Stiff-Arming the Beltway Bullies

And speaking of stiff-arming the Beltway pundits, in that Carpetbagger guest-post I criticized previously, one of the commenters posited his criticism of Pelosi thusly:
Pelosi promoted the Democratic party as anti-corruption and a force for “change.” She may have thought those were nifty campaign slogans, but the GOP and an adversarial MSM is certainly going to try and hold her to her word. It’s unfortunate, but there will be no honeymoon period for Congressional Democrats. Dems should get used to living under a microscope and adjust their MO accordingly.

And as I wrote on that board:
I don’t agree with that at all. The media’s only real influence is on the rest of the media, and the more we worry about what they think, the more power we give them. But most of America isn’t influenced by them at all, and it’s only by allowing the media to trip us up that we get really screwed. Plus, they smell fear and worrying about what they say only makes them hate us more. That’s just human nature. Bullies look for weakness and the more you follow their orders, the more they’ll hate you and bully you. A weak enough person will make even nice people want to slap them.

I agree that there is no honeymoon for us, but that just means that we need to tell them to shove-it. People respect authority and that means we need to act with authority. But the more we ask permission and kowtow, the more we’ll be treated like bitches. That’s how it works, both in Washington and in the real world. The Republicans have been teaching us that for over a decade, and I can’t figure out why Dems haven’t learned it too.

Thus said, I have slight concerns about giving the position to a guy with corruption problems (Hastings). But my question is: How has he screwed us lately? Is he still corrupt or are we worried about old offenses? I don’t want a corrupt guy, but I don’t want to pass on him solely because of how the Beltway gossips might react; particularly as that will only encourage them to hate us more. The Republicans didn’t rule by honeymoon, they ruled by force. I don’t want to emulate much about them, but they sure knew how to get things done. If only they had a reality-based agenda…