Obama and Blue Dogs Versus Pelosi

The Weekly Standard has an interesting item on a behind-the-scenes battle between the Obama White House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

Rep. Jim Cooper, a conservative Democrat from Tennessee, told a liberal radio network that the Obama White House encouraged him to pick a fight with Nancy Pelosi on the stimulus bill. According to Glenn Thrush at Politico, Cooper said: "Well, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I actually got some quiet encouragement from the Obama folks for what I’m doing." Thrush notes that Cooper has signed a letter criticizing Pelosi for her handling of the rules on the stimulus.

Cooper then teed off on Pelosi and his party's leadership in Congress: "They know its a messy bill and they wanted a clean bill. Now, I got in terrible trouble with our leadership because they don’t care what’s in the bill, they just want it pass and they want it to be unanimous. They don’t mind the partisan fighting cause that’s what they are used to. In fact, they’re really good at it. And they’re a little bit worried about what a post-partisan future might look like. If members actually had to read the bills and figure out whether they are any good or not. We’re just told how to vote. We’re treated like mushrooms most of the time."

The Obama-Pelosi tension is consistent with what I was hearing in the aftermath of the House vote on the stimulus. White House officials were telling reporters that they were surprised by the outcome, in part because of Pelosi's heavy-handed approach to Republicans as she put the package together.

The obvious question, then, was why the White House didn't push its own version of a stimulus package?

Who's the president here?

Hmmm. What's going on here? Could Obama be allowing Pelosi to hang herself out to dry so that she will be less influential in the future and he'll have more of a free reign with Congress?

Could be.

There's also some dissension from the ranks of the Blue Dog Democrats. This letter is being prepared by the Blue Dogs to be sent to the Majority Leader:

Dems warn leaders to resume regular order

A group of more than 50 House Democrats has penned a letter to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) imploring him to “restore this institution” and see that the House returns to a “regular order” process of legislating.

The letter, signed by a large number of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the centrist New Democratic Coalition, has not yet been sent. Members are still gathering signatures in an effort to send the strongest signal possible to all top House Democrats that the caucus is up in arms over the top-down method of legislating employed by Democrats since late last year.

Hoyer, and not Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was chosen as the recipient not because he is viewed as the prime enemy, but “because this group has no better friend in this fight” than the majority leader — who is widely respected across the ideological spectrum for his adherence to rules and procedures — an aide said.

“You and Speaker Pelosi have each been quoted repeatedly as noting that the country must be governed from the middle, employing bipartisanship to solve our problems; we proudly and strongly affirm that view,” the members wrote. “One of the most basic but vital tools we have at our disposal to encourage bipartisanship is regular order in the House and Senate.”

The natives are getting restless.