A lot of blogs have commented on how the Pelosi-Hoyer-Murtha flap has played in the press. In general, Pelosi has taken a lot of flack, been called a "lame duck' and much worse (including botox jokes. I don't usually have time for sexism charges, but somehow I don't imagine if Nancy was Nate, those jokes would have been made.)

Taylor Marsh, for example, takes on Dowd.

Me, I wonder where all these people are coming from. I've been watching Pelosi for a long time, and I liked her back when almost no one in the blogosphere thought she was worth anything. Why? Because I watched how she maneuvered in the caucus, and what I noticed was this - she ran a caucus that went from quite disunited to voting together more than any other Democratic caucus in decades. When Jefferson was found with $90,000 cash in a freezer, she moved to publicly disassociate the Democrats from him. And she had a number of fights with other people in the caucus.

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As with this fight, she won some of those fights and she lost some, but she had them. Now if she lost all of them, it'd be a problem, and she would indeed be a joke. But in fact she wins more than she loses. And the fact that she is willing to fight is important. You may have noticed that in Hoyer's victory speech he spent a lot of time saying how committed he was to the goal of getting US troops out of Iraq. That hasn't always been Steny's line - to win he had to assure the caucus that he was good on that issue.

I trust you notice that on a major policy issue, because of the challenge, Pelosi now has the majority leader onside. It may not be her preferred majority leader, but nonetheless Pelosi didn't come out of the election with nothing - she got something important - a more unified caucus on the most important issue that she feels Democrats have to deliver on.

And unlike Dowd and the shrill talking heads, both Pelosi and Hoyer understand something else: this is a long term game. Neither of them are going anywhere until they chose to do so; they'll be in the House for as long as they want. By acting on loyalty - by backing Murtha when Murtha backed her in the past (and Murtha was her campaign manager when she herself became Majority Leader, as well as being her point man on Iraq) what Nancy told the rest of the caucus is that she pays back her debts and she helps her friends. This isn't a bad thing, in a parliamentary system like the House this is a necessity - this is part of what lets Nancy hold democrats together as well as she does.

And so, by the way, does the message that she remembers those who cross her.

Being able to keep the caucus together requires both - that she rewards those who help her; who are loyal to her; and that she makes clear that if you cross her she will not forget.

It also requires that she be able to put aside both and work with people as the issues of the day require. She did so for years with Hoyer after defeating him in the past, and she will do so now. But this has to be based on a mutual respect. And there is no respect for anyone who doesn't help their friends when they ask; or who lets other people walk all over them.

Nancy is effective both because she remembers who her friends and enemies are; and because she's willing to work with both. There is no contradiction, and anyone who thinks that the caucus could be run, a la Maureen Dowd, without acting on the basis of loyalty, is simply hopelessly naive.

All political careers end in death or failure; and so will both Hoyer and Pelosi's. But both of them are far from done yet, and their glory days lie ahead rather than behind. Now that they have the majority, they will work together because both know that this is their chance to build a solid lasting majority and to create a legacy. There will be fights in the future, but they will not affect the day to day running of the House, because it is in neither Pelosi nor Steny's interests to do so; they know they have to produce or they go back to being a minority. And however much they dislike each other, they're tired of having their faces shoved in the mud by Republicans.

Nancy Pelosi came out of the fight with Hoyer with something - his commitment to work to end the war. She showed the caucus that she stands by her friends. It was a loss, but it was no devastating loss, she was not "filleted", and it will have no significant effect on her ability to lead the House.

When you work with people; live with people; day in day out, what matters about most fights is not so much whether you win or lose, but how you fight. Because whatever the end result of any fight (and Hoyer has lost to Murtha and Pelosi in the past, or Pelosi would not be Speaker), there will be other days in the future - you have to be able to work together, and to fight, again, in the future.

Murtha, Hoyer and Pelosi will fight together again.

But first they will work together, and work together well. And that's what matters.