I agree.  My beef is NOT with how Pelosi does her job, keeps a disciplined caucus, or that she's not sufficiently and steadfastly progressive.  She's done all those things and she's great at that aspect of her position.  It's just that when I see her on TV or give a speech, I cringe and shudder to what middle-of-the-road flyover voters think of her.

For a while I've been thinking of writing a diary entitled "Sexism in the Blogosphere" critiquing the blogospheres treatment of Pelosi versus the treatment of Reid. I actually completely agree with Welsh- that we shouldnt blame Nancy Pelosi for her faults. Because frankly, she is probably the most competent Democratic leader in both the House and Senate since Tip O'Neill. Also, she is probably the best member of Congress at whipping besides the Hammer. She is a founder of the Progressive Caucus. Not to mention that, but she has her own pet progressive issue- human rights in China, which is quite a good one, I might add.

The thing about Pelosi that you have to understand is that she grew up in a political era where getting elected depended on alliances and connections, not dealing with clowns in the corporate media. (Her father was Tommy D'Alesandro, the founder of the famed D'Alesandro machine in Baltimore) She is her father's daughter, and she's also 66, so she's probably not going to be introducing a whole lot of new political tactics anytime soon, so we should make do with gentle suggestions, while openly challenging Reid.

I agree with Ian Welsh about Pelosi.  SHe has really become a whipping post here despite the fact that her record is very progressive.  Also, being in the minority in the House makes you practically powerless.  In the past few months she has started making the House Dems semi-relavent which is no small task considering the House rules are completely stacked against the minority.

Reid's stands on issues are not as good as Pelosi but I like his fighting style.  

The San Francisco Chronicle ran a three part series on Nancy Pelosi this past week.  It's an interesting read.  I have been a bit dubious about Pelosi.  She seems to come off as a screechy witch.  Having read all three articles, I have a new respect for her.

The link to the 1st article is here:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f= /c/a/2006/04/02/MNGSHI24ON1.DTL

Links to the remaining articles can be found in the article.

I'm still actually pretty startled at the visceral reactions to Pelosi.

I'm really not sure what she's done wrong?

Do people expect her to be able to shut down the House? The rules of the Senate are drastically different from the House. I doubt she has the ability to do such dramatic things. That's really how the two bodies have been designed to behave.

The Senate is still an elitist body. It's supposed to be in some ways. That's why a minority can stur things up in such an obvious way. The House really isn't supposed to operate that way.

I say this realizing that my understanding of House rules is drastically lacking compared to my understanding of Senate rules.

I just don't think Pelosi can get away with the same stuff.

phat

I think the acceptance of Reid and the discontent with Pelosi has little to do with ideology - it has to do with aggressiveness.

Reid appears to help the party by actually being willing to take the gloves off and insult the adminstration or use parlamentary rules to kill Republican bills (a la immigration reform). Reid also seems more willing to let other Democrats attack: didn't help the fillibuster of Alito, but he didn't kill it either. Similarly he hasn't killed the censure. He seems to understand the value of a no-comment instead of a "I think that's a bad idea."

Pelosi is in our poor graces, if for no other reason then she has tried to smack down other Democrats doing good work (Murtha and Feingold) (I don't buy the 'she was helping Murtha by pretending to oppose him' meme). She has an element of Liebermanitis - a tendency to attack her own. Perhaps this has come because she has been fighting for more discipline. If so, I think (and I suspect a lot of people think) that is too high a price to pay for the appearance of spinelessness.

What I like about Reid is how he effectively insults Republicans; and reduces their spin to putty.

Here's the latest quote from a Reid spokesperson regarding the possibility of bringing up the issue of immigration to the Senate floor in the future:

"Jim Manley, spokesman for Mr. Reid, said Democrats are eager to address the issue again. 'We can deal with that instead of such things as the eliminating the estate tax, the gay-marriage ban or the flag-burning amendment,' he said."

I wonder just how much our attitudes about Reid and Pelosi have been infected by the press portrayal of them. We have all seen just how the press comes to accept talking points as fact.

When Pelosi became the leader the talking point was she was a San Francisco liberal who bought her election and would hurt the democrats.

When Reid became leader the talking point was that the Democrats were moving to the center.

This has infected all coverage of them since.

Welsh is far too soft on Pelosi, but exactly right on Reid. The man is a Republican, plain and simple, and has always been a Republican since day one. The fact that anyone ever gave him a "honeymoon" to begin with is pathetic.

So if Reid is an ineffective minority leader, who should replace him? Durbin seems like he'd be even weaker. Dodd? Dorgan? Hillary? Obama (someday--too junior at this point)? Feingold? Kerry? someone's got to make something happen for Dems in the senate, as Reid's not it.

Kerry and Durbin I think would both be much better Minority leaders. Read the Nation's article about Durbin- I doubt it is still online.

I can't believe it's as you say, 'Casey will support a nuclear strike on Iran, wants to 'fix' Social Security, and feels that civility is the problem in the debate over abortion,' although I know it's true.  

He's thrown over women and the children in Philadelphia who are being slaughtered in the streets by assault weapons. I don't know what SocSec fixes he might have in mind, but the tough on nat'l security, 'yeehaw' as foreign policy, let's go nuke Iran?  It's too much.

I just hope Schumer is having nightmares over scaring Hafer out of the race. Ditto for Rendell, and Hillary who were at the Philly luncheon the day they forced Hafer to withdraw, and of course Reid, the anti-choice leader (no surprise there).

On Reid, whatever happened with the "brilliant procedural" move of dimming the lights and going into closed session.  Has any 'phase two' trickled out of the intell. committee?  I think there were some excuses last month, but the fall deadline came and went.  Attention spans are short.