House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday disavowed what she termed as Republican "personality attacks" over President Obama's stimulus bill, reiterating previous arguments that the legislation allowed for bipartisan input.
"The people who can't win on policy always resort to process and then they stoop to their personality attacks," Mrs. Pelosi told reporters here at the Kingsmill golf resort, where about 200 House Democrats gathered for a three-day retreat. "The process afforded Republicans every opportunity to put their suggestions forward and they know that."
Her defense of the House version of the stimulus package -- crafted solely by Democrats and passed without a single Republican vote -- were buoyed by House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, who said there "was a lot of bipartisanship."
"The bipartisanship was in defeat of the Republican proposals that were put on the House floor," said Mr. Hoyer, of Maryland.
House Republicans quickly hit back, arguing that the White House and House Democrats are not on the same page.
"Two months ago, President Obama never thought the biggest obstacle to delivering the 'change' he promised would be Speaker Pelosi and Steny Hoyer," said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Minority Whip Eric Cantor. "House Republicans have made creating and protecting jobs their focus and it must be extremely frightening to like minded Blue Dogs like Brad Ellsworth and Gene Taylor that their views would be disregarded so harshly by their leaders."
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