House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Deficient Cleaning Service "Maybe it will take a woman to clean up the House," Nancy Pelosi boasted before the 2006 midterm elections. Looks like those XX chromosomes didn't give her much advantage over the old cleaning crew. The swamp she was supposed to drain is overflowing. And fewer than four years after a sordid sexual predation scandal involving a creepy congressman rocked the Republican Party, a sordid sexual predation scandal involving a creepy congressman is now rocking the Democratic Party. The same questions that dogged House leaders then are dogging House Speaker Pelosi now: What did she and her staff know, and when did they know it? On Thursday afternoon, by a vote of 402-1, the House overwhelmingly passed a privileged resolution offered by the Republican leadership demanding a formal House Ethics Committee investigation of Pelosi and her (mis)handling of harassment allegations concerning disgraced former New York Rep. Eric Massa. The soft-on-corruption ethics panel (see under "Rangel, Charlie") had decided to shut down its investigation after Massa abruptly resigned on Monday. But with reports piling up on how Massa kept a Capitol Hill playhouse filled with young, low-paid male staffers, and how Pelosi's office had fielded complaints of his bizarre and inappropriate behavior back in October, the House decided to pry the lid back open and put a stop to what the resolution calls the "public ridicule" the seeming cover-up has invited. Housecleaner Pelosi cannot be pleased by the second-guessing of her handiwork. Color her an un-merry maid. Even Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, fresh from his raving House floor meltdown over media coverage of the Massa mess, voted for the GOP-initiated House resolution. Finally: Bipartisanship we can believe in! With the exception of lone Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah who voted "no" and 27 members (including those who sit on the House Ethics Committee) who voted "present" or "not voting," every other member of Pelosi's House supported the petition to direct the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to investigate fully "which House Democratic leaders and members of their respective staffs had knowledge prior to March 3, 2010 of the aforementioned allegations concerning Mr. Massa, and what actions each leader and staffer having any such knowledge took after learning of the allegations." The resolution stipulates that "numerous confusing and conflicting media reports that House Democratic leaders knew about, and may have failed to handle appropriately, allegations that Rep. Massa was sexually harassing his own employees have raised serious and legitimate questions about what Speaker Pelosi as well as other Democratic leaders and their respective staffs were told, and what those individuals did with the information in their possession." Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, who earned a House Ethics Committee slap on the wrist in 1990 after using his congressional office to fix parking tickets for male prostitute Steven Gobie, was one of those leaders in the know. After voting for the resolution, he disclosed for the first time that Massa had invited one of his young staffers to dinner. "Although this was not an ethical violation," Frank said in a published statement, one of his senior staffers was informed of the dinner and alerted Massa's Chief of Staff Joe Racalto. In other words: Frank's office knew it smelled illicit. And Frank would know. Racalto went on to contact Pelosi's office directly in October. Tick, tick, tick. Five months later, in the wake of Massa's own self-professed proclivity for tickle parties and victim/witness accounts of Massa's alleged sexual assaults on his Navy underlings, Pelosi is pooh-poohing the scandal: "I have a job to do and not to be the receiver of rumors." Translation: Don't bother me with concerns about my members' indiscretions. I'm busy. How quickly we've accelerated from the "most ethical" House ever to "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." There was a time when Pelosi the protector held House leaders to the highest standards and expectations in guarding young people working on Capitol Hill. During the GOP Mark Foley scandal, she inveighed: "The children who work as Pages in the Congress are Members' special trust. Statements by the Republican Leadership indicate that they violated this trust when they were made aware of the Internet stalking of an underage Page by Mr. Foley and covered it up for six months to a year." Yet, she remains silent on the plight of the 20-somethings with whom Massa was keeping house under circumstances that rate an Ick Factor of 10-plus. Massa's alleged targets are someone's children, too. Deflecting accountability for her own office's violations of trust, Pelosi feigned sympathy for Massa and attributed his impaired ethical judgment to his medical condition (he has cancer). "Poor baby," she said through gritted teeth. He's "a very sick person." So, what's Pelosi's excuse?
The gang that is currently in charge of things in Washington is apparently so corrupt that it has left even their supporters speechless. Seriously, what can they say? The people who were cheering the loudest in support of Barack Obama have been ridden hard and put up wet. They have been sold a bill of goods, and been left with only the bill. Of course, everyone will have to pay for the bill that is being amassed right now, probably down to the third and fourth generations. Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leaders who are calling the shots up in Washington should be ashamed of what they have been doing. But instead, the just keep doubling down, again and again. As far as corruption goes, these people are the true masters. The good news is that we are in an election year, and accountability time is right around the corner. Here is looking forward to November 2, 2010.
(sigh) If you insist. From the site from which you posted the article: Michelle Malkin's second book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror, was released in August 2004. Michelle Malkin is releasing her third book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, this fall. This is not exactly the sort of person I'm looking to for a reasoned treatment of any particular topic. Much like I wouldn't ask you to look to Michael Moore for a treatment that would engage you in worthwhile dialogue. Once I read her name, I haven't brought myself to read it. Especially as I'm not a big Pelosi fan, ultimately, and have voted against her in her own district, where I reside.
You guys are too funny. Is Massa on your side or not? I guess Beck and Rush failed so the next phase is to scream like a bunch of b****es about ethics. ETHICS?!?!? From republicans? LOL!!! And Jorge, let's not rush to November, I want to enjoy the months leading up to Democrats keeping the house and senate. have a great weekend!
I don't like Pelosi. She's pretty creepy to look at, and that lone is bad, but she seems to do a lot of things purely out of partisanship. Why did she keep Massa around and try to sweep this illicit stuff under the rug? Probably to keep a commanding majority in the House. That is definitely not cool with me. Still, with Massa, the end result is the same. He's out and it's one less Democrat in the House. Pelosi lost because Massa was a crude human being to begin with. I wouldn't mind a new Speaker myself, really -- I've heard nothing positive from Pelosi or that she's done anything well. I'd practically blame this whole healthcare debacle on her, really. I want reform, and I think the current bill will help (but isn't strong enough), but it got hacked apart by her and her cronies in order to pacify either Blue Dog Democrats or independents and get them to vote for it. It's a shell of what it once was, and from my point of view (which may be incredibly wrong; I'm sure people will correct me!), it's because of Pelosi and her leadership (or lack thereof). But that's a different issue. The gist of it is that I could live easily without Pelosi, but if you're attempting to make some sort of statement about Democrats being corrupt as a whole, poking at Pelosi isn't going to convince me of that.
The 111th congress under Pelosi has been extremely productive. Over 160 bills have been passed by the house in the last year that have not been taken up by the Senate. Pelosi, no matter how much people despise her, she is very efficient and knows her job exceptionally well.
Is that par for the course, better than average, etc? Comparing to previous Speakers could be helpful.
very true but I would say getting 160 bills passed while dealing with an obstructionist minority is pretty damn impressive.
