Tuesday, February 27, 2007

About those Election Promises...

The Politico has an interesting article on how Nancy Grandma Pelosi ain't keepin' all those campaign promises.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is discovering the cold truth about governing with a slim majority: It's much easier to promise behavioral change for Congress than to deliver it.

Pelosi vowed that five-day workweeks would be a hallmark of a harder-working Democratic majority. So far, the House has logged only one. Lawmakers plan to clock three days this week.

The speaker has denied Republicans a vote on their proposals during congressional debates -- a tactic she previously declared oppressive and promised to end. Pelosi has opened the floor to a Republican alternative just once.

I've heard howls of protest whenever I've pointed out how Democrats are breaking all their campaign promises left and right, but I've yet to hear any reasonable explanation for breaking more vows than, well, Bill Clinton (sorry, that one was just too easy).

The best defense is that trying to get anything done with a narrow majority requires strict enforcement of rules and an autocratic style. But governing that way does seem to fly in the face of all that "bipartisanship" talk we heard last fall.