1.) Pelosi blames Bush during Diane Sawyer interview — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is choosing to interpret Tuesday’s election results as charitably as possible. That is, as charitably to her as possible. In an interview with Diane Sawyer, Pelosi schooled the veteran anchor on what exactly the results mean. “Let’s understand the message,” Pelosi told Sawyer. “The message was not, ‘I reject the course that you are on.’ The message is it didn’t go fast enough to produce jobs.” That is fascinating! Does being speaker for just a few months longer give Pelosi the power to discern which Democratic loss was strictly about unemployment, and which was about the course? No matter! This election wasn’t even about the Democrats! “Well as– there’s nothing I could do about 9.5 percent unemployment,” Pelosi told Sawyer. “Some people say, well you should’ve made sure everybody knew that this was a result of the Bush administration. And we were moving to change that. It didn’t come fast enough.” Bush strikes again two years later!
2.) Darrell Issa just wants to help — “Rep. Darrell Issa and his fellow GOP committee chairmen in the House will have subpoena power come January,” writes The Daily Caller’s Jonathan Strong. What does this mean? “A congressional subpoena allows House committees to compel the administration and any federal agency to produce documents or testimony related to a broadly-defined ‘legislative purpose.’ Courts have rarely interfered with this privilege and presidential administrations don’t often fight it.” In other words, Issa, maker of bad-ass car alarms, is now one of the most powerful people in Washington. He must be vigilant! But also: cautious. These powers, writes Strong, lend themselves to abuse. There was that whole Vince Foster affair back in the ’90s, during which Dan Burton went off the rails and shot a watermelon. Says one Republican of Issa, “He’s going to be very careful not to turn into Dan Burton.”
3.) Trent Lott does not appreciate having his credentials questioned as a conservative — There is a debate raging, raging like a hemorrhoid, right this second in the halls of power. The debate basically boils down to this: Should the Tea Party elects stay independent, per their own expressed intent and the wishes of Sen. Jim DeMint, who had not heard of Bob Novak before coming to hell on earth, AKA Washington? Or should the freshman class get in line with GOP leadership? Yes, it is the most obnoxious country-mouse-city-mouse debate ever. And do you know who started it? Trent Lott! Trent Lott started this whole thing last year when he said of the Tea Partiers, “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.” Well, the former majority leader from Mississippi is on the defensive now, and here is what he has to say: “I want to remind everybody. I’ll put my conservative voting record up against any of ‘em. I was voting conservative before a lot of these people were born. So, I don’t appreciate having my credentials questioned as a conservative.” GAME. ON.
4.) TheDC book reviewer hospitalized for high blood pressure after reading Keith Olbermann’s new book — There is a good chance that you, dear reader, will never read Yelling Man Keith Olbermann’s new book. Titled, “I’m Not Going On The Air Until Someone Gets Me A Door With My Name On It,” Olbermann’s new book is one long transcript of hate. “There’s a reason ‘Pitchforks and Torches’ so closely resembles ‘Countdown,'” writes TheDC’s Ruth Graham. “The new book consists entirely of transcripts of Olbermann’s tirades from ‘Countdown’ — what the jacket copy calls ‘his most potent barrages,’ which sounds vaguely disgusting.” Graham goes on: “Make no mistake: There is absolutely no ‘added value’ in ‘Pitchforks and Torches.’ There’s no introduction, no prologue, no preamble, no table of contents, no index, and no conclusion, afterward or post-script. Instead, Olbermann jumps right in. The first sentence in the book is ‘Number three: I could write a book–gate.’ No, seriously, that’s it. Since that could have been written by a random word-generator operated by a sleepy chimpanzee, you might think you’re missing some context, but remember: That’s the first sentence, so there is no context yet. We’re all on the same page here.”
5.) House Dems try ‘progressive’ on for size — “With just 185 House Democrats left standing after Tuesday’s massacre, about 41 percent of Democratic House members in the 112th Congress will consist of self-identified progressives,” reports TheDC’s Chris Moody. There is also talk within the progressive liberal community that more Democrats are likely to join the caucus next year, giving them an even more robust voice within the party.” With most of the somewhat fiscally disciplined Blue Dogs gone, the progressives will have the run of the place. Let’s hope someone housebroke them.
6.) Thank God money grows on trees — Because if it didn’t, we might have to ask ourselves how the Fed can possibly afford to buy $600 billion in Treasury debt! “The Fed’s first $1.75 trillion bond-buying program, which ran from Dec. 2008 to March 2010, is credited with helping the economy when the U.S. was hit by a financial crisis and a deep recession. The latest move is more controversial because the economy is now growing — albeit slowly — and financial markets are no longer under severe stress,” reports the Wall Street Journal. NEVERTHELESS! Quantitative easing must go on. “After two days of discussions, Fed officials decided to go ahead with a much anticipated program, saying they will buy $600 billion of U.S. government debt over the next eight months.”
