Let me look at that calendar -- what year is it again? 2012? Because, if you ask the Democrats, on Capitol Hill this week it was really looking like 1991.

That was the year that an all-white, all-male Senate committee quizzed female witnesses, black and white, about sexual harassment and sexual innuendo during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

This week, there were no women appearing with the first panel before a House committee, which titled its hearings "Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State" but that really was about the healthcare overhaul's requirement that employers' health insurance policies cover contraception.

The Democrats’ witness of choice -- a female Georgetown law student whose friend couldn't get access to contraceptive treatment there because of the university's religious affiliation, and who, evidently as a consequence, lost an ovary because of a syndrome that causes ovarian cysts -- was not permitted to testify. That, according to California Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), who heads the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was because she is not a member of the clergy, unlike the five men who did testify.

A letter to Democratic members from Issa's staff explained the decision not to let the student testify; it said the hearing "is not about reproductive rights but about the administration’s actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience."

Issa's colleague, New York Democrat Carolyn Maloney, begged to differ:

"What I want to know is, where are the women? I look at this panel and I don't see one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventive healthcare services, including family planning.... Of course this hearing is about rights -- contraception and birth control. It's about the fact that women want to have access to basic health services [and] family planning through their insurance plan."

A second panel later in the day included two women chosen by  Issa, both from Christian-oriented academic institutions but neither a clergy member.

The two Democratic women on the committee, Maloney and the D.C. representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton, along with a male colleague, Mike Quigley of Illinois, walked out of the hearing in protest.

Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat, was a member of the House during Thomas' 1991 hearings. She and some female colleagues marched to the Senate side of Capitol Hill to demand that the all-male committee take the sexual harassment allegations seriously.

The next year, 1992 -- later called the "Year of the Woman" -- Boxer was elected to the Senate, and California became the first state to have two women as its senators.

Some of that was replayed about this week's hearings. Boxer said her 16-year-old grandson got a look at the picture of the male clergy members being sworn in and said incredulously, "It's all dudes."

Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi remarked: "Imagine having a panel on women's health and they don't have any women on the panel. Duh."

Boxer's Washington state colleague, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, who was elected in the same 1992 "Year of the Woman" tide, said that "reading the news this morning was like stepping into a time machine and going back 50 years."

Or at least 20.

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Photo: Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), left, and House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), center, speaks to Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Director Straus Center of Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, during a recess of the Oversight and Government Reform committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 16. Credit: Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo

Serves me right, really, for trying to get my news by just scanning headlines.

There it was on The Times' homepage Wednesday: "Pelosi, Gingrich trade shots again."

Wow, I thought: So the two former House speakers have been throwing back Jägermeister?

Maybe Newt Gingrich is a miracle worker. I mean, I know he appeared with Pelosi in a 2008 ad in which they urged action on global warming. But who knew they were drinking buddies?

Uh, no. Turns out Pelosi was asked about Gingrich's presidential prospects in an interview this week with CNN's John King. Her response: 

"He's not going to be president of the United States," Pelosi said. "This is -- that's not going to happen. Let me just make my prediction and stand by it. It isn't going to happen."

Asked how she could be so sure, Pelosi said: "There's something I know."

Naturally, inquiring minds wanted to know what that "something" was. Including Gingrich:

"Who knows? Who knows?" Gingrich chuckled [when asked about the Democratic leader’s suggestion by NBC’s Ann Curry on Wednesday]. “She lives in a San Francisco environment of very strange fantasies and very strange understandings of reality. I have no idea what’s in Nancy Pelosi’s head. If she knows something, I have a simple challenge: Spit it out; tell us what it is. I have no idea what she’s talking about."

And then Pelosi's office, asked to clarify, pointed reporters to the four-part House ethics report on the former speaker.

Aw, c'mon, congresswoman. You imply there's a "January surprise" or somesuch coming, and that's all you've got?

It's fine for TMZ to tease, but ... 

Seriously, there are plenty of reasons to not vote for Gingrich. But as Jonah Goldberg argued in Tuesday's Opinion pages,  "conventional weapons are useless against Newtzilla …. Everything bad about Gingrich -- the flip-flops, the wives, the ego -- is known. Once voters have convinced themselves they can overlook that stuff, it's hard to change their minds simply by repeating it."

And in a massive upset, I find myself agreeing with Goldberg.

I'm still not convinced that Gingrich will be the nominee, nor do I think he could beat President Obama. But a musty old ethics report certainly won't do him in.

And the 24-hour news cycle that makes stories out of comments like Pelosi's isn't doing us any favors either.

As for me, I'm going back to scanning headlines. Hey, how about that "Headless body in topless bar" update?

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Photo: Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich at a campaign event with his wife, Callista, in Naples, Fla. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

My dad loved the idea of term limits. Every time we talked politics, he railed against "professional politicians" and promised that term limits were the answer.

Dad's gone now, but at least he didn't have to witness what a mess term limits have made of our political system.

Times columnist George Skelton wrote Thursday on a report by the Center for Governmental Studies titled "Citizen Legislators or Political Musical Chairs?"

The answer, in short, is musical chairs.

"California's term limits have not created an environment in which citizen legislators temporarily serve in the state Capitol and then return to the private sector," the reports says. Rather, "professional legislators ... continue to seek careers in other government positions -- a form of political musical chairs for governmental office."

Or, as Bob Stern, president of the think tank that produced the report, said of the state's politicians:

"Once they get into government, they find they are good at it, and they like it."

Or, as Skelton wrote:

Well, not all are good at it -- at least not the governing. But they do tend to like the perks and the power.

And that's it in a nutshell. We now have the worst of both worlds: too many politicians who are so unseasoned that they can't deal with the state's problems -- but who are not so clueless about the game of padding their own pockets and promoting their No. 1 priority: themselves.

Thankfully, the term-limit disease hasn't spread to Washington. For all the gridlock there, it could be so much worse.

Want proof?  Take the debt-ceiling talks. Firebrand freshmen Republicans in the House are insisting that they won't vote to raise the debt limit.

The solution? Old-fashioned political deal-making by veteran lawmakers: John Boehner in the House and Mitch McConnell in the Senate on the GOP side, and Harry Reid and -- surprise -- Nancy Pelosi on the Democratic side.

Now, you can't get much further apart politically than those folks. But as The Times reported Thursday, with Boehner struggling to rein in his restive "tea party" Republicans, Pelosi may hold the key to a deal in the House through her command of Democrats.

As the clock ticks down toward a possible government default, it appears to be less and less likely that a package can be crafted that will appease the large bloc of House conservatives who either oppose raising the debt ceiling on principle or won't vote to hike it without massive cuts in federal spending.

That means that Pelosi, the former speaker who presides over a shrunken Democratic minority in the House, likely will come into play. Any plan that passes the Senate, be it the fallback option by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell or a more ambitious proposal like the one being crafted by the so-called Gang of Six, will only be able to pass the House if Democratic votes push it over the finish line.

And how will that happen?  As the story concludes:

Pelosi said that, like just about everyone on the Hill, she has no idea what form a final package might take -- just 12 days away from a potentially catastrophic default. But instead of the Democratic voice in the House wilderness that she has become of late, she sounded more like the pragmatic arm-twister she once was.

"What the bill looks like," she said, "will depend on who can vote for it."

Only a veteran, assured lawmaker could talk that talk and walk that walk.

Sorry, Dad, I've seen the mountaintop -- and your beloved term limits just don't work.

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-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi holds up a penny during a news conference on Capitol Hill  earlier this month. Credit: Harry Hamburg / Associated Press 

Somewhere today, Charlotte Allen's Styrofoam cup runneth over.

Allen, you may recall, wrote a snarky article for the Opinion pages in February titled "Stick a fork in it, we’re done."

In it, she crowed about the dismantling of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's efforts to "green" the chamber's cafeteria, specifically with compostable and/or recyclable utensils, plates and cups.

And, of course, Allen being Allen, it wasn't really just about plastic knives:

[Dan] Lungren's stick-a-biodegradable-fork-in-it (if you can) stance toward a linchpin of Pelosi's grand green plan marks the latest skirmish in a lifestyle war that may on its surface seem purely partisan: GOP global-warming skeptics versus a Gaia-worshipping Democratic Party. But I'd say the battle lines are really between an elite determined to impose upon a captive populace its notions of what is good for it — cost be damned — and the populace itself, which would rather not be coerced.

Aha! It's the "Don't tread on me" and "Give me liberty or give me death" patriots vs. Big Brother and his tree-huggers, served up cafeteria-style.

Or, as Allen concludes:

The years from 2006 through 2010, starting with the Democratic takeover of the House and ending with the party's rout after two years of Barack Obama's presidency, were four years of an effort by a know-it-all liberal elite to impose sweeping and extreme social and fiscal measures on a centrist-to-right public: four years of turkey escabeche, so to speak.

Now, with a GOP House and divided government, there seems to be a return to normalcy, and it's beginning with the promise of knives and forks that work.

On Friday, The Times' news side caught up with the prescient Allen with its own story.

Seems the tree-huggers aren't giving up without a fight, the story says:

The replacement spoons, knives, forks and cups are creating quite a stir, dividing lawmakers largely along party lines.

Democratic staffers are talking about boycotting the cafeterias, which serve about 230,000 meals a month, mostly to staff members but also to the public. The issue sprouted a Facebook page, "Stop the Styrofoam Invasion: Bring cardboard back to the House Cafeteria."

Darn those environmentalists! It's like playing whack-a-mole –- just when you think you have them under control, they pop back up.

The key point, though, is Allen's line about "a return to normalcy." It is what divides Democrats and Republicans on so many issues, from energy to healthcare to, yes, compostable cutlery.

Republicans love Ronald Reagan because he promised them "normalcy" -- that things could be as  they once were: America as the greatest country; Americans as the greatest people; carefree days of driving big cars, consuming like no tomorrow; a military second to none, cost-be-damned, and so on.

The trouble is, like it or not, the country changes.

For example, on Thursday The Times' headline read: "Hispanic population tops 50 million in U.S."

The Hispanic population in the United States grew by 43% in the last decade, surpassing 50 million and accounting for about 1 out of 6 Americans, the Census Bureau reported Thursday.

Analysts seized on data showing that the growth was propelled by a surge in births in the U.S., rather than immigration, pointing to a growing generational shift in which Hispanics continue to gain political clout and, by 2050, could make up a third of the U.S. population.

What will be those Americans' "normalcy"?  I doubt it will be Allen's, or even Reagan's.   

So, perhaps, as the new House leadership says, the old "green" cafeteria program wasn't working.  Perhaps it wasn't saving money.

But I'm sure of a couple of things: Getting back to "normalcy" isn't going to solve our landfill problems. 

And those who live in the past don't have a future.

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--Paul Whitefield

Photo: Packages of Family Dollar Stores Inc. styrofoam cups. Credit: Jin Lee/Bloomberg

Remember former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?

She’s now House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. And she appears to be enjoying her new role as leader of the opposition -- especially now that her successor, Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has run into trouble securing votes from his own Republican Party’s conservative factions.

This week, Boehner had to rely on Democratic votes to pass a three-week stopgap spending bill after 54 of his Republicans broke ranks and refused to go along with a compromise measure the speaker had agreed to.

Pelosi called reporters into her new, smaller offices to warn that Democrats may not be as helpful on a longer-term spending bill unless Boehner moves further in their direction.

She knows the new speaker is in a tough spot: With every step he takes toward the center, the bigger the rebellion he risks from "tea-party" conservatives on the right.

“We have offered him a hand of friendship,” Pelosi said, smiling. “I don’t know whether he saw that hand of friendship as a plus or minus.”

Part of this is a game of chicken over federal spending for the rest of the current fiscal year.  Each party wants to be seen as the voice of reason -- and wants the other side to look like the villain if an impasse leads to a government shutdown.

And part of it is a chance for Pelosi to rally her troops and begin trying to undo the damage to Democrats’ standing that led to their drubbing in last November’s congressional election.

The San Franciscan is still an unapologetic big-government liberal, as fiery and partisan as ever.

“The fight that we have to fight is one of values, not of dollars,” she said. “People talk about seeking the middle ground. Well, they’re kicking 6 million homebound seniors off Meals on Wheels. Does that make the middle ground 3 million? No, we’re not going to that place.”

She said she wasn't dissatisfied with President Obama’s relatively limited role in the fight over federal spending so far, but she’d like to see him do more. “There’s no underestimating the power of the bully pulpit,” she said.

What went wrong for Democrats in 2010? One word: “Unemployment. .. It’s a red-hot stove that our members put their hands on every time they go home.”

But she blames former President George W. Bush for the unemployment rate, not President Obama. “A president whose only job-creating agenda was tax cuts for the rich, and they don’t create jobs,” she said.

“Unemployment didn’t go up under the Democrats,” she insisted (although the calendar says otherwise). “That unemployment is what we got from the Republicans.”

The Republican drive to weaken last year’s financial regulation law? “Laissez, laissez, laissez, laissez faire!” she said, rolling her eyes.

Pelosi, who’s about to turn 71, says she’s confident her Democrats can take the House back in 2012, in part because she thinks Boehner’s Republicans are already overstepping whatever mandate they won.

“Nothing we said is as eloquent as seeing what they will do,” she said.

“It’s going to be a struggle, but I’m optimistic because the president is on the ballot,” she said. “I think the president is clearly going to win the election.”

She gestured at the bare walls of her new offices on the second floor of the Capitol -- smaller than the speaker’s rooms but still grand -- and laughed.

“I don’t want to put too many pictures up on the wall,” she said, meaning she plans to take her old office back soon.

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Photo: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi earlier this week. Credit: Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Naturally, we're thrilled, um, I guess.

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Photo: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walks through Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington on  Wednesday, Nov. 10, past the setup for the news conference for House Speaker-in-waiting John A. Boehner of Ohio. Credit: Alex Brandon/AP Photo)