Good medibias catch by you and this Powers guy, Tim. IMO this was a VERY smart move by Pelosi, but nobody else here is likely to say that. As with her immediate cutoff of "Cold Cash" Jefferson, IMO this is an effort by Democrat leadership -- long overdue, as Hastings should have never been on intelligence in the first place -- to try to better hold crooked black politicians to the same standard they'd hold crooked white ones, even if black Democrats in Florida's racially-gerrymandered districts refuse to perform that function due to all the racial (ok, racist, IMO) gerrymandering. Of course, her smartest move might be to get over the testosterone-war with Jane Harmon, but for some reason that's thought to be unlikely.
JMR

Absolutely amazing. It's incredible.

Last night on H&C that fat line mouthed Bob Beckel democrat strategist was dead-panning that Pelosi never thought about Alcee for the position at all. He did mention the fact that she can't stand Harmon and wanted her out, and never did he mention any other replacement or thoughts or options.

I was laughing at him, it was so obvious he was filled with crap.

This is the democrat plan, though, be certain of that. The news won't report any corruption on democrats until they absolutely have to, then it will be less than one day, and it will be spun into rose petals and sunny mornings. Then, the story will not have existed as soon as the issue is over, and it will have been a fantasy of evil republicans like Bob Beckel was claiming... it was amazing.

It appears William Powers point is that the MSM can gossip and speculate on interpersonal relationships so that the democrats can stand up and respond, " That's silly, we all love eachother here, and we do exchange ideas and talk things over, if that's what you mean."

Then the lib reporters can go off skittering and hopping away and giggling and patting eachother on the bottoms and come back to play tomorrow.

What I learned from Willie Pee about de-ocmo-rhetics:

Creative chaos = good deo-crats  Creative destruction = bad deo-crats

Thanks willie pee !

Tim. It's crossed my mind in recent weeks, that the attention given - complements of the conservative blogs and a couple of media outlets and pundits - certain "not so squeaky clean" potential Democratic leadership candidates (Hastings, Murtha, Jefferson,  etc.) has caused a little bit of MSM attention to the issues at hand. While it's obviously true that Hastings has received little noticeable attention yet in the pages of the MSM, there was enough chatter out there to cause the Democratic leadership to notice the risk that they face by placing known corrupt members in high places. It's only temporary, however.

In fact, as noted occasionally on these pages, there has been a near floodish-like trickle of rather level news stories (mainly in the print media) on all sorts of issues recently: just last weekend there was a rather balanced shot at pork spending [earmarks] in the NY Times (also picked up in the SF Chronicle) which put both parties on a rather level playing field. It even used the Byrd word (of course, the Times was respectful of the old wasteful coot).

It is my prediction, however, that the media is simply doing a little bit of up-front house cleaning (covering their butts, if you will). Most journalists are well aware of the historic corruption and waste in the Democratic party - even during the Clinton era. Typically, however, the MSM does little to keep it's constituents educated on these facts. Once, the MSM has spent a little bit of time here doing the news, and the Democrats are in place and ramp up their machine, all of this short-lived attention in the media on a few Democratic sour grapes will shift back to the constant drum of attacking the R's for not supporting the Democratic party agenda.  The tough questions will be more in the, "why are the corrupt Republicans blocking what the people want?" mode.