I think Pelosi is definitely a weak link for us.  She is in WAY over her head as Democratic Leader in the House.  I cringe at the prospect of her being our "face" in front of the cameras.  I don't like her and think that the very fact that she'd likely be speaker impedes our efforts to take the House.

Pelosi can do the job, all we have to do is convince her and everyone around that we can fully fund her.
Which we can.

Then, she has to convince us that she will not take funds from the lobbyists. It sounds as simple as it looks. The lobbyists are the ones that weaken up Pelosi, she does half of what she does, to make sure  her party gets re-elected and from her overriding belief system that if you put your hands on the screen... television will save you...

You're probably right about Pelosi, but man, there's just no excuse for the word "disincentivize." Especially in a headline. Wouldn't "discourage" have done the trick?

Here's a question: have you sent this report out to individual media members by email? I bet you could get some stories going in local newspapers across the United States if you downloaded and then sent out this report and encouraged other Dems who read this site to do the same. It would be a better use of your limited time than worrying about Nancy Pelosi, who you really can't control.

We are guaranteed to win seats in the House and Senate because of Bush's total ineptitude.  But we are not going to win nearly as many as we could because of faint-hearted decisions like this.

Matt, I'm up for any brainstorming of action that can apply more pressure here.

Can we coordinate something with CREW?  They've been banging on Pelosi to file ethics charges, too.

Do these folks really believe in the ineffectual? Is it personal gain we are wittnessing? I really don't fucking get it.

The overiding message from EVERY Dem should be: The Republicans control every part of our government. And don't forget, they are more corrupt than Enron.

Pelosi is not a bad leader in many respects (and much, much more progressive than Hoyer), but the Dems seem to be paralyzed by past mistakes.  They won't be aggressive on ethics because they remember the House banking scandal and Jim Wright and how they were burned then.  They don't realize that it was not the fact that some of their people had lapses, but the aggressiveness with which the GOP pushed and framed the issues that hurt them so much.  The answer is to push back aggressively and let the chips fall.  

There is a real danger the GOP will portray itself as the party of change, if the Dems don't start proposing some big change themes themselves.  (Such as corruption, health care and Iraq, for starters.)

The takeaway message from this, as from Kerry 04, Harry Reid's apology for his Abramoff memo, the continuing ethics truce and God knows what else is this: the Dems, who've not been elected to control either house, behave like the majority party, all collegial and senatorial and low-key.

And the GOP, however long they're been in control of Congress - or the White House - act like the challengers. They don't care about how it looks - otherwise, why would they have chosen leaders like Gingrich and DeLay. They're only interested in getting it done - barely within the law, or outside it, if necessary.

I wasn't paying attention to Congressional minutiae back then. But I'd be very surprised to find that, throughout the entire 103rd Congress, the last when Dems had control of both Federal elected branches, you could point to a single decision of Gingrich's to compare with Pelosi's grovel on the Slaughter memo.

(I'm not saying there wasn't one. I'd just be curious to have it pointed out to me.)

I am puzzled by Nancy Pelosi's cowardice in removing Louise Slaughter's report on the cost of GOP corruption to the country from her minority leader's website. Rep. Pelosi caved into a bunch of empty Republican threats that would have played into her hands, providing a source of free publicity no amount of money could buy for this issue. For the GOP to have filed ethics charges against Democrats for revealing the cost of their own corruption would have been rich media fodder.  So I wrote and told her that, while my resources are meager, I do contribute to individual candidates who are political vertebrates and to the DNC, MoveOn and other progressive entities, but that I have stopped contributing to the DCCC and the DSCC because of their incipient spinelessness and their utter failure to capitalize on valid issues like corruption, port security and Katrina and instead, passively relying on an untrustworthy mass media. Where has Dr. Dean been in all this? His power base is independent, the netroots can provide him with plenty of money and he has a pulpit. The Democratic party has no voice, no face that consistently drives home a message on anything, let alone the alternatives that GOP politicians and the mass media keep harping on.  This is a job for Deanman. Get out of the Bat Cave, Howard, the Donkey's picture is in the sky. You are already drawing the ire of the beltway types anyway, so why not get out in front and shame them into doing something positive?  

The Republicans have both a face and a spokesmen, a Burning Bush, as a matter of fact.  It takes time to change a press meme and timing to put someone permanently on the defensive.  Republicans may be on the ropes at the moment, but no one seems to have the balls to finish the bastards off.

You know who needs to be the leader of the democrats in the house.  MURTHA. WHEN and IF the dems take back the congress in 06' I think Murtha should be elected speaker of the house.

This is what has me so frustrated with the Dems.  No guts just fear of bucking the R's.  With Bush's poll numbers what do they have to be afraid of?  I haven't quite gotten to this person's point but I'm awfully discouraged.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/art icle12240.htm

I have been through with Pelosi ever since Cynthia McKinney returned to her seat, but Pelosi refuses to restore her seniority.

Then, she left Jack Murtha hanging on his withdrawal from Iraq resolution.

She also ordered the Democratic side of the House not to participate in the hearings regarding the Government's slow response to victims of Hurricane Katrina, because she dismissed it as a "Republican posturing" gesture.  She continued to punish McKinney for attending the hearings.  If anyone watched C-Span, you saw the report McKinney delievered on the floor of the House.  Written by Republicans, they blamed everyone from Bush on down to NOLA Mayor Ray Nagin.  Pelosi didn't look too good on that front, either.

Finally, she quit sounding like a war hawk right about the time former SF Supervisor Matt Gonzalez floated speculation that he considered challenging her in the primary.  And guess what?  If he does, he wins, and the Dems pick another Minority Leader.

She heard that threat loud enough to start back sounding like a liberal.  But it's mostly posturing, and the Minority Leadership position went to her head.

Replace her with Rangel, Conyers, Barbara Lee, or Louise Slaughter.  Anyone but Pelosi, because if we're counting on her to assist in regaining the Majority, it's not going to happen this year, or for the next four years.  Book it.