Pelosi's folly

As the NYT notes in today's editorial, Nancy Pelosi is off to a rocky start. I find it incomprehensible myself that the Democratic Party would think it wise to come of the gate battling over how to distribute their new power. It simply smacks of politics as usual, which is not why the electorate returned them to power.

I mean for Pete's sake, they have until January to figure out who gets what plum assignment. It would have been far more constructive for them to come out united against the power plays that the president and his GOP Congress are planning to pull off in their remaining days. For instance Bush has just renominated six of his worst candidates for federal judgeships. But that didn't make the headlines because the press was too busy covering the intercine battles within the party.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think this spells the doom of the Party, it will pass, but the Democrats promised a new beginning. Playing the same old game of intra-party political payoffs is step backward, not forward. If Pelosi had demonstrated the good sense to hold back on the distribution of appointments, the focus would have been on Trent Lott and not John Murtha. That plays into Rove's hands, not to the benefit of the common good of the party or the people.