Odds & Sods, Wednesday afternoon
- Bill in Portland Maine has some advice for Democrats:
You will memorize the following phrases and use them when the traditional media tries to push an inaccurate frame or outright lie about you or the Democratic agenda:
- "Where do you come up with this stuff?"
- "Who said that?"
- "You've got to be kidding---is that what you really think?"
- "You want to step outside and tell me Democrats are weak?"
- The Note has a whole slew of links to newspaper articles that unanimously slam Pelosi's pick of Murtha for Majority Leader. That makes it easier for me to decide -- Murtha is the right choice.
- Speaking of Pelosi's picks, she is also said to be leaning toward picking Alcee Hastings for House Intelligence Committee chair, over Jane Harman. If you love insider chit-chat, here's a juicy story about Hastings...and Rahm Emanuel:
Little enraged Emanuel as much as a fellow Democrat who didn't share his unrelenting drive to win. In January 2006, Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Florida Democrat, was quoted in a local newspaper speaking sympathetically of Republican Clay Shaw. Because of his longtime friendship with Shaw, Hastings pointedly declined to endorse Shaw's Democratic challenger.
I'm with Rahm -- nothing happens until you close the sale.Hastings was a colorful figure. A former federal judge, he was removed from the bench by Congress in 1989 for corruption and perjury, only the sixth U.S. judge in history to suffer this fate. He took revenge by winning a seat in Congress. A forceful speaker, Hastings chastised Emanuel in a closed meeting of House Democrats for not recruiting more candidates.
"He's great on lectures," Emanuel said later. "Phenomenal lecturer. I'm getting a lecture on recruitment when A, you haven't done a . . . damn thing, and B, we've got a [Republican] target and you're out there kissing his [behind] in the press?"
Hastings refused to back down, saying he was close to both Shaw and his Democratic rival, Ron Klein, and could not in good conscience take sides. "Ron Klein is my friend. I have known Clay Shaw for nearly 40 years," he said. "Far be it from me to insert myself in a race of that kind."
Hastings was hardly the only Democrat who Emanuel thought was not pulling his weight. Many of his colleagues were doing great work, he said, but dozens of others declined to help him take on their Republican friends.
"You've got to have a thirst for winning," he said. "You know what our party thinks? `We're good people with good ideas. That's just enough, isn't it?' Being tough enough, mean enough and vicious enough is just not what they want. . . . They just want to be patted on the back for the noble effort. No."
- Speaking of Rahm, again, he's from Chicago and I'm sure he's seen that scene in The Untouchables where Sean Connery's Jim Malone tells Kevin Costner's Elliot Ness how it's got to be: "You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way." Emanuel reminds me of Pistons Bad Boy #1, Bill Laimbeer: if he's on the other team, you hate him. If he's on your team, you hate him a little less. But, like Laimbeer, Emanuel is a winner.
- Is Tom DeLay on crack, or what? Speaking at a Time Magazine luncheon, he said this:
"I'm going to shock you on two levels. One is I think the real Person of the Year ought to be Nancy Pelosi....I think it's unfortunate that you said I created the culture in Washington. The Democrats, when they lost power, it was like, as John said, it was like losing your plantation - they refused to work with the Republican majority. Back in the good old days they always talk about the Republican minority mindset like the slaves of the plantation and as long as they kept that, the Democrats, they all got along. It's when things got up and changed that we all got more partisan. Nancy Pelosi, I have to give her credit."
Whaaaat? - Chuck Schumer thanks the online community for its help and support during the election campaign.