On Fox News Sunday when asked if John Ensign or Mark Sanford should resign given that their staying in office is making the GOP look like hypocrites for claiming to be the party of family values, Cantor punts and says they're not a party of personalities, but of ideas. Anyone think he'd have given a different answer if he were being asked about Democrats resigning?
He also completely ignores the part of Wallace's question where he mentions the potentially illegal use private or government money. And like the good little Villager, Wallace doesn't press him on it either. I'm surprised he even asked him the question in the first place. Heaven forbid he'd want to come down too hard on the Republicans' new "rising star", as Cantor was introduced for the segment.
WALLACE: Finally, when you’ve got Republican leaders like Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina or Nevada Senator John Ensign admitting to extramarital affairs and staying in office, questionable use of either private funds or state money, in the case of Sanford, doesn’t the GOP, with all its talk of family values, risk looking like a bunch of hypocrites?
CANTOR: Look, I mean, is anyone happy to see all that have happened? No. I mean, it’s not good. But listen. We have our thoughts with their families and they themselves.
However, look. The party is not just about personalities. It’s about ideas. It’s about our ability to go out and prove that yes, we can lead this country again. So we have got a plan. We are talking about the solutions that actually can address some of the problems that working people in this country are facing, and we’re going to do that over the course of the next 16 months.
WALLACE: But if you’re going to talk the talk, why not walk the walk and say, “You know what? They should step down?”
CANTOR: Well, listen. I mean, again, I say in the instance of the people in South Carolina and Nevada, it is up to them, and those are the elected individuals by those states.
And again, it’s not about, necessarily, these personalities. The direction of this country -- and the challenges that we face are enormous. And we ought to be talking about how to go about creating jobs again. We ought to be talking about the things that matter most to people in this country.
WALLACE: Congressman Cantor, we want to thank you. Thanks for coming in today and please come back, sir.
CANTOR: Pleasure. Thank you, Chris.
