After calling House Republicans unpatriotic for not attending a meeting they never knew about and then getting on the floor today to make a partisan speech, it seems the “unpatriotic” Republicans joined quite a few of the “unpatriotic” Democrats in opposing the bailout bill. Final vote total: 205-228. Seems the extra dozen votes she could have received if she hadn’t been so partisan would have passed it for her.

Opponents said part of the reason for the opposition from Republicans was what they termed a partisan speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said one GOP source. House Minority Whip Roy Blunt said he thinks Republicans could have provided a dozen more votes had Pelosi not given her speech. [Emphasis mine.]

Pelosi had said that Congress needed to pass the bill, even though it was an outgrowth of the “failed economic policies” of the last eight years.

“When was the last time someone asked you for $700 billion?” she asked. “It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush administration’s failed economic policies — policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.”

House Republican Conference Chairman, Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., said “he was disappointed that the process that yielded a bipartisan approach took a very marked, partisan tone at the end of the debate.”

This is not a partisan crisis, this is an economic crisis,” said Deputy Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor, who said that 94 Democrats also refused to go along with the bill. He described the vote as the result of “Speaker Pelosi’s failure to listen and failure to lead.”

Pelosi said that Republicans have not received the message from the White House that bipartisanship was needed.

“We delivered on our side of the bargain,” Pelosi said, congratulating Democratic leaders for getting 60 percent of the caucus to support the White House bill. “We extend a hand of cooperation to the White House, to the Republicans so we can get this issue resolved”

95 of her Democrats voted against the bill, along with 66 Republicans.

With all the documentation we have given you over the past couple of days as to how this mess began in the first place, it seems we don’t want the same people who got us here to try to get us out.

Pelosi made a mistake of gigantic proportions if she wanted this bill to pass. She should have stayed in her office and not said a thing and could have picked up enough votes to pass the legislation.

Her whip should have counted noses. She has enough Democrats in the House to pass anything she wishes to get passed, but even her own party went against her. Maybe they don’t trust Barney Frank to do the negotiations now either.

It is ludicrous to try to blame the president for the financial mess this country is in as far as this crisis goes since the record clearly shows it was Democratic House members who put in the faulty rules and refused to regulate Freddie and Fannie as long as seven years ago.

I think her days as Speaker are numbered, whoever is in charge of the next House.

I get no satisfaction from this outcome, except I hope the next bill will be negotiated by different people and be a truly bi-partisan bill from beginning to speeches in the debate.

Let’s see how they spin this now. I started to watch when she was speaking and got so disgusted I just turned it off and walked away.