Pelosi: Boehner 'Weakest Speaker in History'

House Speaker John Boehner would be called "the weakest speaker in history," if he was a woman, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday.

But the California Democrat, who was the first woman to serve as speaker from 2006 to 2010, told MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes," that she has a good relationship with her Republican counterpart from Ohio, The Huffington Post reports. Still, she had critical words for her successor.

She said he deserves the "weakest speaker" title because House Republicans "have never been able to pass anything without [Democrats] coming to the rescue," except for the GOP's "nasty" and "unprincipled" budgets.

"You know what, if a woman was speaker and nothing was happening in this way, they'd say, 'Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh,'" Pelosi said. "I'm just getting a little, shall we say, tired of some of the ways they take a pass on some and not on others. We get criticized for accomplishing things. They don't get criticized for not accomplishing things."

Many of the major Republican bills in this session of Congress have had trouble passing without Democratic votes, the Huffington Post noted. That's because Boehner has broken the so-called Hastert Rule – an informal requirement that says a majority of the dominant House Party must support a bill to bring it to a vote – four times this year. They included the fiscal cliff budget deal, Hurricane Sandy relief aid, the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, and a measure dealing with historic site acquisition.