Fire burn, and Nancy bubble:
House Democrats hit boiling point over perceived lack of White House support
House Democrats are lashing out at the White House, venting long-suppressed anger over what they see as President Obama‘s lukewarm efforts to help them win reelection — and accusing administration officials of undermining the party’s chances of retaining the majority in November’s midterm elections.
In recent weeks, a widespread belief has taken hold among Democratic House members that they have dutifully gone along with the White House on politically risky issues — including the stimulus plan, the health-care overhaul and climate change — without seeing much, if anything, in return. Many of them are angry that Obama has actively campaigned for Democratic Senate candidates but has done fewer events for House members.
The boiling point came Tuesday night during a closed-door meeting of House Democrats in the Capitol. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) excoriated White House press secretary Robert Gibbs‘s public comments over the weekend that the House majority was in doubt and that it would take “strong campaigns by Democrats” to avert dramatic losses…
Friendly fire, or, Obamafratricide
We’re waiting for word about Mickey I.’s MPs:
…
…
Meanwhile some business as usual in the US Congress is hurl-making for the Washington Post’s David Ignatius:
I am embarrassed when I think back to a conversation last October in Wana, South Waziristan — deep in the tribal areas — with Maj. Gen. Khalid Rabbani, the commander of Pakistani forces there. He was about to launch an offensive against Taliban fighters, but he worried that the “clear and hold” phase of the campaign would fail if Pakistan couldn’t also “build” through economic development.
Be patient, I told him. Congress is working on a bill that will take a first step toward bringing more jobs to the region.
Nine months later, Congress is still caught in partisan gridlock over the plan to create Reconstruction Opportunity Zones in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA. The House passed the bill in June 2009, but the Senate hasn’t voted on its version because Republicans oppose the labor-protection standards that were included in the House measure. The GOP objects that the bill would set a precedent for similar pro-labor rules in future trade legislation.
It’s incredible — sickening is a better word, actually — that a parochial business-labor dispute is blocking a measure that is so obviously in America’s national security interest…
…for now, this legislative debacle offers one more sign of our dysfunctional political system.
Mark
Ottawa
