A couple of points. As mentioned, there must be a number of unhappy campers in the Democratic cloakroom because Pelosi is still leading their parade — even more than were willing to oppose her publicly. (On the flip side, it’s amazing that a guy like Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly, who eked out an 800-vote victory in November over an opponent he beat by 12 percentage points in 2008, still voted for Pelosi.)

As for Boren and others who defied her, wow! The old adage says you don’t take on the king (or queen, as it were) unless you’re sure you can knock ‘em off the throne. Pelosi’s still there. It’ll be interesting to see how they handle those awkward situations in the House elevators. Seriously, keep an eye on Boren and the others to see if Pelosi follows through with another old saying: Don’t get mad, get even.

According to Politico, former approps chairman Jerry Lewis of California wants another swing at the job. But that would require waiving the party’s term-limits rules. Lewis is known around Washington as the consummate appropriator — which is to say, the kind of insider who generally fared poorly in congressional elections earlier this month. Lots of Republicans and tea partiers want someone else to chair the committee, someone who will hold the line on earmarks and overall spending. After all, both were major themes in the just-concluded campaign.

But if not Lewis, who? Kentucky’s Harold Rogers would be next in line, but he, too, is a long-time committee member — whose commitment to spending restraint is automatically suspect. Politico reports Rogers is vowing allegiance to an earmarks ban and other reforms. And, big surprise, Rogers has been saying that waiving the term-limits rule would be a big mistake. It’ll be interesting to see how the leadership race pans out — Boehner will play a huge role — and whether fiscal hawks like Arizona’s Jeff Flake land spots on the committee. Certainly, both questions will be watched carefully by voters expecting change, not more of the same old, same old.

Robinson writes the charges against Rangel range from “the technical all the way to the trivial” and that the congressman didn’t gain monetarily from any of his alleged transgressions. That’s certainly debatable. Rangel allegedly failed to declare rental income from vacation property in the Caribbean — the kind of omission that lands regular people in jail. No big deal, Robinson writes, because Rangel paid back what he owed in taxes, penalties and interest. As for allegedly using his official House letterhead to raise money for a college program bearing his name, Rangel is guilty only of padding his ego, not his pocket, Robinson writes. Move along, nothing to see here, seems to be the columnist’s attitude. Really?

So much for the crusading columnist, actively comforting the afflicted/afflicting the comforted, eh? Never mind the symptoms of entitlement and privilege wafting from Rangel’s ethics file. Hard to imagine Robinson, paid to propound liberal positions in The Post, giving such a wide berth to any of Rangel’s conservative colleagues.

The president of the United States throwing out the first pitch of the Major League  Baseball season truly is a rite of spring. President Barack Obama was the hurler-in-chief before Monday’s Washington Nationals-Philadelphia Phillies game, continuing a tradition apparently begun by President William H. Taft in 1910. Obama reportedly spent some time practicing his pitch. (No one wants to get on a mound in front of 40,000 people and dribble one into the catcher.) The president strode to the Nationals Park mound in a red Nationals jacket, to cheers and some boos. Toeing the pitching rubber, Obama pulled out a Chicago White Sox cap and put it on his head, to more boos. All in good fun. As for his toss, Obama’s left-handed offering sailed high and wide to the left, but Nats infielder Ryan Zimmerman still was able to flag it down. Mission accomplished!

Sort of under the radar is quite a bit of evidence that the House of Representatives is where Democrats will have their problems. The House originally passed its health care bill in November with just five votes to spare (220-215), and Democratic and Republican sources say Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have that margin anymore. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., tells The Hill newspaper 15 to 20 Democrats don’t like the current compromise for various reasons. Stupak’s chief complaint is the bill’s abortion-funding language, which is more lenient than what was in the original House version. He and a number of fellow anti-abortion Democrats appear unlikely to vote yes this time around.

Obviously, a swing of 15 or more Democratic votes in the House is a monumental problem for Obama and the majority’s leadership. The vote in November snagged one GOP vote, and no one expects any of the other Republicans to change their minds. As things unfold, smart money says to keep an eye on the House.

Whoa! “The most difficult circumstances in the history of the presidency?” Things were tough in January 2009, but tougher than Abraham Lincoln in March 1861, with the nation coming apart and headed for civil war? Tougher than Franklin Roosevelt in March 1933, with the country already mired in the Great Depression?

Probably just a slip of the tongue by Hildebrand, or maybe he wasn’t a big history guy in college. Or maybe, too, it’s the kind of political messaging people like him get paid to put out there, lowering the bar for a president who’s first year didn’t send off too many bottle rockets — the first step in a revisionist look at BHO as, dare we say, a historical figure?

President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and other dignitaries.  Obama’s grandfather and great uncle both made Normandy landings, though not on D-Day itself. They followed thousands of American soldiers, who with British, Canadian and Free French troops, began rolling back German forces that had held France throughout World War II.

Americans might be surprised at how grateful Normandy’s French remain, 65 years later. The political differences France and the U.S. have had the past six decades have not diminished their love and affection and memory of what the G.I.s did on D-Day. “When you are 4 or 5 years old, and your parents and your grandparents tell you about this, it sticks with you,” 42-year-old Benoit Noel told The Washington Post. “Everybody in Normandy remembers the landing. We know what the Americans did for us. We haven’t forgotten.”

Memories of war, the specific battles and instances of heroism, fade with the passing of the veterans who lived them. But the cemeteries remain — stone markers on lush green lawns, testifying to the great clash of armies and to the changing of history’s course, which is D-Day’s enduring significance.

There’s the one about circuit courts making “policy” –  fighting words for lawmakers worried about activist judges — that at a minimum showed a lack of political savvy in someone who had to know she would be on a Democratic president’s Supreme Court short list, thus making every word she uttered subject to intense scrutiny. Then there was the time she said a Latina judge would make better decisions than a white male because of her life experiences. She’s going to get grilled on that one. Hard to imagine John Roberts or Sam Alito getting confirmed if they’d said a white male would reach better judicial conclusions than a Latina or an African-American because of his life experiences.

Barring some major negative development, Sotomayor will be confirmed by the Democrat-dominated Senate. Even so, there’s enough out there for a revealing — and entertaining — few days on her way to confirmation.

Who’s following the money, the $787 billion federal stimulus package passed earlier this year? Members of Congress hope the taxpayers are. Just three of 10 members of the subcommittee charged with tracking the funds showed up for a meeting this week. Interestingly, the session was dubbed, “Follow the Money Part II.” A couple of those present remarked that taxpayers can follow the stimulus’ expenditures on the Web, which is good as far as it goes. Still, taxpayers who essentially hire public officials to perform these tasks in Washington must be concerned by the lack of official enthusiasm for following this great big money trail.

One of the wonders of Washington is how moderate-to-liberal politicians get elected to the Senate from some of America’s reddest states. Take Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad from North Dakota.

George W. Bush won the state with 60 percent of the vote in 2000 and 63 percent in 2004. Last year, a tough year for Republicans, John McCain won with 53 percent, still a fairly comfortable margin. That’s a pretty red state to be electing senators who voted the liberal position 68 percent of the time (Dorgan) and nearly 65 percent of the time (Conrad) in 2008, according to the National Journal.

Conrad, especially, is a Houdini when it comes to some sleight of hand with the home folks. This week he was the decisive vote in a House-Senate conference to let the Senate pass major health-care legislation under “reconciliation” rules — with 51 votes instead of the 60 usually required on controversial bills. This, although Conrad says he’s opposed to using reconciliation that way. And, despite an image as a “skin-flint deficit hawk,” as a Wall Street Journal editorial described him, Conrad as Budget Committee chairman shepherded President Barack Obama’s $3.5 trillion spending plan to passage.

Then again, Conrad’s next election’s still more than a year away. Plenty of time to convince North Dakotans not to believe what they see.

AIG’s executives are catching major flak for doling out bonuses even though the company has received billions of dollars in taxpayer money to avoid total collapse. AIG’s CEO says the bonuses were contractually obligated and the company had no choice but to pay them. President Barack Obama and members of Congress disagree and have been venting plenty of spleen over the deal.

“Maybe they ought to be removed,” Grassley said in a radio interview this week. “But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them (is) if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.”

Grassley won’t win any awards for political correctness, but he probably reflects the anger many Americans feel right now about AIG and other beneficiaries of their hard-earned tax dollars.

Kovacevich told Bloomberg his bank took TARP money in October only because the government leaned on the country’s nine largest banks to do so. He said Wells Fargo would’ve been able to raise private capital if it hadn’t been pressured to take TARP funds.

Wells Fargo joins Bank of America, U.S. Bancorp and Goldman Sachs on a list of banks unhappy with new TARP rules that affect lending, foreclosures, executive pay and perks. Understanding the bankers’ beef with the government, seeing them return the TARP money wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for taxpayers.