Posted by
Bullfrog on Saturday, October 20, 2007 1:32:09 PM
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made an uncharacteristic move in taking Pete Stark to task over an attack comment that was too over-the-top even for her.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rebuked a fellow
San Francisco Bay-area liberal Friday for what she said were
"inappropriate" comments about Iraq during a congressional debate. During a debate on children's health care Thursday, Rep. Pete Stark accused Republicans of sending troops to Iraq to "get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."
It's quite a stretch to equate children's health care with military personnel deployed in a foreign war. It seems as though Stark was just waiting for an opportunity, however tenuous or tangential to the topic at hand, to get in his jab at the current administration. However, I don't think that's what set off Pelosi's radar. I believe she has her eyes on the prize, so to speak--namely the 2008 election, and the day when her party returns to power (assuming that actually happens, which is way too early to predict).
My take on Pelosi's public rebuke to Stark is that she wants her fellow snipers to shut up for the time being, and save such stabs for when they are germane to the topic at hand. She knows the polls show that Congress has a lower approval rating than Bush among the American public, which speaks volumes. It's her job to try to project a good image for her party and for Congress as a whole. She's doing a really lousy job of it, and she knows it. That, I think, is why she's trying to bring back some sanity to what her colleagues say, when, in public.
Is it a matter of her being the control freak that she is? Of course it is. She's out to win the 2008 election for her party, and if she has to stifle a fellow San Franciscan uber-liberal who spoke out of line, then so be it. I must hand her some credit for having a little common sense between her ears along with the dust bunnies.