E Pluribus Unum

On Friday, Nov. 10, the Wall Street Journal's lead editorial said this:

Too many Republicans were corrupted and seduced by power and forgot why voters sent them to Washington. Winning back the majority requires new faces of leadership far removed from this year's debacle.

Of immediate concern to Republicans in the House is deciding who will be our standard bearer. Can those who have been a part of the current leadership team convince the other members that they've had an epiphany? It's possible, I suppose. But I think we'd be best served with some fresh faces, congressmen like Mike Pence and John Shadegg...

By a 168-27 vote, GOP caucus members made the outgoing majority leader, Ohioan John Boehner, the minority leader in the next Congress [over Mike Pence]. Boehner, who is perhaps best known for his bumbling approach to the scandal involving former Florida Representative Mark Foley and House pages -- in which he appeared, at one point, to indict outgoing Speaker Dennis Hastert -- and for his backroom approach to budgeting, will keep a Tom DeLay face on the caucus.

Boehner's No. 2, Missouri's Roy Blunt, a DeLay lieutenant who has been associated with every major scandal to hit the House Republican Caucus in recent years, was retained as caucus whip by a vote of 147-57 over Arizona conservative Rep. John Shadegg, who like Pence ran as a reformer.