"new freshman class of Democrats" more conservative than Pelosi--very unlikely to have had much to do with the outcome of the Murtha-Hoyer contest.

Much more likely--Murtha's less-than-squeaky clean history---at a time the Democrats want to make it clear corruption will be, under them, a thing of the past.

And it's too bad--in a lot of areas Murtha made a lot of sense--and he had promised to support the anti-corruption drive to the hilt.