Cantor: Crisis? What Crisis?
It's hard to tell if Eric Cantor's testing a new message, or if this is the new Republican line on the Democrats and the state of affairs in the country, but Politico reports that, at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast this morning, the House GOP whip, said Democrats are "overreacting, as they often will, to crisis."
But back to this morning. Cantor told participants that "Doing too much has huge, huge pitfalls," better, in other words, to err on the side of doing too little.
Then, after praising Rush Limbaugh, he added that those pitfalls might propel Republicans back into control of the House in 2010--a feat that would require them, in historic fashion, to take at least 40 seats back from the Democrats.
Last week, Cantor did his part to stimulate the economy and calm the nation's fears by skipping an Obama press conference to attend a Britney Spears concert.
Cantor himself has always been the picture of calm in the face of crisis. On October 22, 2001, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, he appeared on Hannity & Colmes and argued that the United States should "go after" Iran, Iraq and Syria, "because, if we are to win this war, we must go after the source of this international terror, which are the sponsoring states, because really, by definition, if you've got terrorists with a global reach, there needs to be sponsoring states behind them."
We'll report back with any reactions we receive to Cantor's statements.
Late update: TPM alum Greg Sargent has obtained audio of Cantor's statements. You can listen for yourself here.
Later update Here's the full context of Cantor's remarks on overreaction:
As far as Rush [Limbaugh], Rush has got ideas, he's got following, he believes in the conservative principles that many of us believe in, of lower taxes of making sure that we turn back towards and focus on entrepreneurialism in this country, to promoting innovation, and not stamping that out by overreacting, if you will, which this town often does, to crisis.This may be a backhanded critique of Democrats, but it's less overt than the Politico piece reported--Cantor was boosting for Rush (who loathes Democrats) and was criticizing Washington (now controlled by Democrats), but did not say that Democrats per se over react to crises.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Hoover: Depression? What Depression?
April 2, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
“Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement.”
—Herbert Hoover, Message to Congress
April 2, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Party of No boldy rolls out its new program to deal with the economic crisis: Do Nothing!
April 2, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
They really don't have any idea what they are doing do they? There is no way the public is going to agree with him, this just makes him look even more out of touch.
April 2, 2009 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why is this tool being discussed?
This fool doesn't have the mental capacity to formulate a coherent thought, much less the capability to muster together enough brain matter to have an eneurism.
He has nothing intelligent to say, ignore him.
April 2, 2009 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Because the GOP considers him important enough to make him the minority whip, so what he says gets attention in large part because of his prominence in the party.
I say, Keep it up, Eric, you represent your party well.
It's a confederacy of dunces
April 2, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, just think how bad Katrina would have ended up if they had tried to do more.
April 2, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is outstanding. I can see the ad already: "With unemployment at record highs, the financial industry collapsing, and people's retirement plans disappearing, President Obama and the Democrats acted to put our country back on track. Republicans? They said you were overreacting. Who would you prefer in a crisis? The people who responded to get our country back on track, or Republicans, who acted to protect the rich and said everyone else was just overreacting."
April 2, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely calls for an ad! Just like Obama doing jujitsu last summer with Phil Gramm's bonehead comments about Americans being a bunch of "whiners." :)
April 2, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the "fundamentals of our economy are strong" remark as well.
April 2, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
As long as they keep this up, we'll have more and more ammunition for 2010.
April 2, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the book, The Shock Doctrine, that's exactly what happens when an economy/country is being prepped for complete and total capitalization. The new idea floated yesterday about capitalizing Medicard is just a beginning of the repuglicans attempting to sell off all the government social programs into the hands of the capitalist. So with millions unemployed, small businesses shuttered, and all social programs in the hands of the capitalists, welcome to the Third World America!
April 2, 2009 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's a differance between acting "to put our country back on track" and pushing through your left-wing agenda (that will end up making things worse) and pretending it's being done "to help the economy."
April 2, 2009 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
You still haven't figured it out, have you? McCain lost. Over 50% of American voters rejected the counterpart "right wing agenda" last November. If you're in doubt, check out any of the recent Obama popularity polls. They're not buying the GOP bullshit any more!
Or did I miss your "sense of humor" again? Darn it.
April 2, 2009 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rahm said it first...don't get upset with me...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow&feature=related
April 2, 2009 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's quite an extrapolation there...
April 2, 2009 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, who said I was upset? I am happy to set you straight. My exclamation point was an expression of joy.
Second, Rahm in that Youtube clip said none of the things you quoted in your previous post. Typical sloppy, exaggerated, misleading GOP paraphrasing (and I'm being generous there). As many commentators have noted, Obama's doing nothing he didn't campaign for, so he's not using the economic crisis W handed him to do something he didn't forecast last year.
Your guy W was the king of pushing agendas down people's throats. He campaigned on a "humble" foreign policy agenda, railing against "nation-building" that Gore supposedly wanted to do, then used 9-11 to become an arrogant nation builder. Again, pot -- meet kettle.
April 2, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or taking a miniscule margin into the White House, claiming a 'mandate' and pushing a far right agenda, as Bush did while driving the country into this mess.
April 2, 2009 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Embarrassing Eric is at it again. He praises a racist like Rush. He fails to reply to my inquiry to him as to whether he condoned Michelle Bachman's recent diatribe. And he thinks the policies that Americans thoroughly rejected in November are what Americans want. What a maroon, with apologies to Bugs Bunny!
April 2, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
The number one defect present in most republicans is the inability to empathize.
He doesn't feel economic strain, therefore it is no big deal.
April 2, 2009 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed! I sure hope that the Democrats run someone against Eric next time around and that they have a debate where he can be asked directly, "So Eric, please give us three examples of how the recession has directly affected you." The blank look on his face will be priceless. Sort of the way he looked on Hardball just prior to the election when Chris Matthews tore him apart. It is that classic dumb Republican look personified by Oliver North and George Allen...a blank face with a dumb smile which indicates they do not have a clue what to say.
April 2, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Democrat's number one defect is thinking empathy feeds the poor.
-- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html
April 2, 2009 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Brilliant! George Will cites someone saying liberals don't donate to charity so it must be true. Is his source as reliable as the ostrich he cited weeks back denying global warming despite the overwhelming scientific majority whose research shows it exists?
Makes you wonder if Will had been born in a different generation, say the Greatest Generation, would he have been writing op-eds saying that Oppenheimer and the other scientists working on the first A-bomb were deluded and we should defeat Japan in other ways...
April 2, 2009 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't trust George Will, check out Obama's (before he decided to run for Pres) and Biden's tax records...they talk a good game.
April 2, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
So unless someone gives at least 10% of their earnings to charity, they're a hypocrite? Gee, I thought conservatives didn't believe in quotas...
As Obama's spokesmen Bill Burton said during the campaign, they were new parents who were paying off their large student loans. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in a focus group of poor graduate students convened by SFC wherein he chastises them for their paltry 9% donations to United Way...
April 2, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"So unless someone gives at least 10% of their earnings to charity, they're a hypocrite? Gee, I thought conservatives didn't believe in quotas..."
Now who's using "typical sloppy, exaggerated, misleading (Liberal) paraphrasing..."? Eric The Red stated what he thought the Republican's number one defect is; I countered with my opinion of the Democrat's. As for your "struggling family" BS, Obama graduated from law scool in 1991, he published his first book in 1995. In 2000 they made $240,505 nd donted $2,350 to charity that's less than 1%...just more do as I say not as I do.
April 2, 2009 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not misleading to compare what some conservatives say about donating to charity with what they say about affirmative action. For the former issue, many like you say "if it's not higher than 1%, you're a hypocrite." Yet for the latter, many say "if you want to have [x]% of minorities in a job class, that's wrong." When it's convenient to you on an issue, you say specific percentages matter; when it's not convenient to you, you say they don't matter. Which is it?
As for our president -- law school is not cheap. He didn't have GW Bush to grease his way though college like W did. I'd say Obama's giving up a for-sure career as a high paid corporate lawyer to go back to poor neighborhoods in Chicago and try to help people who'd lost their jobs at steel mills was a clear case of walking the walk.
April 2, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you understand how averages work? If most of the top earners fall into the conservative category, even though the category as a whole averages a little less, then obviously they're going to have more money to donate. I'm not saying that's the situation, just demonstrating how the numbers may not mean what you think they do.
April 2, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
C'mon....we all know that not all "charity" goes to addressing the needs of the poor. Even the article admits that this rate of giving is related to the level of religiosity among the donors. Just because someone believes they are obligated to tithe to their church doesn't mean that they are giving to the less fortunate. Someone's got to pay for all those preachers' big stadium churches, fancy cars, etc. I doubt Pat Robertson drives himself to work every day in a Yugo.
April 2, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Embarrassing Eric is at it again."
"Wreckless Eric" might also fit.
April 2, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Weakass Eric works too.
April 2, 2009 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
First Bachmann goes off on a tangent thinking the world is out to get us by replacing the dollar with a global currency, then comes their miss-stating the facts on light-switch tax to make people think they're going to get saddled with a new hefty tax, and now Cantor is sowing the seeds of disbelief that the recession/depression is all in our heads. Of course, the MSM is just parroting what they're being fed - here's hoping they all go bankrupt. Seems Obama's attempt to go to the middle to coax the GOP to the center to be a part of the cure for what they broke was a pure waste of time and effort. Now, the GOP is embolden enough to make certain Obama and the Democrats utterly failure before the mid-term elections so they can sweep back into power. Perhaps the Democrats sure listen to Alice Cooper's song No More Mister Nice Guy as a new theme/fight song to rally around.
April 2, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget the bogus "sharia law in America" BS going around on Faux news.
It's one of a thousand cuts the GOOPers will be trying.
April 2, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
First Obama is doing too much. Then Obama isn't thinking ENOUGH about the economy. Now he's overreacting? WTF???
April 2, 2009 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, excellent point!
April 2, 2009 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. Just because Bush couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time, doesn't mean Obama can't juggle.
April 2, 2009 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
...you're missing the point, what he's doing too much of is not related to economic recovery...focus.
April 2, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd buy that if Cantor wasn't talking about the "crisis".
April 2, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nope. It's you and Eric missing the forest for the trees.
Easy to say "focus" if you ignore Pakistan having the bomb, deny global warming exists, think that the cost of health care is not hurting big and small business, etc...
Again, most Americans last November voted for the guy who could see the big picture and who could multi-task.
April 2, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean the guy who said he was for clean coal technology while saying he'd bankrupt the industry, and the one who said he was for offshore drilling when gas hit $4 a gallon...and now says "not 'our' shores"...that guy?
April 2, 2009 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
You supported Bush in 2000, right?
Please post the URLs to your TPM posts wherein you took him to task for campaigning on a pledge to put caps on carbon emissions and then reneging on the pledge once in office.
If you want to argue Obama's energy plan -- give exact quotes and URLs, please.
April 2, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Goodness gracious, you're a sniveling little liar. Just sad. Get a life.
April 2, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink