Good news for GOP--Democrats back Pelosi

CNN:

As congressional Republicans continued Monday to stoke the flames over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's accusation that the CIA lied to her about waterboarding, House Democrats appeared to be standing behind their leader.

One of Pelosi's closest allies in the House, Connecticut Democrat John Larson, acknowledged to CNN that the speaker's news conference last week could have been better, but insisted there hasn't been any fallout among Democrats.

"Perhaps it wasn't one of her best press conferences. But certainly everyone in this caucus stands behind her to be the lead in our caucus. I don't know if it could have been done better or not, but our caucus is entirely behind her, " Larson said.

Several Democratic sources told CNN that privately, some congressional Democrats are baffled by Pelosi's decision to escalate the controversy last week by going after the CIA.

But Larson, who chairs the House Democratic caucus, also said that he's spoken to members over the weekend and that they are "solidly behind the speaker." Watch more from Larson and others »

Another Connecticut Democrat, Chris Murphy, said there's a "total disconnect" between what pundits and talk show hosts are talking about and what he hears from his constituents. Murphy said there might be some impact on the speaker's ability to continue leading if the issue were something people were talking about in his district, but it's not.

Murphy said at "another political moment, this issue might dominate" representatives' minds, but he said lawmakers are so focused on pushing through major policy changes on health care and energy that "there's not a lot of tolerance for distractions."

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I think this is a gift to the Republicans 2010 campaign. They were already prepared to run against Pelosi's liberalism, but this is just a great issue to question the judgment of Democrat candidates who would have to vote for her for speaker again. Her nonsensical position on what she knew, when she knew it, and what she did with that knowledge does not pass the giggle test. It also undermines the Democrats attempts to push a witch hunt against the people who were fighting the terrorist.