'She's Lyndon Johnson in a Skirt'

Lyndon Johnson, of course, left a disastrous legacy of failure, including his escalation in Vietnam and the Great Society programs that are sure to bankrupt us. Is this who Democrats want to compare Nancy Pelosi, she of the 11% approval rating, to? If so I look forward to her speech where she announces she won't be running for office again.

Those who know Nancy Pelosi best say without her, President Obama wouldn't have been able to pop open the champagne bottle over his momentous health care win.

Pelosi loves quoting legendary House Speaker Tip O'Neill, and her fans say she's now in the same league as the Democratic lion of the House.

"This has been a remarkable string of victories. Sometimes you look down the field and say, 'How is she going to pull this one off?' And the next thing you know she scores," said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn).

"The real story here is how Nancy Pelosi dragged Harry Reid and Barack Obama over the finish line," he added.

Asked in an ABC interview Monday if she's the "most powerful woman in 100 years," Pelosi paused, then smiled, "That sounds good."

Even fervent Obama boosters concede Pelosi's clear-eyed commitment to liberal reform, steely determination and tenacity in whipping nervous Democrats into line made the difference between ignominious failure and victory.

"She's Lyndon Johnson in a skirt," Democratic political strategist Mark Siegel said of the San Francisco grandmother, who turns 70 Friday. "She was patient, tireless, persistent and cajoling - and she pulled off what no one else could."

The catastrophic "landmark" legislation hasn't even been signed and they're already deifying this woman? If her powers of persuasion were so all-encompassing, why did she have to scratch and claw for 14 months to get this mess passed and didn't even have all her members on board? Good grief, typically revisionist history takes a little time. It's not as if none of us can remember this past weekend.

It'll be interesting to see if the most powerful woman of the past century will reach single digit approval before long.

Most Americans don't have an opinion about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a new CBS News poll finds, even after more than a year of debate over the health care reform bill that put them squarely in the public eye.

Yet those who do have an opinion of the Democratic Congressional leaders don't seem to have a very good one: Pelosi and Reid are viewed unfavorably by roughly three times as many people as they are viewed favorably.

It won't be long until opposition to her will be framed in the weak argument that those mean conservatives just don't like a strong, powerful woman. It's just we don't like gangsters in designer skirts.

For the record, LBJ had a 49% approval when he left office. Maybe we ought to call her Jimmy Carter in a skirt.