The Democrats

When House Democrats chose Nancy Pelosi as their leader four years ago, said Michael Crowley in The New Republic, 'œsome wondered if she was up to the job.' Though a prolific fund-raiser, she was known to indulge in 'œpetty rivalries,' and was prone to spasms of bad judgment. But when the Democrats gained control of the House in the recent election, the San Francisco Democrat was unanimously chosen as speaker. In her first week, Pelosi committed a series of gaffes that suggested her old flaws were, 'œinstead of being cured, simply in remission.' In a bizarre choice, she backed Rep. John Murtha to be majority leader, only to be rebuked by members of her own party, who gave the No. 2 job to Rep. Steny Hoyer, a longtime Pelosi rival. Murtha has been a champion of wasteful pork-barrel spending and has a history of shoddy ethics, once appearing on an FBI surveillance tape turning down a bribe with the words, 'œI'm not interested—at this point.' So much for Pelosi's promise to give America its cleanest Congress in history, said Debra J. Saunders in the San Francisco Chronicle. 'œAlready, she is acting like the GOP leaders' she so recently disdained.

Apparently, Pelosi learned nothing from her 'œidiotic' choice of Murtha, said Timothy Noah in Slate.com. Now Pelosi is trying to bypass Rep. Jane Harman, a senior Democrat whom Pelosi personally dislikes, for the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, and has proposed giving the job to Rep. Alcee Hastings. A former federal judge, Hastings was once impeached for allegedly extorting a $150,000 bribe. If Pelosi makes one more boneheaded move like this, Democrats 'œshould give serious thought to dumping her.'

The Democrats' problems go deeper than Pelosi, said Dick Morris and Eileen McGann in the New York Post. Victory has exposed the many fault lines in the modern Democratic Party. The moderate New Democrats, 'œwho want to keep the party in the middle on national issues,' are ascendant, but they'll have to engage in a major power struggle with the party's unreconstructed '60s liberals, radical environmentalists, anti-war lefties, gay activists, and other micro-factions. The first shots were fired this week, when New Democrat and former Clinton advisor James Carville called on the party to oust Howard Dean as its titular leader. Dean, said Carville, had stupidly failed to direct party funding to the closest races in the midterm elections, costing the Democrats another 20 seats.

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Nothing wrong with a little 'œcreative tension,' said John Podhoretz, also in the New York Post. One of the great differences between the Democrats and the GOP has been the Republicans' emphasis on strict party discipline. This has its advantages, but it also creates arrogant leaders prone to taking the party astray. The Democrats, on the other hand, have less internal discipline and a far less tightly defined message. This actually won them this last election, in which voters of many different political persuasions felt comfortable voting Democratic as a snub to the GOP. The divisions and disagreements currently roiling the new majority are 'œa sign of the Democratic Party's health, not its weakness.'

David Broder

The Washington Post