Things I Don't Expect from the New York Times

I was rather surprised that Michell Cottle, the Times national politics OP/ED writer said that, "Democrats Need a Wartime Consigliere. Hakeem Jeffries Isn’t One." 

To be clear, the Godfather reference is not a surprise, but the fact that she suggested that the Democrats need a fighter, and not a milquetoast advocate for the "Norms", surprised me.

On Monday, less than a week after the Democratic Party’s election romp, the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, should have been riding high. Instead, around lunchtime, he stood stoically behind the lectern in the bowels of the U.S. Capitol, as reporters grilled him about the group of Senate Democrats who had joined Republicans to wind down a government shutdown showdown that polls suggested Democrats were winning: Was Mr. Jeffries disappointed in these colleagues? Did he think Chuck Schumer should remain the Senate Democratic leader? Would the base’s fury over the deal hurt the party in next year’s midterms?

………

If anything, that was an understatement. Democratic voters are spoiling for a fight, and many think their party’s leadership does not have what it takes to “meet the moment,” as I keep hearing. Already, a bevy of progressive House hopefuls, many of them challenging Democratic incumbents in the midterm primaries, have vowed not to support Mr. Jeffries for leader if elected. In New York, a young, lefty city councilman is reportedly readying a run for Mr. Jeffries’s congressional seat.

………

“Hakeem Jeffries was chosen at a time when he was expected to be a peacetime leader, a coalition builder,” said Amanda Litman, the head of Run for Something, a group dedicated to getting young progressives into elected office. “He is not well suited to being a leader of the opposition — a wartime consigliere.”

………

He has the political pragmatism of his predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, but not her wicked street-fighting record, nor her gift for making the opposition’s, and especially Mr. Trump’s, head explode. To grip the imagination of his political allies and opponents, the minority leader needs to find a way to be less even-keeled — maybe even a bit of a jerk.

Gee, but what about civility?