Parting Democrat Speaks Up on Nancy Pelosi's Soft Tyranny in Congress

There are many Democrats in Congress who won't be there when Congress meets in January. Some saw what was coming and decided on their own to leave. Others are more stubborn.

One of the ideas thrown around about Democrats, mainly Obama and Pelosi over the past two years is this idea of soft tyranny in their leadership styles. The Wall Street Journal released an interview with Democrat Brian Baird, who decided not to run for reelection, about what the past two years have been like in Congress. It's honest, and it enforces this idea of soft tyranny.

For answers, I decided to chat up Rep. Brian Baird, a six-term Democrat from Washington state. Even though he's never won re-election with less than 56% of the vote, Mr. Baird is retiring because the brutal congressional commute makes it impossible for him to see his twin five-year-old boys grow up. He's not sticking around, like so many former members of Congress, to lobby inside the Beltway. That allows him to be candid about Congress and his party.

"It's been an authoritarian, closed leadership. That style plus a general groupthink mentality didn't work when Tom DeLay called the shots," Mr. Baird says. "We've made some of the same damn mistakes, and we were supposed to be better. That's the heartbreak."

Mr. Baird, 54, is a loyal Democrat who voted for all of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's legislative priorities, including the stimulus bill, cap and trade and ObamaCare. But he admits all three have serious flaws.

Mr. Baird recalls that he was "very excited" when his party took control of Congress in 2006, but he saw ominous signs early on. Before the 2006 election, he says, Mrs. Pelosi had 30 members working on a rules package to make the House more ethical and deliberative. "We abandoned all that work after the election, and leaders told us we should trust them to clean things up. I don't know a single member of the Democratic caucus who saw the final rules package before they voted on it."

Democrats also watered down efforts to practice fiscal responsibility. "We initially had numbers a bit more honest than the Republicans—we at least included war costs in the budget," he says. "Now we're authorizing programs for three years instead of five in an attempt to pretend we're saving money."