Is Nancy Pelosi planning on stepping aside as House Minority Leader to make way for some younger, fresh talent, brimming with Berniecrat and Warrentastic pedigree? Not any time soon, folks. She’s being hit with the question on a regular basis, particularly after the Democrats’ spectacular failure to take back the House in 2016. So why not get out of the way of the young turks?

The latest excuse is that she needs to make sure there’s a woman “at the table” (both literally and figuratively) what with Hillary Clinton being regrettably unemployed at the moment. (Associated Press)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday she must retain her leadership position in Congress so there is a woman at the table when key decisions are made… Pelosi said in an interview on ABC’s “The View” that she was ready to leave had Hillary Clinton become president, putting a woman at the top. But Clinton lost, and so she must remain, Pelosi said, as she recounted a White House dinner last month where she was the only woman at the table. “And that’s why I have to stay there, to be one of the top women, top people at the table,” said Pelosi, 77, adding that she views one of her mandates as protecting former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which she was instrumental in passing as House speaker at the time.

The first question which comes to mind is why the Democrats couldn’t nominate another woman to take her place if she were to step down. Is she convinced that they would replace her with a man? It’s not as if there aren’t a stable of female Democrats waiting for a chance to move up.

But perhaps more to the point, do we honestly believe that Nancy Pelosi would be willing to simply step aside and go back to “only” being a representative from California after this long at the top of the leadership queue? Perhaps if she were retiring I could see it, but it just seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, her party is still going through a civil war which makes the skirmishes among the Republicans look like a pillow fight. Earlier this week, NBC News reported that there’s been a bit of a purge at the DNC and the Bernicrat folks aren’t happy about it at all.

A shake-up is underway at the Democratic National Committee as several key longtime officials have lost their posts, exposing a still-raw rift in the party and igniting anger among those in its progressive wing who see retaliation for their opposition to DNC Chairman Tom Perez. The ousters come ahead of the DNC’s first meeting, in Las Vegas, Nevada, since Perez took over as chairman with a pledge this year to unite a party that had become badly divided during the brutal Bernie Sanders-Hillary Clinton 2016 primary race. Complaints began immediately after party officials saw a list of Perez’s appointments to DNC committees and his roster of 75 “at-large” members, who are chosen by the chair.

If you recall that heated election to replace Donna Brazile, Tom Perez won by a thin margin, beating out Keith Ellison. He immediately put Ellison in place as a top deputy to appease the upstarts, but it looks like the time for being nice is over. The DNC chair has tremendous latitude in appointing people to leadership positions and selecting “at-large” committee members, and Perez is doing quite a bit of ad hoc surgery along those lines. Among those demoted or booted out entirely were Ellison supporters such as James Zogby, Alice Germond and Barbra Casbar Siperstein. Oh, and one of the guys who ran against Perez, Ray Buckley, lost all of his prime committee slots.

This is the Hillary supporting contingent moving to consolidate their power once again. The base may be clamoring for Warren and Sanders (the latter of whom isn’t even a Democrat), but they’re getting more of the same old, same old. And why not? It worked so well last year they may as well run the same playbook again.