In a secret ballot vote, the House Democratic caucus has removed the Michigan Rep. John Dingell from his chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce panel in favor of California Rep. Henry Waxman.  The change may presage a shift in the House in favor of much more purist and extreme leftist views on a range of issues including environmental regulation as well as overall economic policy.

Coming after a summer of record high gas prices and in the midst of a global financial crisis, the shift to the left could not come at a worse time.  Waxman has a long record of harsh and unyielding partisanship and extreme demogogury.  He is prone to demonize opponents rather thanbuild bridges of compromise, as he did in his long anti-tobacco campaigns through the 1990s.  He also has little interest in issues of practicality, preferring to stick with a hard ideological agenda even in the face of contravening facts.  Given the scope of his committee’s jurisdiction over issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, Waxman’s record for extremism and intolerance poses yet another threat to the already fragile U.S. economy.

The most hard left elements of the blogosphere are already cheering this as a victory for their kind of incivility and intolerance.  They see Waxman as a much more pure ideologue that is likely to place a higher priority on confronting their enemies and is not likely to engage in hated compromise. And still smarting from the defeat of their attempted purge of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, they are not inclined to hide their torches and pitchforks now:

This is a huge defeat for the Blue Dogs, who were hoping to use Dingell as a roadblock to keep any meaningful change from happening with regard to issues under the Committee’s jurisdiction — telecommunications and health care, energy and environmental protection, interstate commerce and consumer protection.

Though she never took a public position, nobody has any doubts that Nancy Pelosi orchestrated this.

This week the Senate voted to remain a bunch of self-protecting hacks by letting Lieberman keep his gavel, but the House voted for progress.

For years, moderates and centrists complained about the over-the-top extremism that too often seemed to dominate the House Republican caucus.  Now, it seems we are going to get the same political strychnine just in a different partisan flavor.