It's always a treat to see the left eating their own, which not only comes from Democrats in disarray, but when Democrats are called out by their allies in the mainstream media. Earlier on Wednesday, Salon's Amanda Marcotte used House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as an example of "quit while you're ahead."
That's not to say Marcotte isn't a fan of Pelosi. Her headline refers to her speakership as "historic" and in her opening paragraph claims Pelosi "will be remembered as the GOAT (Greatest of All Time)." Several paragraphs down, she refers to her as "both the most effective and most progressive House speaker of all time." She also goes after Republicans, as this is Marcotte writing for Salon, after all,
If you stick around, however, several paragraphs later, she acknowledges problems with Pelosi.
"But there is one sense in which the ugliness toward Pelosi and overly harsh judgments of her career have a basis in reality: She hung in there for way too long," she points out. Marcotte also writes about how this is a problem for Democrats overall. "Like far too many others in Democratic leadership positions, Pelosi let her politician-sized ego tell her that she was indispensable, justifying a desire to hang onto power rather than graciously giving way to the next generation."
There's even a sense of wishful thinking when it comes to how she should have been gone before, with someone else filling the role:
Unfortunately, there are good reasons to look at Pelosi's past few years and argue that the time in which she was a forward-thinking leader has passed, and that someone younger would have been better at recreating the spark she had in the Obama years. Despite her gloriously uncensored contempt for Donald Trump, her leadership during his presidency suggested Pelosi had evolved into a far more timid and cautious politician than ever before. She created unnecessary rifts with some of the most interesting and progressive young members of her caucus, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. In the latter part of her career, Pelosi was running well behind where the voters were, when she used to be someone who led the way.
And, while Pelosi is hailed as "progressive" earlier in the piece, she's still not necessarily as progressive as Marcotte would like her to be. This is specifically when it comes to her supposed "reluctance to use the oversight powers of the House to constrain Trump." Pelosi didn't move to impeach Trump fast enough the first or second time, over Ukraine over January 6 for Marcotte's liking.
Pelosi may even be to blame for the January 6 select committee and Department of Justice not being able to do much against Trump. "Now the Jan. 6 committee is racing the clock to get criminal referrals to the Justice Department, and will end up doing much less than it could have to hold Trump legally accountable," Marcotte laments.
While Marcotte still ends her piece on Pelosi on a hopeful note, it can't be missed how it's nevertheless full of expressed disappointment. As she sums it up in her second to last paragraph:
The moral of this story is simple: The best way to preserve your legacy is to follow casino best practices, and get out while you're ahead. In the long run, Pelosi probably will be remembered as she should be, as a towering leader and genuine progressive who often pulled off the impossible. But her stubbornness in hanging onto power just a little too long has unquestionably tarnished that legacy. That's especially true in an era where people have goldfish-length memories and your reputation is only as good as the last time someone griped about your imperfections on Twitter.
Marcotte's piece was featured on RealClearPolitics' site for Wednesday morning, under "Pelosi Didn't Quite Know When To Quit."