The White House May Be Trying to Purge Pelosi

Kristol: Why else would CIA boss 'humiliate' his party's speaker?
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted May 18, 2009 12:13 PM CDT
The White House May Be Trying to Purge Pelosi
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 14, 2009.    (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)

After Nancy Pelosi suggested the CIA had misled Congress, the agency’s director fired back with a letter denying the claim. But the idea that Leon Panetta would send a letter “humiliating a House speaker of his own party” entirely of his own accord seems “almost inconceivable,” writes William Kristol in the Washington Post. Perhaps he “ran it by” Rahm Emanuel—begging the question: “Does Emanuel (and, presumably, President Obama) want a chastened Pelosi to remain speaker?”

The administration may be following in the footsteps of their predecessors, who pushed out former majority leader Trent Lott, who “wasn’t easy for the White House to control.” Could Obama and Emanuel be seeking a “weakened Pelosi”—or do they want Steny Hoyer to take her place?
(More Nancy Pelosi stories.)

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