Pelosi Stumbling Again as House Leader
Apparently Nancy Pelosi didn’t learn her lesson from her failed attempt to make John Murtha her number two man in the House of Representaitives.
Now she wants impeached federal judge Alcee Hastings, D-Fla. to head the House Intelligence Committee. The Congressional Black Caucus wants him, too.
Yes, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is in line to be the next speaker of the House, just two heartbeats away from the presidency. But let’s be honest here: Does anybody think she has been doing a good job since the election?
Was she deft in handling the battle royale between two fellow Democrats for the No. 2 post in the House? Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., was the obvious choice for the majority-leader job, but Pelosi, not hiding her dislike for him, supported Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., in his quixotic campaign to displace Hoyer. Murtha, hobbled by scandals and controversy, lost in a landslide.
Fresh from that defeat, Pelosi is embroiled in another intra-Democratic fight, this time with Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif. Harman is in line to serve as chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee, but Pelosi wants another representative for the job, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla. Whereas Murtha has merely been accused of corruption, Hastings has been adjudicated as guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. In 1989, while a federal judge, he was impeached by the House (Pelosi was one of those voting “aye” on impeachment) and convicted by the Senate on corruption charges. This is Pelosi’s choice for a high-profile position, overseeing intelligence-gathering for the war on terrorism?
What was Hastings’ crime?
In 1988, Ms. Pelosi along with Steny Hoyer, the new House Majority Leader, and John Conyers, the incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, voted to impeach Mr. Hastings, then a federal judge in Florida, who had been accused of conspiring to take a $150,000 bribe from a defendant in a case before him.
This is how she attacks the culture of corruption in government?
You don’t get any more corrupt than judges taking bribes from parties in cases before their bench! Why is he still serving in government at all? Why isn’t he in jail?
Federal judges send pot users to jail for life all the time. The fact that they can be impeached for conspiring to take a bribe, not serve any jail time but be allowed to serve in Congress is evidence of just how ethically bankrupt our legal system is. People convicted of a drug felony can’t even vote!
The fact that Pelosi did not immediately and publicly dismiss any possibility that she would appoint Hastings tells you everything you need to know about Pelosi’s brand of politics. One day she votes to impeach him, the next day she’s considering him to lead one of the most important committees in the House?
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November 26th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Hastings is still serving because he was elected to a House seat. I would say the voters in Florida, rather than Mrs. Pelosi, are the ones who don’t take corruption in government seriously.
November 26th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
While you are correct that the Florida voters cast the votes, presumably the Democratic Party worked hard to get Hastings elected in Florida.
Pelosi can’t be blamed herself for having a corrupt judge serving in the House, but she is responsible for considering him for committee chairman.