Shuler speaks nice, gets dogged

Speaking to students at a private school in Asheville Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler said Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not the evil boogeywoman some on the right like to make her out as.

"She's the most misunderstood person in Washington," said Shuler, who often breaks with the House leadership to maintain his status as a conservative Blue Dog Democrat.

According to the Asheville Citizen Times, Shuler told students about a meeting he had with Pelosi during his first term when he told her never to ask him to vote against his constituency.

"She’s held true to that promise," he said. Pelosi is a devout Catholic and Shuler advised against trying to "get in a Bible discussion with her." He also recalled a time when his daughter, Island, was a baby and started crying on the floor of the House.

"She [Pelosi] raced down, picked her up and took her to her mother Nikol," he told the students. "Her grandma instincts kicked in."

The National Republican Congressional Committee quickly — and figuratively — dogged on the former Redskins quarterback for speaking nice about the often maligned Democratic leader.

"Heath Shuler is the one who's 'misunderstood,'" NRCC spokesman Andy Seré said. "He may call himself a Blue Dog, but Shuler’s lavish Pelosi-praise has revealed him to be little more than a lap dog for the most liberal speaker in U.S. history. She may have let him off the leash this weekend in a vain attempt to salvage his re-election bid, but his political affair with Nancy Pelosi is destined to land him in the doghouse with Western North Carolinians."