Pelosi and Reid Taking Fire From the Left

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid aren't making anyone happy these days:

Some of the progressives who helped put Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in power are demanding that they come down hard on House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and any Senate committee chairmen who stray from the flock on health care reform.

Don’t hold your breath.

While three Democratic insiders say leaders have privately discussed the possibility of ousting Rangel or asking him to step aside, there has been no move to approach the New York Democrat — and aides to Pelosi have made it clear that she won’t do anything about him until the House Ethics Committee finishes its probe.

That doesn’t sit well with Markos Moulitsas and Arianna Huffington, two stars of the liberal blogosphere who’ve joined House Republicans in calling for Rangel’s ouster.

“Talk about tone deaf,” Huffington wrote for The Huffington Post on Sunday. “The Democrats have to make it clear to America’s beleaguered middle class that they don’t believe there are two sets of rules: one for the power players of Wall Street and Washington and one for everybody else. Congress’s approval rating is at 21 percent, a 10-point drop over the last month. If the Democrats want to see it hit single digits, by all means, keep Charlie Rangel as chairman.”

While Huffington’s comments buzzed through the blogs Sunday and Monday, Pelosi cares much more about her close-up constituency — the 255 members of the House Democratic Caucus. And when House Republicans pushed a resolution last week calling for Rangel’s ouster, the vast majority of Pelosi’s Democrats said no.

And the Congressional Black Caucus is leaning hard on the Californian to lay off Rangel until the ethics committee completes its investigation, which could drag into next year. Last week, 36 members of the CBC sent a letter to Pelosi on Rangel, a move interpreted by top Democratic aides as a “shot across Pelosi’s bow.”

That doesn’t mean Democrats are happy that Rangel is still an issue — or that he threatens to remain one into the 2010 election season. “She is under a lot of pressure to do something,” one Pelosi confidant said of the speaker. “She wants the [ethics committee] to finish quickly so we can get this over with.”

But for now, Pelosi won’t do anything but wait — regardless of what Huffington says.

Nancy Pelosi promised the most ethical Congress in history. How's that going so far?

Pelosi and Reid have done immeasurable damage to the Democrat Party brand and both could find themselves out of the leadership after 2010. In fact, Reid is likely to find himself completely out of Congress since at this point he's losing handily to anyone who wants to run against him. It really doesn't matter who it is.

Leaving a tax-cheating crook like Rangel in place, and letting him continue to write tax legislation for the rest of America is unconscionable.

But totally expected.