidence for what you call “The Republican Dominated Media”. By that do you mean:ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, CNN, NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Atlanta Journal, KC Star, Wichita Eagle?
or just Fox News & LimbaughOr is it the media used to be liberal and now they are not?It’s a miracle!
You want examples of Republican dominated media fleettwood?
Media IGNORED Gore’s March 1999 internet comment for two days.
Then the Repubs released attacks, and MSM rapidly spread those.By June 2, USA Today even falsely claimed that Gore had actually said “invented”.
If MSM was “liberal” (or functional) they would’ve explained how Gore’s work in Congress DID help “create” the Internet. He pushed development of fiber optics, supercomputers, networks, and software, like the Mosaic browser.
Media also spread (or failed to correct) the other false Republican attacks — farm chores, “fancy hotel”, ‘Love Story’, Willie Horton, Love Canal, etc.
Details and examples at,http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml
Nice try, but no deal, but thank you for reminding me. I will add USA Today and the Daily Howler.I checked them out on Wiki.I stand un-corrected.
Truly it is to laugh.
hotfleetwoodlicker vs. CF?
I saw a movie like that once. Bambi vs. Godzilla.
dusty? I can’t usually tell where you’re standing. Somewhere left of center my guess but still in the middle of the road. Hey I gotta be nice to you folks in the middle. There’s just as many like me on the other side. They aint gonna run over you to get at me. So I gotta not run ya down either.
You want cooperation? Ok. But see? Ya gotta have a beginning point.
Those folks on the other side? They gave us an $87 million land investigation that impeached a President for lying about a blow job. They gave us No CHild Left Behind and then to really twist the knife they didn’t fund it. They play fun games with words like welfare “reform” and “clear skies intiative”. They shilled a national tragedy to launch a more tragic war. I don’t need to go on.
Point is? Ya get nowhere with these folks by making nice. They don’t understand nice. Nice to them is an invitation to play run the truck over the road apple. They understand a smack or a sucker punch or a kick in the pants.
FIRST Pelosi and the Dems need to hand the repukes a big steaming plate of “yuck” and make ‘em clean the plate say thanks and ask for seconds. THEN she and the Dems can start with “Here is what we are gonna do and here is why you are on board.”
fleettwood,
Your denial of reality is impressive.
Right back at cha, DA
fleettwood,
The difference is, CF and I have proof, facts, media’s misquotes, and reality on our side.
The smear campaign against Gore, swift-boating of Kerry, puppy-dog treatment of Bush, etc. could NOT have happened if MSM was “liberal”.
All you have is denial — or ignorance and confusion. And name-calling.
I am finding this more interesting all the time. The fact that the MSM (the ones I have mentioned) are Lib is the way it is. It’s like argueing that the sky is not blue. I’m talking about the op-ed pages, not the news pages. Who did my suspects endorse? Have you counted the number of op-ed pieces that don’t agree with Bush policies?I haven’t either, but you know the answer. How about the study of the leanings of these people and it was something like 75% Lib?You can argue all you want. The “Republican Dominated Media” can be counted on one hand.
I read somewhere recently that the primary witness against Hastings recanted. Maybe one of the better searchers can find out just what is there.
Fleetwood,
You can’t refute the reality that MSM assisted RNC’s smear campaign against Gore, Kerry, etc. — so instead you post a vague “op-ed pages” are liberal argument?
That’s incredibly weak.
If, as you claim, 75% of MSM “leans” left, why did they assist the Repubs?
For example, Bush attacked Kerry, saying he did not support the troops because he voted against the $87 billion funding bill.
Why didn’t your “liberal” MSM strongly defend Kerry with the facts?* Bush threatened to VETO an earlier version of the $87 B. bill.* Kerry’s vote was only a protest, it had votes to pass.* Kerry’s criticisms of the bill that passed were valid.
JR, what I am is someone who believes that trying to emulate the repugs penchant for dirty tricks and calling it a “smack down” or any such nonsense is as about plain dumb. Revenge by any other name is still revenge.
I would hope the newly elected majority can see past that and start as a unified CLEAN congress. If that means not putting into leadership positions people who take bribe money and hide it in their freezers, or keeping elected officials who were impeached and removed from federal judgeship out of the money pit, I say, Nancy, you go girl.
Anything less is capitulating to the status quo. Why the hell do you think we are in Iraq for? Because just the republicans okeyed it? Status quo, JR, status quo. It has got to change before anything constructive can be accomplished by the new democrat leadership. Nancy, so far, seems to know that; and is practicing it.
It’s about redress dusty, not revenge.
The Republicans have almost totally destroyed 70 years of progress. They have done it in just 14 short years. You don’t correct that by calling a cease fire. This far no farther.
Also, we need to know how the lies were perpetrated to prevent recurrence. And, it would be nice to see the guilty brought to justice. After all, don’t we believe in personal responsibility for one’s actions?
Prove that the media is “liberal,” Hotwood.
Go on, let’s see what you got.
I provided two pieces of factual evidence for my claim, both of which fleettwood pretends not to have seen. Screw him. Who cares what he thinks?
Here’s Josh Marshall, making my claims about the DC-media’s having thrown in its lot with the Republican Party and with Bush.
If fleettwood can, you know, read and stuff, somebody ought to pass this along to him. Although it involves, you know, like thinking and stuff.
***********************************
“It really does seem as though the cardinals of DC punditry are constitutionally incapable of believing that George W. Bush has ever — in the real sense — gotten anything wrong or that they, the Washington establishment, has gotten anything wrong over the last six years.
I don’t like to use such words but I can only think to call the denial and buck-passing sickening. I can’t think of another word that captures the gut reaction.
Here’s the lede to Mort Kondracke’s new column in Roll Call (emphasis added) …
‘All over the world, scoundrels are ascendant, rising on a tide of American weakness. It makes for a perilous future.President Bush bet his presidency — and America’s world leadership — on the war in Iraq. Tragically, it looks as though he bit off more than the American people were willing to chew.
The U.S. is failing in Iraq. Bush’s policy was repudiated by the American people in the last election. And now America’s enemies and rivals are pressing their advantage, including Iran, Syria, the Taliban, Sudan, Russia and Venezuela. We have yet to hear from al-Qaida.’
Let’s first take note that the ‘blame the American people for Bush’s screw-ups’ meme has definitely hit the big time. It’s not Bush who bit off more than he could chew or did something incredibly stupid or screwed things up in a way that defies all imagining. Bush’s ‘error’ here is not realizing in advance that the American people would betray him as he was marching into history. The ‘tragedy’ is that Bush “bit off more than the American people were willing to chew.” That just takes my breath away.
Now come down to the third graf. Bush gets repudiated in the mid-term election … “And now …” In standard English the import of this phrasing is pretty clear: it’s the repudiation of Bush’s tough policies that have led to the international axis of evil states rising against us. Is he serious? The world has gone to hell in a hand basket since the election? In the last three weeks? The whole column is an open war on cause and effect.
This is noxious, risible, fetid thinking. But there it is. That’s the story they want to tell. The whole place is rotten down to the very core.”
– Josh Marshall
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com
**********************************
fleettwood is enough of a moron that I suspect most of this will go over his head. But for the rest of us, who are capable of understanding and accurately interpreting what we see, I think Josh Marshall gets it pretty accurately. And it ain’t pretty.
“You don’t correct that by calling a cease fire. This far no farther.”
Bulls**t. You still want the samo-samo, only with the democrats in charge. It’s revenge, pure and simple, and I wouldn’t expect anything else from you.
What you do is rise above the petty bs and start from scratch with people of integrity. The two Nancy bypassed lack same. Why would any moron want to “get back” at the republicans. Isn’t this country split enough? Or are you not satisfied until it is split to the breaking point?
Correcting wrongs is one thing, what you apparently want is revenge, not redress.
O, excuse me, I forgot this country was made up of asswipes who sue at the drop of a hat, and call revenge, “closure.” Rising above the frey would be too “beneath” them. I sadly get it now.
Dusty–
Chill, my friend. The Democrats can’t do what the RepubliCONs do.
We just don’t have the heart for it . . .
If we did, we would have impeached Reagan for lying under oath about funding the Contras in an illegal and immoral war against the duly-elected government of Nicaragua.
The Dems looked at what was best for the country, not what was best for the party. Nevermind that the reich-wing came back just a few years later with the Willie Horton ad.
BTW, the man who gave us the Willie Horton ad, Roger Ailes, now runs the Fox Network.
“Liberal media,” Fleettttwood?
Oh, yeah, you betcha . . .
Chaps?
Republicans HAVE no integrity. I gave you examples.
capn-Fox News is on the list of Conservative Media and I’ll add Washington Times and Wall Street Journal. The list of Lib Media is a long one as I’ve already stated.
fleettwood,
If, as you claim, 75% of MSM “leans” left, why did they assist the Repubs?
For example, Bush attacked Kerry, saying he did not support the troops because he voted against the $87 billion funding bill.
Why didn’t your “liberal” MSM strongly defend Kerry with the facts?* Bush threatened to VETO an earlier version of the $87 B. bill.* Kerry’s vote was only a protest, it had votes to pass.* Kerry’s criticisms of the bill that passed were valid.
Give us a logical answer — or admit you’re wrong — or slink away.
The Lib media endorsed Kerry for President.The End
fleettwood,
How do few endorsements (a few weeks before the election) make up for allowing Kerry to be falsely attacked during many MONTHS of the campaign? That’s not logical.
The answer is that much of corporate media is dysfunctional, and lazy.
Rhonda Holman (header),
“…though it apparently won’t be ranking member Rep. Jane Harmon, D-Calif., who is by far the most qualified.”
Looking at Harman’s past record, I’d say she’s the most UNqualified.
‘Hire Harman for Chair of Intelligence? No, Nancy, No.’http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcy-winograd/hire-harman-for-chair-of-_b_34725.html
It appears that the right-led MSM took a slight turn during the Katrina problem. It was the one time I actually saw any of them question this administration. They, have, however, returned to the straight and narrow right-thinking.
JR,”Republicans HAVE no integrity. I gave you examples.”
Just wtf does that have to do with anything? They lost, we won. I could care less about examples. I think we all know what this admin has done to split the country. Is perpetuating the bs they did going to improve anything? Is dropping down to their level going to improve anything? Is cowtowing to extremeist groups going to improve anything?
JR, you ain’t going to be satisfied with the leadership in this country until you can personally bend the leaders ears to your beck and call. You want the country unionized but don’t want corporations. Kinda can’t have one without the other, can you. You want government involved with everyday life, but don’t like politicians who do it. You were all for nancy Polosi, but when she shows she has her own mind, and not some wing-ding groups, all of a sudden she pisses you off. I don’t think you know where you stand, and I guess in all reality, I really don’t care. And ain’t that a shame.