Big Surprise: GOP Whip Eric Cantor is Modeling Himself After Newt Gingrich
By Susie Madrak Sunday Feb 15, 2009 4:15pmDespite their many, many, many failings, the Democrats are concerned about what's actually going on out in the world and make attempts to actually improve things. The Republicans, on the other hand, worry about one thing only: winning.
WASHINGTON — The last time Congressional Republicans were this out of power, they turned to a college professor from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, to lead the opposition, first against President Bill Clinton in a budget battle in 1993, and then back into the majority the following year.
As Republicans confronted President Obama in another budget battle last week, their leadership included another new face: Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, who as the party’s chief vote wrangler is as responsible as anyone for the tough line the party has taken in this first legislative standoff with Mr. Obama. This battle has vaulted Mr. Cantor to the front lines of his party as it tries to recover from the losses of November.
As Republican whip, Mr. Cantor succeeded again on Friday in denying the White House the support of a single House Republican on the stimulus bill. That was a calculated challenge to the president, who, in his weekly address on Saturday, hailed the bill as “an ambitious plan at a time we badly need it.”
Mr. Cantor said he had studied Mr. Gingrich’s years in power and had been in regular touch with him as he sought to help his party find the right tone and message. Indeed, one of Mr. Gingrich’s leading victories in unifying his caucus against Mr. Clinton’s package of tax increases to balance the budget in 1993 has been echoed in the events of the last few weeks.
See what I mean? Faced with what any rational human being recognizes as impending economic catastrophe, Cantor's priority is .... finding the right message! As opposed to actually having a message, and looking for the best way to communicate it. But I digress:
“I talk to Newt on a regular basis because he was in the position that we are in: in the extreme minority,” he said.
The Republicans can certainly count some victories, although symbolic ones. Even White House aides said Mr. Cantor and his team had been successful in seizing on spending items in the stimulus bill to sow doubts about it with the public.
The fact that House Republicans have stood firm against Mr. Obama suggests just how unified the caucus is, though Mr. Gingrich, in an interview, said Democratic leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, did more to unify Republicans than anything Republicans did.
“I’d like to tell you Cantor did a brilliant job, but the truth is that Pelosi and Obey pushed the members into his arms,” Mr. Gingrich said. But, he added, “They have been good at developing alternatives so they don’t leave their guys out there chanting no.”
Oo, a little annoyed at the young upstarts, are we, Newt? Hey, the kid's a helluva lot more photogenic and doesn't have that messy personal history...
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"She turned me into a Newt."
I doubt he'll get better, though.
I got better.
Oops
Burn her anyway!
Brilliant job channeling a failure, you can join your pal John Boehner who is channeling Herbert Hoover.
Thanks for all the help, who needs an opposition party to kick your ass when you chumps do such a fine job of it yourselves.
exactly!
1. Eric Cantor: Shortage in the brain cells or an extra from American Psycho?
2. Is this really the GOP strategy. Win by destruction?
I’ve long felt the Repub stance is the End Justifies the Means. That’s not really so bad, except their END usually means destruction for everyone except themselves. I’m not being mean when I say I hope their End is near, just justified.
Maybe I'm missing some grand scheme they (GOP) see that I don't. I can't fathom the use of such a short term strategy. Especially at such a time.
dear republicans, i'm begging you to PLEASE continue to trot this lying weaselly douchebag out on a daily basis and let him be the voice of the republican 'leadership'
maybe we can get his wife to go to the hospital and then he can divorce her while she is undergoing treatment. just like his idol
then cantor can get his own ethics violations. just like his idol
he looks like he was suckled on a lemon. and maybe he was.
Dear media,
please continue to lessen your relevance to the public so your news divisions will be disregarded.
Party of new er fresh er no ideas.
Well, Mommy Ray-Gun gave us “Just say NO”
“Hey Mr. Repub, are you going to stop being an obstructionist jerk?”
“No”
I don't see what the big deal is about new government cars - they're probably going to be more fuel efficient and save the government money, and help stimulate the economy.
But what's the deal behind the allegation of "millions for golfcarts"? First of all, it doesn't have an actual dollar figure, so that is pretty sketchy right there..
the 'big deal' is this if the government does something right/good/efficient then the (R) can't BITCH as much. the (R) hates government. if they allow the government to do the correct move then government validates itself. you know what i'm getting at. you may NOT believe it gets to this level but it does with these people.
Why do they keep runnung for office?
so they can represent people/corporations who don't like and/or want government.
You mean rich people and corporations.
Since the truth doesn't suit them, the GOPigs just make up lies that suit them. They conveniently forget the redemptive parts of the bill and make up lies about the golf carts, etc, and have their corrupt stooges make up lies about "saving" Nancy's Pelosi's mouse to the tune of 30 mil---which was started by a GOP staffer citing an "anonymous" source--of course, so it can't be fact checked. This whole thing immediately got to the Reich Wing disinformation machine before it was debunked as completely false and misleading. There was nothing in the bill like this but to the trash talking GOP, honor and integrity mean nothing.
Are still yapping about President Obama's citizenship. Fools and idiots, all of them.
Would he have to eat a few dozen fashion models for the requisite girth?
for a hair piece?
.......good one Jo.........:)
Perhaps he can put a skunk on his head, ala Tom Coburn.
Newt's contract on America just about finished us off. Not much left to plunder, asshole. But hey, Rome was sacked for hundreds of years after the Empire fell.
So yours is a Pyrrhic victory, moron.
Are you sure about that?
let it be sex with a goat or worse....
Canadian beavers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3SANVFHIeE
With Repugs, they need to be caught in bed with a live boy or a dead woman to get into trouble.
...sex with another Republican?
...sounds a little kinky to me..??
Wow.......talk about desperation.........I think it's called rearranging the chairs as the ship sinks!!
has no lifeboats either. The last song that will come from this ship of fools as it goes under is Goetterdaemmerung.
Amerian frustration with the Rethuglican party, BUT, many Dems and lefts and libs are hoping/cheering quite loudly for the demise of the party. Um, then what? A one party system, is not democracy. And guaranteed if the Dems receive majority status for say, the next decade, like the Repubs have had in the past, will they not turn out the exact same way? Then what?
It just seems that the Titanic is sinking, and the best political solution seems to be, hey let's toss this side of the boat over, that'll save us.
Americans need to forcibly tell their politicians, fix this g-damn mess if it isn't too late REGARDLESS what stupid party you belong to.
What you seem to need right now, is a political situation similar to alot of other nations right now. No huge majority for anybody. Then they have got to work together and you don't have to wait 2-4 years to scare them into doing what is right. If the majority of citizens scream in that political climate, trust me, these hacks listen. They know they are on thin ice.
We may even get there someday, Canuck. At the moment, however, the sustained death-throws of the Repubs are wreaking havoc with the political process that is supposed to get things done when necessary. They were in the majority for too long, and they are throwing hissy-fits and tantrums at every opportunity now that they are not.
It’s like a spoiled child who has been told he can’t eat candy all day. They scream and whine and cry to friends about how mean mom & dad are. We’re left debating the efficacy of feeding candy to babies instead of focusing the debate where it needs to be. Telling them to shut the hell up and get over it isn’t really siding with either party; it’s just damn annoying to hear them whine as they are doing.
the party of eisenhower....you know, the guy who warned about the millitary industrial complex
Political theatrics seems to be an artform in the US. That's one of the reasons the world focuses so much on you. As a nation, you have become a reality tv show, focusing all your energies on the wrong fixations. Although they are massively corrupt, the Republican Party didn't do this entire meltdown to the US. They had a pile of friends with a D beside their name. The corruption is mind boggling, and except in passing, virtually ignored to play good cop vs bad cop.
Every piece of legislation passed even in Republican majorities, had Dem backers. There is no record of a complete vote by Republicans with 0 Dems, even during the Bush years. Sure they couldn't stop it, but a helluva pile of them voted with them including Hillary and Obama on a number of occasions. The only black and white I see, is the politics of entitlements seems to thrive with both parties as shown quite clearly with the "we won, you lost" crowd. "It's our turn". Well, that isn't the way to view this meltdown. It's rich vs poor, not Dem vs Rep.
Sadly enough, I'm right there with you on that.
Multiple parties in the US elected. Wow, that would almost be democratic in nature instead of this mess we have now.
And, just an observation. I know Maxine Waters and other Dems and Reps were trying to look outraged during the hearings last week, but asking stupid questions at the same time... US Congress the series. What a joke.
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 17:27 — Taarak
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You better watch it; yesterday we had a concern troll taking Nicole to task for using the phrase hissy-fit and wuss against boner as being sexist.
Me, I first think of cats.
But because this concern troll read into it gender prejudice than of course they had to be right.
Tnks ysbaddaden. Now I'm glad I left the PMS and bitchy whore comments out...
And of course the whole Ragtime Jazz Music Scene is sexist.
And wasn't it andrea zworkin (sp?)who tried to equate classical paintings like The Rape of the Sabines as being sexist?
Mostly it was the male soldiers who were nekkid, except for their helmets, and not a Trojan among them.
"Me, I first think of cats."
When you think of boner.......???
Another party will rise up. It always does.
while gingrich is an intellectual, and at times sounds cogent and was indeed able to sell the contract on america....cantor is a fucktard
voting against stuff without an alternative does not a party make
Even though I think gingrich has a doctorate, I would call him a pseudo-intellectual, with a questionable grasp of history.
He's from the era if you stayed in school long enough you never had to march through the rice paddies you sent the poorer families sons to patrol.
Having a PhD does not make an intellectual, just focused.
I guess the Party of No needs a young Dr No, since people have become immune to the crochety old Dr Noes like John McCain.
I've been watching a terrific serial from 1940 called The Drums of Fu Manchu, with Henry Brandon playing an underplayed, supercilious villain, and was amazed at how it seemed to set the prototype for Ian Fleming's Dr. No. Both Asian masterminds seemed to come from some sort of Asian gang; Dr. No was a treasurer who embezzled from the Tong. Fu Manchu wasn't after a WMD like most serial villains, but the scepter of Genghis Kahn, that would prove to most Asians that he was the successor. The Asians look like a variety, Chinese, Japanese, even Indian types with turbans.
In either chapter 7 or 8, one of his men (who've all had something like lobotomies to make them obedient), set a poisonous lizard in Sir Neville's Smith's bed. In the book Dr. No, a poisonous centipede was put into James Bond's bed, who after long moments of suspense found his chance to throw it off and squish it. In, the movie it was a poisonous spider. The book made it clear that after the long drawn out suspense that Bond had to go to the bathroom to vomit. The movie showed him going to the bathroom but didn't explain why; it could be for a whizz or to splash off his face.
They had a similar scene in the book Casino Royale, where Bond was caught on the fringes of an explosion set too soon by expendable Bulgarian agents working for the Russians. The force was still strong enough to shatter the window of the restaurant where he had been just been eating, and it threw him against a tree. Behind the tree he had to vomit.
And of course in the book Diamonds are Forever, he was stomped on by two gay killers, Wint and Kidd, wearing football cleats. When he escaped it was by railroad car that Tiffany Case had to work, while he laid helpless with several crushed ribs. Occassionally, she had to help him to some trees for him to vomit.
Good thing 007 liked good food. Hopefully it tasted as good coming up as it did going down.
What I also found interesting was in the book Bond sometimes was crying in pain. He went through an elaborate death trap, that would make a great video game, in Dr. No and was screaming in pain. Toward the end Honey Rider had to take him and put him in the shower in his hotel room, and wash him off clothes and all like a horse. She then puts iodine on all his wounds, mostly blisters that had burst from being on hot then cold surfaces, and bloody suction marks from a squid. She had to tell him to go ahead and cry because it was going to hurt. He didn't want to have anything to do with her sexually, becuase it was unclear how old she was, somewhere between 18-20 and he was 37. Because she blamed him on Dr. No's men blasting her rowboat full of bullet holes, she insisted Bond owed her slave time, but he never knew what that meant until the end, and that was to satisfy her. When he tries to object, the last line in the book is her telling him, "Do what you're told."
At the end of the first Bond book, Casino Royale, he was crying over Vesper Lynd's suicide note, but then had to call the office and tell them, "The bitch is dead." They kept that in the recent movie version, but in the book it was much more tragic.
At the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service Bond and his new wife, formerly Contessa Teresa de Vincenzo (daughter of the Corsican mobster boss Draco), were driving away on their honeymoon. Blofield drives by, and opens fire. They slide into a ravine, and Bond is knocked out when his forehead strikes the dashboard. When he comes to, he finds his bride dead, with a bullet hole between her shoulders (in the movie it was between Diana Riggs eyes), it ends with Bond crying and trying to explain to a motorcycle cop, that knew better, that everything was alright, she was only sleeping, everything was going to be alright.
Newt Gingrich was a failure. He was forced to resign and now he goes around the punditry ghetto spreading his soft white marshmallow-y self all over their chairs.
Well good for Young Dr. No. I'm glad he wants to be the Party of No's next failure. Let's give him a round of applause before his departure.
Gingrich: It appears that space junk is raining down on TX.
Cantor: Oh noes. The sky is falling, the sky is falling!1!1!1! Cutting taxes in the only answer.
was supposed to be bright, rising star of the GOOPERS. Were they referring to a different Eric Cantor?
the republicans care very very confused. they confused that lying douchebag W with a leader. and now they confuse this lying douchebag cantor with a leader.
awfully similar, dont you think?
Eat a few models?
Oooh! Oooh! I'll do that! Can I start with Heidi Klum? Then smoke a cigarette afterward....
Waddya think )O( stands for?
It's an X-ray of Amy Winehouse after eating a Flintstone vitamin.
OK, are you gonna help me clean the beer out of my keyboard after that comment? It burned my nose on the way out! :)
.funny as hell.
As I recall things in the end didn't work out so well for Newt
Newt lost his seat, didn't he.
Is no President Bill Clinton. The two are as different as plants and animals.
Is one sad video. Is that the best the pubs can do?
As the rest of the nation evolves, the GOP dinosaur refuses to find new sources of nourishment. They love the fossil fuel so much they can't wait to be part of it. Die fucker, die!
I remember during the elections Chris Mathews was GRILLING Cantor during one episode. Cantor became so flustered he looked like he was going to cry. What was he being grilled about? Whether or not he was a republican!
Cantor refused to say he was a republican and Chris was giving him hell for it.
He looks like a sleazy crook who's getting away with something. One look at him and I knew I would never trust him on anything. Or is this the "look" that Republicans like? Go for it, turkeys.
Gingrich and cantor definately a couple of GOP "members" if ya know what I mean
Unless Obey's changed in the decade-plus since I had to interview him (for a little po-dunk newspaper you've never heard of), I don't understand anybody couldn't get along with him. (His district's pretty conservative besides.) So I gotta think that any Republican who can't work with him is either a fanatic or a complete tool.
Back in the day, I dreaded having to talk to the blow-dried smarminess of the state senator and next-door state rep. So when Obey came off as so down-to-earth, it was kind of freaky, actually. Like I said, it was an itty-bitty paper, but from Obey's graciousness at staying so late for the interview and his freshly-cut (i.e. not canned) answers to my questions, you'd have thought I worked for the NYT.
The rethugs have been gunning for Pelosi for years--she's been their bogeywoman for almost as long as Hillary Clinton. But Dave Obey? WTF?
...that one of his staffers is gonna suck his weener underneath his desk while his wife is in the hospital?
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