Pelosi's Panicky Politburo

Remember the "gang of fourteen" self-styled "moderate" senators whose "compromise" undermining the imperative to put a stop to Democrat filibusters of President Bush's appellate court nominees harbinged the beginning of the end of the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate?  Could this be a case of "what goes around, comes around"?:

A bipartisan group of ten senators offered an energy plan Friday aimed at producing more domestic oil via offshore drilling, reducing energy prices, and aiding the troubled economy.

The plan also would require automobiles to be more fuel efficient and would provide research money for improved batteries to move away from petroleum-products in cars: the plan calls for 85% of vehicles to run on non-petroleum-based fuel in twenty years.

Senators said the bill also would promote more renewable energy sources and nuclear energy, as well as carbon capture techniques to reduce greenhouse gas production through tax and other incentives.

Frankly, it doesn't sound like much of a compromise to me.  It's essentially most of Barack Obama's so-called energy plan with some token drilling thrown in as a bone to the 70% of Americans that are demanding it.  Drilling that at most may not include opening the interior for drilling for oil shale and natural gas.  Given the magnitude of pro-domestic exploration momentum, I don't see why Saxby Chambliss, John Thune, Lindsey Graham, Johnny Isakson, and Bob Corker were willing to settle for it.

I have no problem understanding why Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor, Blanche Lincoln, and Kent Conrad signed onto this hash, though.  They're trying to save the Democrat Party from the absolutist environmental extremism that is sinking it into deeper and hotter political water by the day.  While Crazy Nancy and Dirty Harry continue to insist on no drilling whatsoever, gas prices continue to rise along with public anger at their obstructionism.  It's a potent and volatile combination that could turn what looked not that long ago like another Donk blowout in November into a wash at best, and a shocking debacle at worst.

Such a compromise as this gang of ten business is just the escape hatch the majority needs.  Create the appearance of reasonableness and responsiveness to voter concerns, while getting most of the anti-energy agenda you want and neutralizing a crippling wedge issue by peeling off enough gullible 'Pubbies to serve as a bipartisan fig leaf.  And presto-chango!  Problem solved, at least until the Dems can get past the election, after which they could use their expanded majorities to renege on the token drilling concessions and return to greenstremist business as usual.

You would think that this "rope-a-dope" strategy would be Donk SOP.  At least, you would if you believed that they retained some at least tenuous connection with political reality not completely deluged under delusions of absolute power.  However, if you believe that, you clearly have not been paying attention to the Democrats over most of the past decade.

Still, even taking the measure of how radical that party has become, it still didn't (quite) prepare me for this:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the Democrats adjourned the House and turned off the lights and killed the microphones, but Republicans are still on the floor talking gas prices.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and other GOP leaders opposed the motion to adjourn the House, arguing that Pelosi’s refusal to schedule a vote allowing offshore drilling is hurting the American economy. They have refused to leave the floor after the adjournment motion passed at 11:23 a.m. and are busy bashing Pelosi and her fellow Democrats for leaving town for the August recess…

“This is the people’s House,” Representative Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) said. “This is not Pelosi’s politiburo[!!!].”

Democratic aides were furious at the GOP stunt, and reporters were kicked out of the Speaker’s Lobby, the space next to the House floor where they normally interview lawmakers.

“You’re not covering this, are you?” complaing one senior Democratic aide. Another called the Republicans “morons” for staying on the floor…

The scene on the floor is kind of crazy. Normally, members are not allowed to speak directly to the visitor galleries, or visitors are prohibited from cheering. But in this case, the members are walking up and down on the floor during their speeches, standing on cheers, the visitors are cheering loudly. Some members even brought in visitors, who are now sitting on the House floor in the seats normally filled by lawmakers, cheering and clapping. Very funny.

Oh.  My.  God.  Did you ever think you would live to see the day that the GOP out-populisted the Democrats?  Okay, there was 1994 - but did you ever imagine, after the 2006 debacle, that you would see it again in your lifetime?  And so soon?  An elected Republican, even a back-bencher, actually using a variation on my long-time nickname for the Donk congressional leadership?  To the cheers of the visitors' gallery?  Maybe I really have seen it all.

And the Dems?  As usual when a major political issue turns rapidly against them, they have no idea what to do.  They can't wrap their minds around any part of their agenda not being vastly popular.  THEY'RE the populists; THEY'RE the ones who "stand up for the little guy"; now, in the space of literally a matter of weeks, all their pagan Gaia-worshipping, global-warming crusading dogma has been overturned like the last boy band, reality TV show, or Britney Speares clone.  As long as all their "planet-saving" bloviating didn't have a gargantuan price tag attached to it that Joe Sixpack and John Q. Public could clearly see in their everyday lives, as long as they could spread their green gospel and lather the electorate in self-esteem-reinforcing warm & fuzzies without taking a bazooka to their back pockets, as long as they could make us feel good about ourselves by driving a lawnmower, lugging around a big-ass recycling bin, and eating more organic salads essentially for free, Dems could reap the PR benefits and keep their Pachyderm foes cowed and neutralized.

What's happened in the past few months is that the reality that environmental extremism is not free after all has risen to critical mass point in the public consciousness.  Sure, everybody likes "clean water and clean air," and nobody doesn't wince to some degree at a clearcut mountain or an oil-doused baby seal, but vast majorities of Americans are deciding that if "going green" means getting shafted for four, five, even ten bucks a gallon at the pump, and ever more expensive heating and grocery bills, and a slowed or even recessed economy, it's just not worth the cost.  Certainly not the eco-fundamentalism being imposed by the Democrats.

In a word, it is panic.  On Friday afternoon, Crazy Nancy panicked.  She knows that if she allowed the vote on drilling and nuclear energy that the Republicans are demanding, she would lose.  Big.  And she simply cannot and will not tolerate such a result.  Hence the anger of Donk aides and Congressman McCotter's devastatingly accurate slam of the Speakerette's "leadership".  The former know not only that they've lost on this issue, but that Republicans are running up the PR score.  And the latter have exposed that the party named for our ostensible form of government doesn't truly believe in it when it doesn't produce the results they want.

This is an utter PR bonanza for the House GOP.  Here's just one delectable sample:

Representative Tom Cole (OK), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the dimly lit chamber is a “vision of the future by the Democrat Party: The lights are out, there’s no power, and the air conditioning is gonna go off soon.”

I don't usually subscribe to cliches like this, but in this case, the GOP ads really are writing themselves.

Or, rather, the Democrats are writing those GOP ads.  A realization that must have dawned on Crazy Nancy when it became apparent that the minority wasn't bluffing about staying in the House chamber around the clock during her ordered derelictory recess.  Did that prompt her to second thoughts about the self-burial she's inflicting on her party?

Of course not; remember what Nancy Pelosi is: a hard-left "populist".  And she did what any hard-left "populist" would do when confronted with a "revolt" - she sent in the cops:

Shame! Shame! Capital Hill police working under strict orders to shut Capital down at 4:30 pm today. Speaker Pelosi wants this shut down now....

And to think that this bitch piously crowed a scant twenty-one months ago:

The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history. 

Instead, she and her caucus have given Us, The People the most dishonest, closed, corrupt, and authoritarian Congress in history.  Oh, yes, and runaway energy prices.

I can't help wondering, along with Mark Tapscott, what would have happened if House 'Pubbies had refused to leave when Crazy Nancy's storm troopers moved in to evict them.  Just how far would the iron-fisted Speakerette have pushed this thuggery?  Would she have ordered the arrests of every Republican present in the House chamber?  Is there any point at which sanity would have gotten through her thick bouffant?

Regrettably, we'll never know.  Although we may yet get the chance, because as that old rallying cry goes, the GOP has only just begun to fight:

House Republicans will be back on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives again Monday to continue the unprecedented protest that began last Friday, when dozens of Republicans joined hundreds of American citizens on the House floor to protest Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) decision to send Congress home for the rest of the summer without a vote on legislation to lower gas prices and move America toward energy independence.

In an urgent memo sent to GOP Members and staff Saturday (“A Call to Action on American Energy”), Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) hailed Friday’s action, which was led by Reps. Mike Pence (R-IN), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Tom Price (R-GA), and others, and encouraged House Republicans to return to the Capitol beginning Monday morning to help keep the historic effort going.

“It’s not a request we make lightly. But the American people are suffering,” Boehner and Blunt said in the memo. “The consequences of continued congressional inaction on gas prices are unacceptable. We’ve called on the Speaker to call Congress back into an emergency session this month and schedule a vote on the American Energy Act. We must continue to make a stand until the Speaker complies.”

What inspired the minority to make this more than just a one-time "stunt"?

Would you believe....the Messiah himself?

One House Republican says, “I’m a 25 year veteran of the U.S. Congress, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

GOP members say they would not be holding this debate tomorrow, if the Democratic nominee had not modified his position on off shore drilling.

Rest assured, Lucifer hasn't truly "modified" anything.  He's simply had the reality filter through even his arrogance deflector shields that continuing to obstinately obstruct accessing domestic energy resources is rapidly reaching the level of political suicide.  After he's in the White (?) House he'll revert to greenstremist orthodoxy, but for now, he's doing what he has to do to get elected.

Will Crazy Nancy follow her god's lead?  Or will she take the "Pelosi Politburo" down to oblivion in diehard defense of "the Pelosi Premium"?