Pelosi Just Cannot Catch A Break

I swear if I didn't have such a low opinion of Nancy Pelosi, I might actually feel sorry for her. It seems that no matter what she does, she makes enemies. Being in between a rock and a hard place is not a nice place to be and I almost feel bad for the moonbat. That is saying alot.

She backed Murtha, a bad choice to say the least and her own party voted against it and voted Hoyer in. Then she passed over Harman, for whatever reasons, some say they were personal, others say it wasn't....doesn't matter for this post. She made her preference for Hastings, for lead of intelligence comittee, public and got jumped all over for it, and yes I was one of the people juming on her for that. I was living in Florida when the whole Hastings scandal went down and he would have been a bad choice. So she went with Reyes. That is where we are.

Now newsweek comes out with a piece about Silvestre Reyes and his opinion that more troops are needed in Iraq to deal with the militias.

Dec. 5. 2006 - In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”

The soft-spoken Texas Democrat was an early opponent of the Iraq war and voted against the October 2002 resolution authorizing President Bush to invade that country. That dovish record got prominently cited last week when Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi chose Reyes as the new head of the intelligence panel.

But in an interview with NEWSWEEK on Tuesday, Reyes pointedly distanced himself from many of his Democratic colleagues who have called for fixed timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Coming on the eve of tomorrow’s recommendations from the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission, Reyes’s comments were immediately cited by some Iraq war analysts as fresh evidence that the intense debate over U.S. policy may be more fluid than many have expected.

“We’re not going to have stability in Iraq until we eliminate those militias, those private armies,” Reyes said. “We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq … We certainly can’t leave Iraq and run the risk that it becomes [like] Afghanistan” was before the 2001 invasion by the United States.

Read the rest...

Now the other moonbats are losing what little mind they have left over this. Here are a few reactions from the left side of the aisle.

From Washington monthly:

OK, let me get this straight. Even though she clearly knows her brief and was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman was passed over for the committee chairmanship because she had supported the war and was just generally a little too hawkish on national security matters. Instead Nancy Pelosi chose Silvestre Reyes.

(SNIP)

That's just great. Which is better: someone who got it right in the beginning but has since lost his way, or someone who originally made a mistake but seems to have learned something since then? I think I'd pick door #2.

From Talk Left:

Reyes feels free to do this:

In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”

Sure Reyes, that'll do it. What a dope.

Harman had seen the light. We had gotten her to see the light. She would never have done this.

From Suburban Guerrilla:

This is from our new House Intelligence Committee chair. I was afraid of this kind of wingnuttery from Reyes, since he was such great pals with Wacky Curt Weldon:

Seems the liberal Dems didn't want someone that has their own opinions like Reyes, they want someone that will walk in lockstep with the other Dems, whether they agree or not. They don't want someone that makes the right decision, they want someone that agrees with THEIR decisions.

It is actually quite amusing watching these people sometimes. Poor Nancy. Can't seem to make a decision that her own party agrees with. I DO almost feel sorry for her.

Further down in the newsweek interview:

But when asked what he told Pelosi about his thinking on Iraq, Reyes replied: “What I said was, we can’t afford to leave there. And anybody who says, we are going pull out our troops immediately, is being dishonest … We’re all interested in getting out of Iraq. That’s a common goal. How we do it, I think, is the tough part. There are those that say, they don’t care what Iraq looks like once we leave there. Let’s just leave there. And I argue against that. I don’t think that’s responsible. And I think it plays right into the hands of Syria and Iran.”

Reyes also said he is eager to see the recommendations Wednesday from the bipartisan panel headed by former secretary of State Jim Baker and former Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Lee Hamilton. By some accounts, the panel is set to recommend an adjustment of course that will include the beginning of troop withdrawals pegged to progress on the ground along with other political and diplomatic initiatives. But Reyes said such ideas are not likely to substantially change his own views on the subject. “I’m very interested in reading what their recommendations are. But this is my position.”

Even Reyes, a Democrat understands, Iraq cannot be left to chaos and we must be able to stabilize it before we can leave. Finally....a brain in the bunch.

Now the Baker/Hamilton Report is out, download the report here and I have the full text up.

The blogosphere is buzzing with it today.

Don Surber and RightWing NutHouse both have a good take on this.

Roundup of articles about the Iraq Study Group Report:
Wapo here and here.
NYT.
White House response.
Power Line.
Boston Globe.
Pajamas Media.

Bloggers:
Hot Air.
Atlas Shrugs.