Fiscal Cliff Deal Limps Across Finish Line in House

Roll Call ^ | 1/1/2013 | Daniel Newhauser

[Lancey Howard]

Pelosi did a very good job for the Dem side for 4 years, she's seems a way much better fighter than Bohner.

I'm old enough to remember how Democrat House Speaker Tip O'Neil basically announced that he was going to ignore Reagan and do whatever he wanted. And that's essentially what he did. Newt Gingrich has said recently that the Republicans should take a lesson from the way Tip O'Neil ran the House in his day.

I mostly agree with that suggestion, but caution that O'Neill was a Democrat and therefore had a fawning news media to carry his water. At that time the Democrats had a monopoly on the selection, dissemination, and spin of the daily news, Any Republican Speaker, then or today, most definitely would not have any support from the Democrat "mainstream" newsrooms. Quite the opposite.