OH SO JUICY - AT 7:14 A.M. ET:  Bill Kristol delightfully stirs the pot and makes things even more tense for establishment liberals as he wonders out loud, or out print, wy CIA Director Leon Panetta came down so hard on Nancy Pelosi, when San Fran Nan accused the CIA, for a day at least, of lying: 

Commentators have been struck -- though not perhaps as much as they should have been -- by the extraordinary character of CIA Director Leon Panetta’s blunt and stark rebuke of Nancy Pelosi...

...But did Panetta simply decide on his own to send this letter?...

Panetta would have understood the political implications of humiliating a House speaker of his own party. He surely at least ran the letter by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to get clearance. It’s also possible that Panetta was encouraged to send the letter by Emanuel.

This is speculation, of course, but it's very informed speculation.  Kristol reminds us that the Bush 43 White House was instrumental in ousting Trent Lott as GOP leader in the Senate.  Maybe, Kristol theorizes, the president would prefer to deal with a new speaker, say House Majority Leader Steney Hoyer of Maryland.

What did Rahm Emanuel know about the Panetta letter, and when did he know it?

COMMENT:  Pelosi and Hoyer are not friendly.  Pelosi supported the morally questionable John Murtha for majority leader, and that is a wound that does not heal easily.  Pelosi also is a poster child for the political left, and Obama knows that he needs the middle to govern and get reelected.  Further, Pelosi is a symbol of a Congress that doesn't rank very high in the polls.

Should Pelosi start clearing out her office?  No.  She has her own power base, which extends beyond the powerful California delegation.  But if you get nicked enough, you bleed.  That is what we're seeing.

May 18, 2009