A blog about politics.

Newt 2.0?

Here's a web story from me on Eric Cantor. My favorite quote that didn't make the story: “I do particularly look forward to being constructive not obstructive because the problems facing this country are so large.”

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  • 1

    imported from another thread.
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    JNS
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    I wonder if you are allowed to call someone a liar. If so I wonder why you didn't call Cantor a liar several times in the article.
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    The key, Cantor says, in opposing the stimulus was in offering a credible alternative. "Our members in the House really rallied around a forward-looking, smarter, simpler stimulus plan," Cantor says.

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    This has been repeated time and again by these ass holes but did you actually look into if it was a lie or not? Well supposedly they used a paper by Christine Romer to come up with this lie. I wonder what Ms Romer might have to say on the subject.
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    Question: The House claims that based on the research of CEA Chair Christy Romer, their plan would create 6.2 million jobs. Isn't that a more effective way of jumpstarting the economy?
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    Answer: The Republican House analysis is flat wrong in its claim that the House Republican stimulus is more effective. No matter what your analytical assumptions, as long as they are consistent the plan the President supports would result in substantially greater job creation than the House Republican plan.

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    And what about the House GOP's truthiness in general? Well lets check out the "Pelosi Mouse" on the truth o meter, much to Scarborough and Mika's dismay
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    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/#29347381
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    And "wonky"? Eric Cantor hasn't had an original thought sense he has been in congress. Perhaps you can come up with even ONE situation where he spoke knowledgeably on a subject when he didn't have talking points on the subject sitting right in front of him. I mean got damn, this is the dumbest phucking jack ass in all of the House but because he "sounds good" he gets labeled wonky? Man let me stop before I frikkin explode.

  • 2

    Taking on the relatively unpopular congressional Democrats is one thing,
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    False. See also: "Congressional Democrats have a 48% - 45% approval. Not wildly good, but decent. Congressional Republicans are down at 33% - 59%".
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    Please fix this misleading aspect of your story.

  • 3

    also imported
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    cinci
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    It makes you wonder if JNS was allowed to read anything other than Rethug talking points for this story. I mean there ARE new polls out judging the Dems and Rethugs in Congress and in just about all of them the Dems are ahead of the jack asses by 15 points or more. But hey as long as you can keep repeating that same old cannard about unpopular Dems in Congress, why rely on facts right?
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    http://www.pollingreport.com/cong_dem.htm

  • 4

    Elvis... I hit the same steaming noxious pile of nonsense & had to stop, too. "relatively unpopular congressional Democrats," my lily-white arsgratiaartis. Not "relative" to the congressional Republicans, that's for sure!

  • 5

    JNS: Is that your favorite quote because it was the point in the interview when you burst out laughing?
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    Sorry, I have nothing constructive to add today.

  • 6

    Cantor unambiguously named Nancy Pelosi's mean floor speech as the reason for his first vote against the stimulus in a clearly authentic contemporaneous interview > http://bit.ly/aP9iE

    Wish you hadn't left that out, because it's telling in a way that trumps rehearsed statements.

  • 7

    Eeesh. "He said...they said". Gosh, I have all of the skills to be a big-time journalist (but none of the ambition, thanks). Then this:

    "...Obama's focus will turn to implementing his campaign agenda, which is by definition more ideological."

    Obama is a Democrat which means his agenda is, by definition, less ideological that the Republican agenda. "Conservatism" is an ideology. Governing is a vocation.

  • 8

    Ugh! And this: "Democrats still hold out hope for bipartisanship because, unlike the rushed stimulus plan, these massive programs will take months to go through the committee process, where minority members can amend the measures."

    Not THIS particular Democrat, JNS. I'm sure there are some, but many others feel burned by the treatment they received from the GOP on these latest issues.

    Also, you couldn't follow up with Cantor on this load of bullpucky? "I feel that my obligation is to be a prudent guardian of taxpayer money." Natural follow-up question by a non-ideological reporter: "So, that's a new thing for you, then? Because you apparently haven't practiced what you're now preaching over the past few years, have you?"

  • 9

    As a Richmond, VA, resident, I would like to point out that Cantor is either misrepresenting himself or being misrepresented when he is referred to as a "Richmond, VA Republican". Richmond is in the 3rd Congressional District of Virginia, currently represented by Democrat Bobby Scott. Cantor is the 7th district representative. The 7th district does surround Richmond on three sides, encompassing all of Henrico County to the north and the western half of Chesterfield Country to the southwest, but Richmond itself is grouped with the more Democratic-leaning counties to our east, which are heavily African-American. Meanwhile, Cantor's district stretches from Chesterfield, its southernmost point, northwest past Fredericksburg and up to Rappahanock County in the northwestern part of the state. It includes no major Virginia cities (it narrowly misses Charlottesville and Fredericksburg as well as Richmond) and is obviously designed to be mostly rural and a Republican stronghold as a district. Cantor can claim Richmond all he wants, but he's a straight-up rural-district Congressman all the way, and he better be glad of it, because if Richmond was included in his district, we'd throw him out of there in a heartbeat.

  • 10

    Ah JNS: Eric Cantor and cant.

  • 11

    "Natural follow-up question by a non-ideological reporter: "So, that's a new thing for you, then? Because you apparently haven't practiced what you're now preaching over the past few years, have you?"
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    Here's another: So, why do I never tire of interviewing Republican lairs such as yourself and propagating your lies on the pages of Time with complete and utter credulity?"

  • 12

    The huge problem with both parties is where their primary concern is. Which is either to stay in power or to regain it. Good governing takes a backseat to that goal.

  • 13

    "I feel that my obligation is to be a prudent guardian of taxpayer money."

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    So did you ask him, at all, about how much the Iraq War is costing us? Or maybe about those tax cuts for the rich that he wants to keep?
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    Ha! Ha! What am I thinking?

  • 14

    Eric Cantor may very well be the Newt Gingrich of his generation. Remember what happened to Newt? The big difference is that Newt was speaking for a party that was actually in power and rising, not the spokesman for a dwindling party that is being blamed for the greatest financial catastrophe in several generations. Cantor's problem is that he's stuck in a mindset like the guy in Springsteen's song Glory Days. He's remembering the past triumphs of his party's heyday, not the grim realities of the present. Take his car keys and drive him home. He's not able to drive.

  • 15

    "The huge problem with both parties is where their primary concern is. Which is either to stay in power or to regain it. Good governing takes a backseat to that goal."
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    Politics is always the choice of the lesser of evils. The difference between the parties is that the Republicans' organizing principle is that "government is the problem," so they pretty much take good governing off the table from the outset (making government work undermines their central rationale for giving them power, insanely simplistic and contradictory as it may be). Staying in or regaining power is all they're about.

  • 16

    JNS, you are obviouslty pleasing your "Time" bosses with this Cantor/GOP fluff piece. The only problem is that most of us unwashed barbarians from outside the village aren't buying the usual propaganda. As evidence check out some polls or better yet, check out some old media circulation numbers.

  • 17

    I see your point shepherdowong. I've never understood the pol who professes to hate government. I wish someone would ask them why they are in politics then.

  • 18

    I wish someone would ask them why they are in politics then.
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    He's in it for the view.
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    Here's a CA politician making news for really trying to stimulate the economy:
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    http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2009/02/legalize_it_ammiano_to_introdu.php

  • 19

    Well, wow, just ditto what you all said. Nothing left of JNS after all that.
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    But, this may explain her a bit. Apparently, there is something in the air or water down there. Say what?

  • 20

    Shuster just CRUSHED Congressman Issa over that bullsh*t "Harry Reid train" meme. I mean ABSOLUTELY CRUSHED HIM. I hope someone posts it.

  • 21

    I think there are a couple of reasons why people who profess to hate government are in politics. First, there's the money factor. You get in government and lobby/do favors for people/special interests that can provide you with sacks of cash later on for a minimal effort. Second, what better way to destroy something than to do it from within where you are actually in a position to wreck the most havoc?

  • 22

    The Borgen Project has some good info on the cost of addressing global poverty.

    $30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.
    $550 billion: U.S. Defense budget

  • 23

    "what better way to destroy something than to do it from within where you are actually in a position to wreck the most havoc"?

    That is how I have come to explain the W years to myself.

  • 24

    The appropriate cinematic reference here is not Austin Powers and his lost mojo – it's Monty Python and the Holy Grail:
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    SECOND: VILLAGER: She turned me into a newt!
    SIR BEDEVERE: A newt?
    SECOND VILLAGER: (after looking at himself for some time) I got better.

  • 25

    "Cantor believes the one lesson the Obama Administration took from his orchestrated opposition was that it must work harder to reach out to the GOP."
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    JNS, is this Cantor's misconception, or yours?

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