Liberal Talk Radio

First House Democrats do the sensible and obvious thing by slapping down Chavez, and even Charlie Rangel defends Bush against the Venezulean leader:

George Bush is the President of the United States and represents the entire country. Any demeaning public attack against him is viewed by Republicans and Democrats, and all Americans, as an attack on all of us.

. . .

Venezuela’s generosity to the poor, however, should not be interpreted as license to attack President Bush. Those who take issue with Bush Administration policies have no right to attack him personally. It was not helpful when President Bush referred to certain nations as an “axis of evil.” Neither is it helpful for a head of state to use the sacred halls of the United Nations to insult President Bush.

It’s sort of like when you go to Europe and find yourself in the strange position of defending the U.S. to a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys . . .

And this evening Nancy Pelosi is on the News Hour sounding not at all shrill talking about bipartisanship as if they’re going to win:

REP. NANCY PELOSI: . . . We’re proposing a new direction, a new direction with our Six for ’06 that I told you about, but also that starts with integrity, where if you cut off the link between special interests and legislation, and are there really for the people, where we have civility, bipartisan administration of the House, where the voices of the minority are heard no matter who is in charge, and fiscal discipline.

We haven’t had that. If we have it, then we can move quickly into the people’s business. We are, after all, the people’s House.

JIM LEHRER: Are you serious about this…

REP. NANCY PELOSI: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: … that, if the Democrats win control of the House in November, that you will bring the Republicans in and operate in a bipartisan way?

REP. NANCY PELOSI: Absolutely. And we’ve put it in writing in our New Direction for America. It’s in writing in here, and it’s available at HouseDemocrats.gov.

JIM LEHRER: But what would be your motivation? The Republicans have — you’re claiming that the Republicans have not involved the Democrats in the leadership.

REP. NANCY PELOSI: That’s right.

JIM LEHRER: Now, what would be your motivation for allowing them in?

REP. NANCY PELOSI: Our new direction. It’s what our founding fathers had as their vision. It’s what our soldiers sacrifice their lives for. It’s what the aspiration of our children are about. Whatever we do, we should do in a way that is very democratic.

It doesn’t mean we have to agree on all issues; we won’t. We’ll try to find our common ground. We owe that to the American people. But where we don’t have it, we stand our ground, have the debate on the ideas, have the transparency and the openness, and let the people decide.

Did they get smart in like the last 24 hours or something?

Before, it sounded as if they were campaigning like it was 2004. Today, they seem to figure out that Bush isn’t running for reelection.

This could be a turning point!