by James Oliphant
Sometimes, Saturday Night Live is worth a thousand words of political analysis.
The latest exhibit: last night's show. In the opening, Fred Armisen playing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Kristen Wiig playing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi detail their different approaches to the stimulus. The differences between the two Democrats are played for laughs, but the jokes aren't off the mark.
Where Reid must seek some Republican support to avoid a filibuster--witness his negotiations last week with a handful of moderate senators from the other party--Pelosi has the votes to simply ram anything she wants through her chamber. With the stimulus, she did just that, failing to secure a single vote from the GOP. The speaker clearly believes Democrats have a mandate after last year's elections and she isn't hesitating in acting on it.
Now the two versions of the stimulus bill must be reconciled--and in the end, perhaps to Pelosi' dismay, that small bloc of Republican moderates may hold the power to make or break the package.
Check it out above.
Comments
Nancy Pelosi = most dangerous person in The United States
Posted by: dan | February 8, 2009 1:13 PM
These two are an embarrassment to the Congress of the United States of America. They are not fit to hold the offices od Speaker of the House and
Senate Majority Leader. I really want
Obama to succeed but with these two in charge the outlook is very grim. They don't seem to realize that if their in office and the country does well it will reflect on them in the coming elections. Pelosi seems to be as dumb as a rock and Reid is been there to long, I think he is a little senile.
Posted by: Paul | February 8, 2009 1:37 PM
This Congress should learn from the Democratic Congress who overrode Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, which reigned in the excesses of the organized labor bosses that prolongued and worsened the Depression through widespread and damaging strikes. Or the Democratic Supreme Court Justices, including William O. Douglas, that ruled his nationalization of the Steel Mills to avoid invoking the "cooling off" provisions of that Act to deal with the crippling United Steelworkers strike unconstitutional. Just because we are the majority doesn't mean we have to exercise the tyranny of majority. It also doesn't mean we have to be unthinking puppets of the organized labor lobby. Think, Democrats, think!
Posted by: a thinking Democrat. | February 8, 2009 1:55 PM
Factual error: Wiig identifies herself as House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Her title is "Speaker of the House." The actual Majority Leader is Steny Hoyer.
Posted by: Eric | February 8, 2009 2:11 PM
Pelosi must go; BO needs to make it happen. The Democratic House had an opportunity to put a decent piece of legislation together while waiting for Bush to leave, but instead they decided to present the new President with that garbage. We need a new face of Democratic leadership in both the House and the Senate.
Posted by: Fashion Police | February 8, 2009 3:36 PM
What is really terrifying is that dumb tw*t Pelosi is third in the line of succession for the presidency. Better pray nothing happens to Comrade Obozo. I can barely say Vice-President Biden without laughing.
Posted by: Keep The Change | February 8, 2009 4:03 PM
"A thinking Democrat" is more like "a concern troll". The organized labor lobby? Don't make me laugh. Organized labor is what brought us the 40 hour work week, the paid vacation, employer-subsidized health care, compensation for on-the-job injuries and a bit of dignity for those born without a silver spoon, those whose labor built this great nation. The real threat to our prosperity has never been the right of working Americans to organize and demand decent working conditions, decent pay and a decent life. The threat is and always has been the cabal of greedy and mean-spirited bankers and their Hoover-Reagan-Bush syncophants who make their living carrying water for those who would enslave American workers and take away everything we seek to provide for our families. Now, think about THAT for a bit.
Posted by: Patrick | February 8, 2009 4:39 PM
Let the Rethuglicans gloat about how they are obstructing everything now. They are in the minority for a reason. The majority of Americans hate them and reject their policies. So when they gloat, we'll remind them of this inconvenient truth and laugh as they continue to get destroyed at election time.
These are the same partisan Limbaugh Rethuglicans who will raise millions of dollars to dash the election hopes of some RINO who concedes that maybe the Confederate flag issue is not worth fighting about.
Posted by: Teresa | February 8, 2009 4:59 PM
California is a failed state.
It is in financial collapse.
There is not enough money coming into the treasury to sustain the State.
Now, Californians want the rest of the states to "chip in" and help them.
Doesn't the leadership from California understand that is why everybody is trying to flee the State and why no one wants to live there anymore.
It's out of control and Pelosi and Waxman are representative of what will happen in the government.
Have her eyebrows relaxed yet?
Do you see how she tries to smile while talking?
Posted by: Wendall | February 8, 2009 6:24 PM
Pelosi is unhinged. She makes Obama look like a moderate.
Posted by: Herbie H. | February 9, 2009 11:08 AM