Reaction has been divided about the Majority Leader contest.  Hoyer crushed Murtha, 149-86.  Some libs see it as an unmitigated disaster for Pelosi, while Noam Scheiber thinks that it was the best ending to a bad situation.  I suspect he is right.  Some of the NROniks recognise that a Hoyer win, while not great news for Pelosi, is very good news for the Democrats, who do not have to suffer the endless barrage of ethics-related attacks that a Murtha leadership would have brought. 

I would add that Pelosi’s active backing of Murtha, while possibly costly in some respects, confirms that she will back up people who are loyal to her even when they haven’t got a chance of winning a given fight.  That may not be the way to run the House, and it may make her tenure as Speaker very short, but it seems to be entirely in keeping with how she does things.  But if her rivalry with Hoyer ends up destroying the Democratic majority and prevents them from getting anything done, I can hardly think of a better outcome.