Now here is a sexist!

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi slammed Speaker John Boehner, suggesting the Republican who succeeded her in the House's top job benefits from a double standard because he is a man.

"If he were a woman, they'd be calling him the weakest speaker in history," Pelosi, D-Calif., said in an MSNBC interview on Monday night.

Pelosi said the GOP-controlled House under Boehner's leadership has been unable to pass major legislation — except when minority Democrats provide the winning margin. "They've never been able to pass anything without our coming to the rescue, except their very nasty, in my view, unprincipled budgets," she said.

"If a woman was speaker and nothing was happening in this way, they'd say, 'Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh,' " Pelosi told MSNBC. "We get criticized for accomplishing things, they don't get criticized for not accomplishing things."

Pelosi is referring to the "Hastert Rule," an axiom often cited when Republican Dennis Hastert was speaker that said House bills should pass only with the support of the majority of party in power.

There have been three high-profile examples this year of major bills that have passed on the strength of Democratic votes: the measure to avert the "fiscal cliff," a bill to provide aid to victims of Superstorm Sandy and the extension of the Violence Against Women Act.

The need for votes from the minority party is not unique to Boehner. The Hastert Rule was broken seven times while Pelosi was speaker from 2007 to 2011, according to research done by the Brookings Institution.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/onpolitics/2013/05/14/pelosi-boehner-weakest-speaker/2157967/