As usual, Nancy Pelosi stole the show — and reminded us why we are very, very glad that she is no longer Speaker of the House. Pelosi went on so long before giving the stage to John Boehner that surely I wasn’t the only person yearning to see a shepherd’s crook yank her off. The manic smile added a truly weird dimension. Is Nancy Pelosi really human?
“When I called the House to order for the first time,” Pelosi recalled, “I did so on behalf of America’s children.” Well, today Pelosi surrendered the gavel she wielded with such wanton disregard for the wishes of the public to an adult. I know it’s de rigueur for us Republicans to eat our own, but I thought Speaker Boehner came across just right: somber, gracious, but still able to make pointed remarks about the abysmal performance of the childishly willful 111th Congress.
He didn’t cry — I clutched a few times when I saw him using a handkerchief, but the dabbing occurred before he began to speak. (If he was going to cry, he probably lost the impulse as Pelosi went on and on and on.) Boehner said the right things: about cutting the government down to size, about the perilous state of the republic, etc. It appeared to me that several members looked awfully unhappy when Boehner said that the cost cutting would start with House expenses. And it was a nice touch when Boehner, who is a Catholic, recalled the ashes of Ash Wednesday, which symbolize the transitory nature of life and, by extension, of power. (Needless to say, the pro-choice Pelosi had already beaten him to the punch with mention that she is a Catholic.)
Unlike Pelosi — who seemed more like a victor taking a lap around Never Never Land than a politician who had just suffered a defeat of epic proportions — Boehner projected the sense that he knows that the country is in trouble and that House members must behave like adults in these serious times. The New York Times, by the way, greeted the 112th Congress with a childish editorial. But what did you expect?
— Charlotte Hays is a senior fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.
I read that NYT editorial knowing it had to have something in there linking the 3/5's clause and the absurdity of new majority having the Constitution read on the floor tomorrow. Bingo there it was... I'm guessing that the reading tomorrow will include the Amendments, the 13th of which did away with the clause. But still, I expect nothing less out of the NYT editorial pages than an implication that the evil GOP is comprised of racists longing for slavery's return.
If only I could have picked the Megamillions numbers last night with such prescience...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Times editorial writers are accusing the GOP of wasting time in the House. Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Senate is out for two more weeks. Brilliant.
Memo to the Times: Like comedy, in politics timing is everything.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis grand "anointing" of John Boehner (of all people) is amusingly reminiscent of the accolades showered on Obama when he was elected President (an accomplishment that was much more difficult and faced greater odds) that the Republicans so mercilessly mocked.
Boehner (he of the tobacco bribes on the House floor and merciless kowtowing to the various corporations he gets money from) will no doubt be a huge disappointment as well and it will be hilarious to see how the moneyed "conservatives" will run. After all, the much vaunted "tea party" already holds him in disdain.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThese guys are on probabtion--and this time I think they actually understand that. They better come through w/ some level headed conservative, fiscally responsible governing (as much as they can w/ Obama and the Senate still under D control) or they are out of there in 2012. Nothing motivates these people like self preservation--the bloodletting of 2010 is on their minds.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFrom the NYT article: "In any case, it is a presumptuous and self-righteous act, suggesting that they alone understand the true meaning of a text that the founders wisely left open to generations of reinterpretation."
This and the 3/5 line display the left's view of the Constitution. It is not so much open to interpretation as to amendment. They've called the recent idea of the "repeal amendment" a contradiction for conservatives because it would "destroy" the Constitution.
Amending is precisely within the bounds of the document. Conservatives object to wild interpretations made by unelected judges.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePerhaps the Times writer should learn history, particularly that the 3/5ths clause was to limit the South's representation in the house to prevent them from having a pro-slavery majority. What an ignoramus!
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