Its been amusing to see one liberal opinion bastion after another echo my comments from earlier this week. The Times appears to imply that this was a simple misstep for Pelosi rather than a sign of incipient incompetence. We'll have a better indication in how she deals with the House Intelligence Committee.

Lawrence O'Donnell--someone to whom the title "reliable liberal" is a massive understatement (and also one of the most insecure men on television...), makes the following observation:

But the damage Murtha's ethics history can do to the Pelosi Speakership is nothing compared to what Alcee Hastings can do. Pelosi is feuding with her California colleague Jane Harman who is in line to become chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee. Pelosi wants someone else. Next in line is Alcee Hastings, a member of the Black Caucus, which is championing his candidacy for Intelligence chairman. No one outside of the Black Caucus would be happy to see Alcee Hastings in a chairmanship. I first saw Alcee Hastings in his impeachment trial in the Senate.

Hastings was a Florida federal judge who was indicted for extortion and bribery and was found not guilty by a jury. A judicial panel then recommended his removal from the bench, which, for a federal judge means impeachment in the House and trial in the Senate. Hastings was convicted by the Senate in 1989 and removed from the bench, whereupon he ran for Congress and won. That's where Alcee's sweet revenge story should end. But Pelosi is actually considering him for the chairmanship.

How bad is this guy? John Conyers couldn't even defend him.

In the speech, Conyers looked back to civil-rights days, when corrupt judges sometimes twisted and ignored the law. “We did not wage that civil rights struggle merely to replace one form of judicial corruption for another,” Conyers said. “The principle of equality requires that a black public official be held to the same standard that other public officials are held to.…Just as race should never disqualify a person from office, race should never insulate a person from the consequences of wrongful conduct.”

The black caucus is pushing hard for Hastings, and once more Pelosi finds herself in a trap of her own making--the chits are due and one way or another, she has got to pay.

What a lot of the commentary--well all of it--is ignoring is that this is less about Pelosi and more about the nature of the Democrat party--a coalition of special interests rather than any ideology. How you get bluedogs, dyed-in-the-wool liberals, the black caucus, union flacks and everyone else singing from the same songbook would be a challenge for Allah, much less a housewife from Baltimore.