A round-up of Pelosifreude.

John McCormack wants to know why the Left isn’t calling for her to resign. (I’ll take a stab at the top two reasons: all of this outrage is ginned up residue from Bush Derangement Syndrome and Steny Hoyer, a rather moderate and sensible fellow, might become Speaker).

And her lines of defense crumble one by one: “A top aide to  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a CIA briefing in early 2003 in which it was made clear that waterboarding and other harsh techniques were being used in the interrogation of an alleged al-Qaeda operative, according to documents the CIA released to Congress on Thursday. . . A Democratic source acknowledged yesterday that it is almost certain that Pelosi would have learned about the use of waterboarding from Sheehy.”

Obama is getting dinged for proposing cuts in programs he just proposed. But better to realize the error of his ways than to compound the spend-a-thon.

Less positive: “Mr. Obama’s war on government waste looks like a war on paper clips. Three-quarters of the cuts come from the national defense budget, not domestic agencies. Of the 10-year savings of $71 billion in entitlement programs — now with a mind-numbing $62.9 trillion unfunded liability over the long-term — one-third of the cutbacks aren’t cuts at all. They are tax increases, mostly on the oil and gas industry.”

David Broder is no kinder: “The nickel-and-dime exercise, a repeat of equally futile gestures by former president George W. Bush, claimed $17 billion in savings in a $3.4 trillion spending plan — a bit less than one-half of 1 percent.” And he takes a shot at the president for not overriding the Pelosi and Reid. Is the bloom off the rose already?

Charles Krauthammer explains that “if he is going to spend billions everywhere on everything, why would he shut down the assembly line for an F-22, which is already ongoing. Talk about shovel ready, it is ready and going. So his priority is cut defense and spend everything on anything everywhere else. And that, I think, tells us a lot about what he wants to accomplish.”

Stress test unintended consequence: “Experts warn that the tests could have a serious unintended consequence: Loans could be harder to come by for consumers and businesses. That’s because the government’s intense focus on thicker capital cushions might prompt banks to hoard cash and further curtail lending, said Jim Eckenrode, banking research executive at TowerGroup, a financial consulting firm. He said banks will have less room to offer consumers low interest rates, while corporate customers may have a tougher time getting financing for commercial real-estate and property development. That would undercut a key goal of the Obama administration, which has been pushing banks to lend more in order to jump-start the economy.”

Lanny Davis is certainly stressed that “Secretary Geithner continues to conduct the Treasury Department as a mystery surrounded by an enigma.” He pleads: “Why can’t…sorry, he can…why doesn’t Secretary Geithner explain things better? Why?” I suppose transparency isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

Maybe it’s because the worst case scenario envisioned by the stress test isn’t really the worst, or even most realistic, case now.

Jonah Goldberg writes what most conservative pundits are loath to admit:  picking a compelling candidate is the most critical factor in presidential politics. The good news, he says is that “nobody knew who the hell Barack Obama was the day before yesterday either.”

Larry Kudlow thinks Steve Friedman who resigned from the New York Fed is the tip of TARP corruption.

MoveOn.org targets Arlen Specter.

Not surprisingly his list of potential Democratic challengers is growing.