MURTHA PUSHBACK.

MURTHA PUSHBACK. I have some real ambivalence about this leadership race, but I do take issue with Rob and Blake. On Blake's point about John Murtha's personal history of pork-barrelling and helping out family members, I have to confess that I rank such petty corruption issues way, way, way down on my list of things worth caring about. If one were to determine that the outcomes of a Murtha-led caucus would be seriously preferable to a Hoyer-led one to even a small degree, I find such issues vanishingly insignificant. (And I don't buy into the notion that his history is too toxic for Democrats to be able to afford handing him the leadership -- any leader's going to be pilloried by the GOP regardless, and Murtha's offenses aren't that remarkable.)

Rob's point about the limited ability of House party leaders to actually affect Iraq policy is well-taken up to a point (and there's actually little indication that Murtha would be very great shakes on non-Iraq foreign policy issues); moreover, I think too much can sometimes be made of congressional leaders' duties as party spokesmen as compared to their responsibilities as parliamentary leaders, organizers, and tacticians. I genuinely have no sense of Murtha's actual organizational abilites along those lines. Hoyer definitely has such skills -- but, as we all know, puts them in the service, at times, of crappy goals. My second hesitation regarding the Murtha candidacy is admittedly somewhat circular in nature: given the still-strong chance that he goes down to defeat, this race may very well leave the Hoyer-Pelosi working relationship truly broken. Much as one might prefer Pelosi to Hoyer, open warfare on the part of the two party leaders at the outset of the Dems' tenure in the majority would just be very dispiriting.

All that said (am I reaching a conclusion here, you ask?), Ezra's words should be heeded:

In the end, this is less about the Majority Leader than the Speaker. Hoyer represents a more moderate, corporatist stance, and has often whipped in its service. He provided organization and cover for the 73 Democrats -- including him -- who voted for the Bankruptcy Bill. He's got a long-standing personal and political rivalry with Pelosi and will work to establish himself as an independent power center, and will be waiting with a shiv if she slips up. Murtha, who is likely running at Pelosi's request, is her ally first, a centrist second. Given that, this particular contest comes down to how powerful you think Speaker Pelosi should be. In essence, a vote for Murtha is a vote for Pelosi. A vote for Hoyer is a vote against her.

That's true. Part of me still wishes this was a fight that was never started in the first place, but under the circumstances I'm inclined toward Pelosi's man.

Boy, that was convoluted.

--Sam Rosenfeld