Women have asses that deserve kicking as often as men. The reference is to the newly crowned speaker, not the gender of the newly crowned speaker, which is irrelevant to this discussion.

What is being discussed is the margin by which Pelosi's hand picked majority leader was defeated in the vote by the House Democrats when they met this past week to vote on new leadership.

Pelosi's boy lost by a wide margin, hence the use of the term "got her ass kicked". In this context, it means the speaker lost the election big time.

Bobert, you sure are trying to spin things like this to make it match the rose colored glasses you bought at Wal Mart, perhaps? Or have you been drinking too much of the Donkey Koolaid?

Nearly every Friday night, I watch the political talk show "Washington Week" on PBS. My interpretation of events surrounding Pelosi's ass kicking were no different than the majority opinion expressed by the mainstream media pundits on Friday night's show.

I really don't understand how you can interpret the loss of Murtha to some crafty, savvy political move on her part. The widespread conventional wisdom at this point was she overreached, and it may have weakened her right out of the gate with her caucus. She put too much emphasis on her loyalty to Murtha, at the expense of getting off to a winning start, with the wind of the election still at her back.

As I said above, I thought she would have appeared much more politically savvy & in control of her caucus had she played it like Reid is playing the jockeying for position in the Senate Dem leadership races. She should have kept her mouth shut, and been behind the scenes and low key. She shouldn't have publicly backed Murtha, because he had so little support.

Now, it not only looks like she doesn't know how to count the votes, it also looks like she may not be very good at swinging them the way she wants them to go.

Not the best start for a novice Speaker.