"The Cost of Throwing Pelosi Over the Side Would Be High"

"She has been an extraordinarily effective caucus leader. When Democrats last held the majority, she shepherded into law the most aggressive spate of liberal reforms since the Great Society: an $800 billion fiscal stimulus, health-care reform, Dodd-Frank. The House passed a cap and trade law at a time when bipartisan support for the idea still had some life in the Senate.
"It might seem tempting to dismiss these feats as automatic, the baseline expectation for what a leader can do when her party commands a majority. It is not. During many of these fights, Democrats were wandering off in multiple directions, as Democrats are wont to do. In particular, after Republican Scott Brown won a special election in Massachusetts in January 2010, many if not most Democrats collapsed into despair. Pelosi kept her nerve, talked her party off the ledge, and passed a bill that was signed into law."

Jonathan Chait defends Nancy Pelosi at New York.