Nancy Pelosi represents one of the most liberal Congressional districts in the country.  She has relentlessly pursued a very liberal agenda of bigger government, higher spending, and greater top-down control of the economy.  Pelosi herself has claimed to be a progressive.  Yet Joe Sestak, who has supported her agenda for four years, seems to have trouble deciding whether Pelosi is a liberal or not:

Joe Sestak continued Monday to distance himself from Nancy Pelosi while at the same time tying his Republican opponent Pat Toomey to George W. Bush.

Sestak, speaking at the Pennsylvania Press Club, was asked whether he believes Speaker of the House Pelosi is a liberal or a pragmatist. Sestak describes himself as the latter.

He said he didn’t know, but also said he never looks at her voting record.

Pat Toomey’s campaign scoffed at this claim:

“He voted for the stimulus and thought it should have been $1 trillion; he voted for the cap-and-trade energy tax and thought it didn’t go far enough; and he voted for government-run health care and thought the government should have had even more control over people’s health care decisions,” said Nachama Soloveichik, Toomey’s spokeswoman. “If that’s not liberal, what is?”

No one can seriously claim to pay attention to Congress and not acknowledge that Nancy Pelosi is a liberal.  If Sestak was honest in saying this, it might be a symptom of some cognitive disorder that perhaps should disqualify Sestak for office.

But of course Sestak wasn’t being honest.  He has voted in lockstep with Pelosi since taking office, and has been a darling of MSNBC hosts because of it.  Because their voting records are so closely aligned, Sestak has no choice but to claim that Pelosi is some sort of political ambiguity, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Voters in Pennsylvania aren’t stupid, nor will they like being treated as if they were.  Claiming not to know whether Pelosi is a liberal while voting for her agenda is as convincing as Arlen Specter pretending to be a loyal Democrat.  Or a loyal Republican, for that matter.

Update: Here’s the video, which is every bit as disingenuous as it sounded in the article:

Also, I edited the last paragraph because Sestak does make one factual point worth repeating. Pelosi doesn’t often vote as Speaker of the House, so it’s not entirely accurate to say that Sestak’s voting record matches Pelosi’s. It is, however, accurate to note that Sestak has voted in lockstep with Pelosi’s agenda.