Posted on 02/11/2009 4:27:35 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Did Reid roll Pelosi?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid played a little high-stakes chicken with each other at the tail end of Wednesdays shotgun stimulus talks.
Its not clear who won or who blinked.
According to a half dozen Congressional aides and members, Reid went before the cameras Wednesday to announce a stimulus deal before Pelosi had agreed on all the details of school construction financing.
Its ruffled feathers, big time, said a House Democrat speaking on condition of anonymity. The speaker went through the roof.
Added one House Democratic aide: He tried to roll her and she knew it.
A few minutes after Reid announced the deal, Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) convened a public meeting of the House-Senate conference committee.
It was supposed to be a glorified photo op. But there were no House Democrats in the room and Inouye hastily announced the meeting would be scrapped pending a Pelosi briefing of members on the details.
The problem, according to people familiar with the situation, was that Pelosi hadnt completely signed off on the Senates approach to restoring some of the $21 billion in school construction funding. House Democrats are pushing to have school-repair funding listed as a recurring expense; Senate Republicans want such an allocation to be a one-time-only deal.
The approach adopted by the Senate still infuriates many members of her caucus, and Pelosi had yet to fully make her case to dissenters, a source told Politico.
The result: Pelosi summoned Reid to her office her turf to hash out unspecified modifications to the package prior to a 5:15 re-convening of the conference committee.
People close to Pelosi painted a different picture one that portrays Reid as the one being rolled. Pelosi, they say, strategically permitted Reid to make his announcement and then held up her approval to extract a slightly better deal.
Contradicting other sources who said that Pelosi had been blindsided, a House Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Reid had placed a heads up phone call to Pelosi before announcing the deal.
Whatever the real story, Pelosis members were more than a little bewildered and headed into Wednesdays nights negotiation singing their Kumbayas through gritted teeth.
[Senate Democrats] dont know everything thats in the bill, said a laughing Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Ways and Committee. So Im afraid to go to that damned conference.
Even Senate Democrats seemed a little flummoxed. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), briefing reporters after the Reid presser, stopped short of actually saying he was 100 percent sure a deal had been cut.
"There was general agreement," he said. "It doesn't mean everything is locked in yet. But if we didn't have an agreement, then there wouldn't have been a news conference."
Somehow it doesn’t seem to matter to me....since, in the end, it’s America that is getting rolled.
Wow...
Isn’t that MIND BLOWING..?!?
Remember Kilroy?
Try to guess what 'Ktooo' means...
Who is going to control the pot of patronage money is at stake.
Good times my friends, good times.
How dare Reid do this to the most powerful woman in America!
Watch out for the “woman scorned”
Complete propaganda. They were both laughing their asses off behind those closed doors, the ones beyond which no Republican was allowed to go. What a farce, disgrace, and crime this whole thing was.
rat fight! (Rats have no ethics)
She’ll have him by the gonads. Oh wait, he’d have to have a pair first.
Please dont use “Reid” “Roll” and/or “Pelosi” in the same sentence ever again. It’s conjures images of the worst porn tape ever.
They are talking about ruffled feathers. We are talking our our country and our lives.
BUMP!
Nancy just shut up and iron my shirt !
This most powerful woman in America is simply in a word too old. She would be so far back in the line for an operation. Be gone~ You first. Nice example.
My thoughts exactly. I just had supper. Please, I’d like to avoid hurling chunks.
This is all a charade. Reid and Pelosi did exactly what Rahm Emanuel told them BO wanted them to do. The phony “Blue Dog Democrats” will be given permission to vote against the Porkulus Bill so they can win re-election next year and keep the Democrats in control, but this monstrosity will pass handily anyway and will be hailed as the greatest victory any president has ever achieved in his first month. Get ready to gag at the msm adulation.
I hate this propaganda because it shows how stupid our rulers think we peasants are. And I suppose they are right or we would not see these Socialists winning election after election.
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