Bailing out on leadership
From Politico, on the bailout vote:
“I guess the Republican leadership is so weak, John Boehner couldn’t deliver 50 percent of the votes. I thought these were big boys,” a furious House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) said moments after the vote.
I take it the Democrats, then, were much more disciplined and attentive to their leadership. Or something like that:
As the time clock struck zero on the bailout vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi strode toward Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, to ask her to change her nay to a yea.
Kilpatrick refused to even look at Pelosi during the exchange, calmly removing her jacket and laying it on a chair. At the end of the day, 20 of 39 caucus members voted against the bailout plan–votes that could have saved the bill.