Pelosi admits to a "hate Bush" strategy in 2006 mid-terms

Dana Milbank's WAPO story, "Smile, tho your head is aching", is one about Pelosi's not so pleasant lunch with reporters. Indeed, while he pointed out that she continued to smile and laugh, he also noted that the words uttered by the Speaker made that smile "more akin to that of a barracuda".

To me, Pelosi had a few "huh's??" in her quotes. One included ranting about the anti-Bush, anti-war protesters camping out at her San Francisco residence.

Unsmilingly, she continued: "If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have 'Impeach Bush' across their chest, it's the First Amendment."

Obviously she would prefer homeless to protesters outside her home, as she can have them easily taken away by authorities. Pelosi's attitude towards arrest of the homeless is a new trend in San Francisco. It appears the liberals and progressives are finally going to battle about the runaway problem of homeless, defecating in the streets and shooting up in the parks.

But the quote that just about took my breath away... It was on the heels of Pelosi dodging the reporter questions about low Congressional poll numbers. Instead of addressing the responders discontent, she turned the conversation positive, gushing about Democratic poll numbers being in the 40 percentile. Then the jaw dropper...

Holders of high office typically avoid discussions like that because it makes them look, well, political. But Pelosi did not hesitate to plunge into the political, explaining that "it was so important for us to bring the president's numbers down two years ago on Social Security" because it discouraged Republican candidates from running for Congress.

An admitted, concerted effort to go on the attack with the specific purpose of lowering Bush approval rates to discourage Republican candidates? Oh my... And an effort which would have been impossible but for the mighty aid by a marionette, agenda driven media, I might add.

Considering the Pelosi/Reid Congress hasn't much under their belts of significance except more partisan venom, the inability to fulfill their campaign promises to their extreme base, and the ability to sidestep funding our troops... they can at least take pride that their "hate Bush" campaign started years ago to "discourage Republican candidates" was a success. However it's notable, even if not honestly reported, that the mid-term elections were won by slim margins in the majority of cases.

Then, of course, if the mid-terms were all about Iraq as they claim, nothing is more telling than the Lieberman story in very liberal Connecticut. Booted out by Dems for not toeing the party line on Iraq, Joe went Indy. And subsequently mopped the floor with a 10% spread win over the Dems cherry picked, anti-war replacement, Ned Lamont. In fact, if you count the 10% who voted Republican in that race, combined with pro-Iraq success Lieberman's 50%, that liberal state just may be 60-40 "win in Iraq" mentality. Poor profiling, and a big miscall on the Dems part.

With the margins so slim, the Lieberman story, and the inability to get enough Congressional members of either house to stop the war by choking the funding, the "get out of Iraq mandate" Dems claim at every turn is a farce at best.

However it was an astonishingly frank admission to the games pols play in order to stoke their power base. A slip of the tongue? With the ever present Pelosi/barracuda smile, unlikely. She rests confident that criticism of this disclosure will roll easily off her party's back, and be sufficiently ignored by enough of the press (except Dana Milbank, apparently).

In one simple lunch, Pelosi has shown herself to be a steeled politician who takes pride in her knowledge and execution of sleazy and destructive politics - politics that have nothing to do with insuring a full spectrum of representation of all American voices in Congress.