Word: speakered
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...That's why pretty much everyone in Washington is mystified by Nancy Pelosi. Through a midterm-election campaign in which Republicans had tried to caricature her as a fuzzy-headed and dangerous San Francisco liberal, she succeeded in keeping the focus on them. And the first woman Speaker-to-be was pitch-perfect in the euphoric days that followed the Democrats' big win. She said the right things, and she did the right things, like quietly reshuffling her ranks to avoid a showdown between Rahm Emanuel, the campaign-committee chief who delivered her majority, and James Clyburn, a senior member...
...former Republican leader Dick Armey chortled. "I just hope she does more of it." But the Murtha defeat will be largely forgotten if the Democrats under Pelosi's leadership rack up a series of victories on the agenda that she had laid out for her first 100 hours as Speaker, which includes raising the minimum wage, forcing Medicare to negotiate lower prescription-drug prices, cutting student-loan rates and making the national-security fixes recommended by the 9/11 commission. Then there is the biggest issue of all, now that the Democrats are partners in governing and not just critics: charting...
...moment there it looked as if incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was making the mistake every pragmatic Democrat feared: putting soft-hearted personal allegiance ahead of cold-eyed political calculation. The first key decision she made since the Democrats' triumph in last week's elections was to back John Murtha, the anti-war hero of the left, in what seemed an impossible battle against Maryland moderate, Steny Hoyer, for the number two position in the House Democratic leadership, majority leader. And it wasn't looking good...
...difference. One senior Democratic House member who was leaning toward Hoyer told TIME her vote was entirely dependent on the seriousness of Pelosi's interest in the race. Told that Pelosi was calling around in support of Murtha, the member said her vote was Pelosi's to claim: "The Speaker usually gets what the Speaker wants." Magnified across scores of calls, that kind of attitude could spell trouble for Hoyer. His backers are not happy and claim it will only firm up his support. "Members don't appreciate the strong-arm tactics and are angry that this is happening. That...
...Since Siniora still has a majority, he could go on trying to run the country without participation from the Shi'a parties. The constitution specifies that the country's president must be Christian, its prime minister must be Sunni Muslim, and that the speaker of parliament must be Shi'a Muslim. It doesn't, however, say what the balance of the cabinet has to be. But it would be practically impossible for the government to have legitimacy and effectiveness without any Shi'a, who are, after all, the country's largest religious group...