At a press conference this morning, Luke Russert, numbnuts extraordinaire, asked Nancy Pelosi whether she is too old to be House Minority Leader:
“Your colleagues privately say that your decision to stay on prohibits the party from having a younger leadership,” Russert told Pelosi in a room packed with reporters. “What’s your response?”
A group of female lawmakers standing behind the Democratic leader immediately began to boo and heckle Russert. One woman shouted “discrimination” at him several times.
“Oh, you’ve always asked that question,” Pelosi sarcastically said to Russert, after a pause. “Except to Mitch McConnell.” McConnell, who is the minority leader of the Senate, is 70 years old. Pelosi is 72 years old.
Needless to say, House Democratic women were none too pleased with Baby Luke, and they let it show:
I’ll be holding my breath waiting for Luke Russert to ask Mitch McConnell or Harry Reid whether they’re too old to lead.
I’ll also be holding my breath waiting for someone to explain why Nancy Pelosi should step aside to make room for Steny Hoyer, who is older than she is.
blingee
She said it all when she said he would not ask that question of McConnell. That pretty much lays it all out right there.
Time to start getting rid of all these old white guys in the media. Really dumb question.
Lavocat
This BOY should merely have the word “douchebag” branded on his forehead so the uninitiated can be forewarned.
He’s the poster boy for All The Things That Are Wrong With Our Press Corps.
nancydarling
I saw that this morning. It did my old lady’s heart good!
BGinCHI
She should have said, “Maybe when you get older, Luke, you will be less fucking stupid.”
some guy
Hoyer needs to go
japa21
She could also have said, after the initial smackdown, that “if my colleagues, none of whom you care to name, apparently, believe that, they can vote for someone else.”
RSA
Funny, I don’t remember Russert saying that he’d rather have a President who’s 51 years old rather than 65 years old…
Zam
Why isn’t he concerned with the lack of women in leadership roles if she were to step down? This would make the President/VP men, the Majority/Minority leaders in the senate men. and the speaker/majority/minority leaders in the house all men.
LAC
Here is where a carefully orchestrated curb stomp would work.
Robin G.
What an asshat.
jharp
Anyone know how to contact Russert’s boss?
Carl Nyberg
Is Luke Russert willing to step aside so someone with more talent but lacking his connections could have an opportunity?
Tzal
A better way to ask that question is “Are some of the more junior members of the Democratic caucus disappointed by their inability to advance because the Democratic leadership has basically remained unchanged for a decade?” To which Nancy Pelosi would have responded, “No.”
So it’s still a stupid question, even if better phrased. I am always surprised to see him on a national teevee channel, even if it is cable.
cmorenc
Hey, it’s LUKE RUSSERT, reporter nespot-aire. Waddya expect?
Tripod
Yeah… but his dad died, so he gets a village job for life.
eric
It is not hard to see why the GOP was tone deaf on the “war on women” when the media has its own built in prejudices against women in leadership roles. That chicken is gonna need some aloe.
Shawn in ShowMe
Isn’t Luke Russert too young to be a member of the Washington press corps? Based on his current skill level, he should still be at the intern stage.
Linda Featheringill
@jharp:
Luke’s boss:
I agree. Luke owes all of us a very public apology.
AA+ Bonds
owned
FlipYrWhig
Fifty bucks the
SmailsRussert kid picks his nose.Zam
She could also have responded with “No Luke, most people are used to having to work a long time in order to get the top spot, but I can see how you would think otherwise.”
meander
Nancy SMASH weak boy!
RosiesDad
@BGinCHI:
She should have said, “I know your mother and I knew your father. Is it possible that you were adopted?”
Lolcat Liberation Front
Reagan was 77 when his stint as President wound up.
Had he won the 2008 election, McCain would have been 72 at the start of his presidency.
Hillary Clinton will be 69 by January 2017, but there’s plenty of people who want her to run for President in four years’ time.
By the standards of current and recent political leaders, Pelosi isn’t even that old.
AA+ Bonds
Luke Russert: very rich, anyway
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Zam: Oh, ZING! Perfect.
I voted, again, for Nancy with great pleasure and pride. I wish we could get DiFi to retire, but I want NancySmash to reign forever.
Turgidson
@Carl Nyberg:
Yep. Or a rejoinder like: “Well, Mr. Russert, your colleagues have told me in private that your reluctance to quit this job is denying people who have actually earned the opportunity through hard work and education to do a better job at it than you do.”
AA+ Bonds
.
.
Luke Russert, nepotist prince
YellowJournalism
@Zam: I like how she smartly reminded him and the public of the different path a woman may have to take compared to a man. Women are expected to fulfill their family role first while her colleagues had no problems entering into leadership roles long before her. Fuck Luke Russert. “Let’s treat this like a serious question” indeed!
YellowJournalism
@Lolcat Liberation Front: Sadly, there will be more debate over Clinton being fit for President at her age than there ever was for those men.
El Cid
I’m sure plenty of his peers and superiors cackle amongst themselves all the time about what a laughable extreme old weirdo Nancy Pelosi is what with her extreme crazy San Francisco voters and probably being all crazy bitchy about not being Speaker anymore.
I’m quite sure the little nepotized turd was taken aback when all those around him failed to guffaw in the same way that Rush Limbaugh’s listeners do when they communicate an entire world view just by saying Nancy Pelosi! in that satirical / horror tone they use to emphasize how weird and evil libruls are.
Just Some Fuckhead
Isn’t Luke pretty much the living embodiment as to why it would be unwise for the old to step aside?
AA+ Bonds
I’ll go ahead and say it: I’m sorry that Luke Russert’s dad died but the Russerts are not the Bachs of TV journalism
Violet
Do not fuck with NANCY SMASH, Nepotism Luke.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Luke, the farce will be with you, always.
PsiFighter37
I wonder if anyone in DC has berated Russert the Lesser for being a lucky product of being the right itch in his father’s pants. I’d pay someone to make the boy cry at a bar, but this is probably as close as we’ll get. I just wish someone would tell him to his face that the only reason he has a job is nepotism. He probably thinks he’s über-qualified.
Yutsano
@YellowJournalism: Grandpa Walnuts had no business running for President. Remember his medical records fiasco? It was the Willard tax return scandal of its time then just like with Romney the media just dropped it when it looked like it might embarrass him. It’s fair to assume every Republican candidate is hiding some skeleton in their closet.
Kerry Reid
I’m surprised he stopped gnawing on the bones of his father long enough to get a question out.
AA+ Bonds
That kid has no business being in that room; he’s terrible at what he does, and he only got the job out of incredible pity from everyone around him, from goodwill earned by someone else
JPL
OT.. Please someone out Lindsey Graham. A photo engaged with McCain would be great but not necessary.
Ted & Hellen
Simpleton Luke is definitely a douche in general, and a living example of the horrors of necrophiliac nepotism, but…SHMANCY never did answer the larger question he raised: What IS the ancient Dem leadership, men AND women, doing to prepare the next generation; and is their holding onto power in their dotage really serving the party or the nation well?
It’s just that he’s too stupid to phrase it that way, and Nancy Impeachment Is Off the Table Pelosi would rather not answer it so she went all in on OH MY GOD AGEISM/SEXISM HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME I AM THE QUEEN.
PsiFighter37
@Kerry Reid: Oh, that’s bad.
And by bad, I mean ‘win the thread’.
tBone
Simple: if one of his hips suddenly gives out, he still has one leg and a penis to help prop him up. Nancy, on the other hand, lacks tripodal equipment and would collapse like a stack of cordwood.
WereBear (itouch)
What a twerp.
azrev
After this election, you’d think he would have learned not to mess with women.
AA+ Bonds
@Ted & Hellen:
He didn’t raise that question, he had his own dumb question, watch the video
dmsilev
OT: Mitt Romney leaves the campaign staying classy:
Just fuck off and go away. Go spend some more time with your money.
MattR
Considering that Russert clarified his question by pointing out that he was talking about Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn, I don’t think anyone is going to be making that request.
Ted & Hellen
@AA+ Bonds:
I did watch the video, and he followed up.
AA+ Bonds
Don’t defend Luke Russert in any way even for entertainment, the people on the stage will be here forever, Luke Russert needs to go, now
AA+ Bonds
Electing another Clinton: also a breathtakingly terrible step for a Democracy
Just Some Fuckhead
There once was a cub of the Russert Pride
The best part of whom leaked out and dried..
AA+ Bonds
Brian Williams’ kid: out
AA+ Bonds
Kennedys: done
Suffern ACE
@Just Some Fuckhead: Sadly, if we think the country’s is fucked up because of the old guard, Luke Russert as the new guard doesn’t inspire me to change direction. When the old guard is gone, I’m thinking of asking the Mongolians to come rule for awhile.
nancydarling
Who are these Ted and Hellen people and why are they bothering us?
Wasserman-Schultz jumps to mind. I’m sure there are more.
Josie
The best argument against his criticism was the reaction of all the young women around her. They made clear that they did not agree with his point and that they wanted her there. They know better than anyone how she has encouraged younger people to participate and learn to lead.
Mandalay
It will be interesting to see what Rachel Maddow has to say about Russert tonight, if anything. She will lose some credibility if she looks the other way and says nothing.
I get it that you don’t normally stick a knife into those on your own team, but surely he did enough today to earn it.
arguingwithsignposts
@Ted & Hellen: give it a rest, firebagger
MattR
@AA+ Bonds: Luke Russert: “You, Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Clyburn are all over 70. Does your decision to stay on prohibit younger leadership from moving forward?”
That is pretty similar to what Ted & Hellen said.
Cluttered Mind
@Shawn in ShowMe: What are you talking about, Shawn? Based on this performance, I’d say Luke Russert has displayed total and complete mastery of all the necessary skills to be a member of the Washington press corps. It wasn’t a nepotism hire, the kid was and remains absolutely perfect for the job he was hired for and is being paid to do. The problem here is that the job in question is not “journalist” and hasn’t been for years. Which is probably good news for him because if he was actually attempting to be a journalist then he’d be SOL because my toenail clippings could do a better job at it than he could.
AA+ Bonds
If this place weren’t so ban happy the people who keep it interesting wouldn’t have to keep changing names
PsiFighter37
@dmsilev: Glad we relieved him of his burden so he can spew his 47% charge with a racial twist. What a fucking asshat. I really do hope that Obama does not bother calling his ass.
What would’ve been better during the pressed is if O had responded, “You know how you say you’ll keep in touch with the asshole you sat next to in the flight and had to endure an interminably long stream of bullshit? Yeah, that’s what this situation is like…”
Andrew Abshier
I don’t mind if Pumpkinhead The Younger is in TV journalism–but right now he needs to be earning his spurs doing farm reports for some tiny station in North Dakota, or maybe covering a state capitol. At least that’s how it’s supposed to go.
Also: wasn’t Chris Wallace a nepotism hire also? At least Chris sometimes acts like a real journalist.
AA+ Bonds
@MattR:
Who the shit cares
TooManyJens
@Zam: That is perfection.
Turgidson
@dmsilev:
Ha.
Romney’s only coherent policy was a determination to gift as much of this country’s wealth over to filthy rich people like himself, and fuck everyone else. How rich.
ranchandsyrup
these firebaggers keep droning on and on.
MattR
@AA+ Bonds: Sorry. I forgot you had no interest in the truth. Only scoring points.
AA+ Bonds
I don’t give a shit about the question or the fucking capitalist tools on stage, I am saying, fuck Luke Russert
AA+ Bonds
@MattR:
I 100% agree
MattR
@AA+ Bonds:
So why did you previously say “He didn’t raise that question, he had his own dumb question, watch the video” if it was irrelevant. Or did it only become irrelevant the second it was pointed out that you were wrong about what Russert asked?
Mandalay
@dmsilev:
Wow….your link shows that he is still lying his ass off, and still in complete denial of why he lost.
I guess Romney had been waiting for the call from Obama that never came to become his business czar, and so he decided to stick the boot in one more time.
It’s is amazing how nobody – absolutely nobody – gives a shit about Romney now. He’s so mediocre that he is not even reviled or hated. As you said, he should just fuck off and go away.
Go on now, go, walk out that door!
Just turn around now‚
cause you’re not welcome any more.
JoyfulA
@JPL: Everybody in South Carolina knows, and they don’t seem to care as long as he doesn’t announce it.
What he does have to worry about in the 2014 election is Jim
DeMint primarying him with a teabagger, which I suppose is why Graham is going to be belligerent for the next two years.
JPL
@JoyfulA: Then he needs to go. An angry moderate = a teabagger. The results are the same.
Just Some Fuckhead
@dmsilev:
It’s too late for that. Romney owes some really powerful people a lot of money. Don’t be surprised if they kill him and make it look like it was on purpose.
Joe Buck
Hoyer is a creature of the Village. He represents K Street, and even his district is (partly) inside the Beltway. I’m sure he socializes with young Russert a lot more than Pelosi does.
The Village openly has it in for Pelosi; they were all saying she should go away because she failed again (to take the House, I guess), though this was only because of gerrymandering (more people voted for a D than for an R to represent them in the House).
Hungry Joe
@PsiFighter37:
Oh, do I love that line. Consider it stolen.
GregB
@Joe Buck:
Clearly McConnell should go for his inability to take the Senate. No? Russert? Bueller?
AxelFoley
@ranchandsyrup:
What you did there, I saw it.
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
Er, no, no one was wrong about what Russert asked. The fact that he backed down and strained to add the other leaders to his follow-up question after she called him out on it doesn’t magically change the original question.
And, yes, the fact that she stood on that stage surrounded by all of the newly elected and re-elected Democratic women in the House should kind of answer the question of where Pelosi pictures the next generation of leadership coming from, doesn’t it? The problem seems to be that lil Lukey didn’t like that answer.
joel hanes
@Joe Buck:
failed again (to take the House)
Part of this does indeed lay at Pelosi’s feet, although indirectly.
She chose the wretched Blue Dog Steve Israel as head of the DCCC.
If the DCCC were worth one spit, corrupt Buck McKeon (chair of the House Armed Services Committee) would be out of Congress. The DCCC chose not to support his opponent, who nevertheless made the election close purely with his own fundraising.
A similar situation obtains with Michelle Bachmann, who is less important than McKeon on substance. If the DCCC were worth two spits, she’d have lost.
The prize was Paul Ryan. With money, his excellent challenger Rob Zerban would have had a fighting chance.
The DCCC chose not to help, and Zerban went down to defeat 55 % / 43 %
What _did_ the DCCC do with the money it saved by not funding these challengers ? A lot of it went to choosing “centrist” conservaDems in blue districts, ensuring that more progressive Democratic challengers never made it out of the primaries.
Again: I’m a big fan of Nancy Pelosi, but her choice of corrupt Blue Dogs and corporatists for national party leadership roles is looking more and more like a series of errors.
Lolcat Liberation Front
@YellowJournalism #30:
Sadly, there will be more debate over Clinton being fit for President at her age than there ever was for those men.
Hmm. You may be right. One thing HRC would have to her advantage is that she’ll be *exactly* the same age as Saint Ronnie Reagan was in 1980. That factoid, repeated enough by Clinton’s people, might shut even the most sexist of Beltway hacks up.
But perhaps I’m being too optimistic.
MazeDancer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
A plus point about how Luke a living demo of how youth not necessarily at an asset when judgment counts.
Rachel Maddow had a great clip on her show tonight of the moment, with a good close up on all those formidable women behind Ms. Pelosi reacting as Luke showed his ignorance with that high school question. Clearly, any one of those women could have skinned that little dipshit without messing her power suit. He just wasn’t worth the effort.
Von
A much as I admire Nancy Pelosi, I have been having the same conversation for the past year and it’s time for all career politicians who have been in office for over twenty years to step aside and let new leadership be elected. They’ve served the people and their own personal interest and it’s time for them to move on.
Thatgaljill
May I be as together at 72 as Nancy Pelosi is…
White Trash Liberal
And to MattR and Ted/Helen:
Pelosi answered the question. She described her efforts, on a superficial level, to help cultivate the next generation of leadership. Younger, more driven women free from the cultural hegemony of presumed motherhood.
There she was, surrounded by the fruits of her labor. And you two are acting like Village Idiot had a point.
Clean your spectacles, swab out your ears, and pay attention.