...with history

Nancy Pelosi is a quick, smart, shrewd and tough politician. You don't get to be speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives without possessing those traits and knowing when to use them. Her elevation to the top job, typically the most powerful job, in the lower chamber of Congress was the product of hard work and skill, and both Republicans and Democrats have reckoned it was about time that a woman gained the post. That's why they all felt the sense of history upon Pelosi's taking office Thursday.

The California Democrat has spoken of bipartisanship, though straight-party conflict is inevitable. (And Pelosi must manage some Democrats who range to either end of the ideological spectrum.) She's made it clear that the Democrats intend to question President Bush's Iraq policies, which were a major factor in many of the recent campaigns. Yet she's also said that she won't engage in harshly partisan hearings to embarrass the administration.

Pelosi is a professional, and she would be wise to resist the darker urges of some of her Democratic colleagues to treat the Republicans in the same manner the GOP has used against Democrats over the last dozen years -- ignoring them, keeping them out of the loop in negotiations, "taking no prisoners" under former Majority Leader Tom DeLay and in general conducting Congress as if Democrats didn't exist.

Look at the results of that, after all: little of productive benefit to working Americans has gotten done, and the arrogance of power resulted in numerous ethics scandals.

Let's hope Democrats under Pelosi do better. And do more.