Leadership Lessons

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Leadership Lessons
November 20, 2006; Page A16

House Democrats and Republicans elected their leaders for the next Congress last week, and the results suggest there's a reason Democrats will have the majority. They seem to have absorbed the election's lessons better than the GOP.

Rank-and-file Democrats ignored Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi's endorsement of Pennsylvania's John Murtha as majority leader and instead voted to keep Maryland's Steny Hoyer as their second in command. The vote was a rout, 149 to 86, despite not-so-veiled leadership threats about committee assignments for those who favored Mr. Hoyer. In rejecting the ethically challenged Mr. Murtha, Democrats showed good judgment and a desire to set a higher ethical tone than have the Tom DeLay Republicans.

Despite their recent defeat, however, Republicans also easily re-elected their top two leaders in the face of challenges from younger conservatives. Ohio's John Boehner, the new minority leader, had only taken over from Mr. DeLay in January and so he could fairly dodge some responsibility for this month's debacle. On the other hand, Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri was a key part of Team DeLay, in addition to being a vocal defender of spending earmarks and pork-barrel incumbent protection.

House Republicans are talking a good game of recovering their small-government principles, but their leadership choices suggest they think their defeat had little to do with their own image or performance. Instead -- and we also hear these whispers privately -- they blame everything on President Bush and Iraq. Mr. Blunt is said to have impressed the Members with a plan to defeat freshman Democrats in 2008; so much for self-reflection and new ideas.

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[Demeter]

1. Too Bad, WSJ!

You backed the wrong horse, as you have since Ronnie's "Morning in America" propaganda, and now you're just going to have to suffer with better laws, fairer taxes, less corruption and fraud, and more prosperity than you know what to do with, while CEO pay is regulated to something reasonable by investor lawsuits and takeovers of boards of directors.

Why don't you hard-working morons take a break from politics, and just report the business news for a while? If you can remember how that is done, that is. Your skills are a tad rusty, but it will come back with practice!