I mentioned growing up on a small ranch. As a child I was able to observe the habits of our animals at length. One of the things that fascinated me was watching the sitting hens (a sitting hen was one who was broody and was allowed to hatch chicks) parade their chicks out into the chicken yard for the first time. The chicks would respond to the mother hen’s incessant clucking, keeping in tight order behind her and ready to flee to safety under her at the first hint of danger.

Nancy Pelosi has been having her own problems keeping her chicks in line as a fractious membership repeatedly attempts to bolt from the nest. Any reference to the Speaker as an old hen is coincidental.

There is a story out there saying Pelosi is losing her grip, with a picture of a frantic looking Nancy holding up a claw-like hand a la The Wicked Witch Of The West, sans purple skin color. That’s sort of how the whole thing is playing out for the House Madame and the Democrat House right now.

House members are bolting for good reason. With unremitting pressure from their leadership and the White House on one hand and the growing anger of the country on the other, it’s a thankless position to start with. What is becoming apparent is that despite the calls from the leadership and the proclamations from the White House to sacrifice careers, at this point the votes just aren’t there.

With pro-life members threatening to vote no and the hard left saying they’ll vote no on any bill that does not have the single payer clause, there is plenty to worry about. But there are probably others who are ready to jump ship as well, but won’t say so for fear of retribution by the White House and the leadership.

The other nasty little not-so-secret issue is that if the Democrats should win by passing the bill against the will of the people… they lose. If they lose, they still lose.
The perception of the electorate will have been that they attempted to suborn the will of the people through using the reconciliation process.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010