Just watching McKinley High School and University of Hawaii graduate Tammy Duckworth walk into a room leaves you in awe.

It was just 10 years ago that a rocket-propelled grenade fired by insurgents north of Baghdad tore into a Black Hawk helicopter, with then-National Guard Capt. Duckworth sitting in the right pilot’s seat.

Her right leg was gone, her left leg shredded and her right arm was nearly severed, according to her account of the attack.

Today she walks with an electronic right knee and two prosthetic legs. Duckworth, now a Democratic congresswoman from Illinois, can still feel her feet.

"My feet hurt, too. In fact, the balls of my feet burn continuously, and I feel like there’s a nail being hammered into my right heel right now. So I can understand pain and suffering and how service connection can actually cause long-term, unremitting, unyielding, unstoppable pain," she said during a congressional hearing last year on service-connected disabilities.

The issue today, however, is not her fearsome phantom pain, but the fact that Duckworth just this week delivered a baby girl. During her pregnancy her doctor refused to let her travel because of her health.

She petitioned fellow Democrats asking if she could vote by proxy in House Democratic Caucus leadership elections this week.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., now minority leader, who is never far from dropping a "When women succeed, America succeeds" quote, is now in the position of rejecting Duckworth.

The argument on the surface is that Democratic Caucus rules say no proxy votes, and making exceptions creates a slippery slope that every vote-skipping member would want to slide down.

Yes, it is awkward for Democrats, who say they are the party of working women and equality, refusing to bend the rules just because a pregnant working woman needed some help.

If it was hard to listen to Democrats tell the handicapped, pregnant, daughter of an Asian immigrant, Iraq War veteran, member of Congress that rules are rules, consider the difference between fighting for an issue and fighting for power.

It was enough of an obvious outrage that "The Daily Show’s" Jon Stewart spent five minutes earlier this week shaming Pelosi’s actions.

Setting aside the political hypocrisy, here’s what was at stake.

Helping Duckworth vote would have hurt Pelosi’s control of her already shrinking caucus.

Two Democrats both wanted the top Democratic seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The Washington Post called it "one of the most bitter, intraparty feuds in years."

It is a glamorous committee handling energy, food and drug safety, gas prices and even the Affordable Care Act.

Fighting for the seat were Reps. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Pelosi wanted Eshoo while Duckworth sides with Pallone.

On Wednesday, Pallone won by a vote of 100 to 90.

Does it matter to the average voters in Hawaii that it is Eshoo or Pallone?

No, but like an onion, there are many rings in politics.

Hawaii’s Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is linked to Pelosi, mostly because Gov. Neil Abercrombie has taken her under his wing and used his considerable influence with Pelosi to help her get committee assignments.

At the same time, Rep.-elect Mark Takai’s victory was in part due to the help he got from his old National Guard and UH buddy, Tammy Duckworth.

Good things happen to Duckworth and good things could flow to Takai, just like a happy Pelosi could make political life easier for Gabbard.

As for Duckworth and Democratic leadership: If she’s told they’ve got her back, or, in military-speak, "We got your six," I’d invest in a rear-view mirror.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.