Pelosi: Where's The Leadership ?

We learned recently that the Justice Department broke the law by using political beliefs as a factor in determining who would be hired, and tried to manipulate the elections by targeting Democrats for prosecution.

Many people, including myself, believe this was done at the request of the Bush administration. The House Judiciary Committee is investigating this, and recently subpoenaed Karl Rove to testify about it.

Of course, in keeping with the established practices of the Bush administration, Rove thumbed his nose at the committee and the law. Instead of testifying, he went to Europe. He claimed he had "executive privilege".

Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee showed some backbone. They voted, along party lines, to cite Rove for Contempt of Congress because he ignored the subpoena. It looked like the Democrats were finally going to hold the Bush administration responsible for their unlawful actions.

But that was before the matter got to Speaker Pelosi. Instead of taking the matter to the full House for a vote, she has decided to play politics with this very serious matter. Her staff says there will be no vote before September, if she even lets it come to a vote then. There is the very real possibility that there will not be a vote at all.

I guess that Pelosi is afraid that it will look like the big bad Democrats are picking on the helpless Republicans. She's afraid that will cost Democrats some votes in the next election. So, once again, she's going to make it look like Democrats are "wussing out" and knuckling under to the Bush administration.

She obviously doesn't realize the Democrats were given a majority so they could rein in the Bush administration. The American people are looking for politicians who will stand up and do the right thing, regardless of the consequences. But instead of showing real leadership, she resorts to political maneuvering.

It was bad enough that she abdicated leadership over the horrible FISA bill, and told each member to vote as he or she saw fit. Now she is doing it again. If she refuses to allow the House to vote on this contempt citation, it will just look to voters like Democrats don't have the courage to stand up for what's right.

This is nothing less than a lack of leadership. Pelosi has shown herself to be a weak Speaker. When the new House convenes early next year, the Democrats should dump her and install a real Democrat who's not afraid to demonstrate some real leadership.

I'm proud of the Democrats for tossing out the old stereotypes and electing a woman to be Speaker. It's just sad that they chose a woman with no leadership qualities or political courage.