Cantor: 'Who Exactly Is Obama Celebrating With?' (Answer: Auto Workers)

Ford didn't take the loans but it certainly wouldn't have been good for Ford if GM and Chrysler disappeared because of the the huge hit to US auto parts suppliers.

I don't know what Cantor meant---whether he meant to say "workers" or whether he did not know to whom Obama spoke. I was half watching the report of Obama's speech and if my memory is correct, Obama and the auto workers UNION bosses were practically in mutual Lewinsky mode BEFORE the speech (with no doubt more of the same after the speech). And no wonder, Obama and Democrats did not so much bail out or save GM and Chrysler (they could have been reorganized or assisted in a different form or with a different outcome than the one that was achieved). What ACTUALLY happened was a bailout of overly rich and unsustainable union pensions and benefits. In short, the bailout was a predictable POLITICAL PAYOFF that saved the unions' bacon and put the unions and the federal government in control of G(overnment) M(otors) and Chrysler. Aside: imagine the "tough" negotiations that will go on between the unions and "management" (the unions and federal govt.) over future contract terms!!! What a conflict of interest/unity of interest situation that raises. And it doesn't take a genius to see that the bailout was highly beneficial to Democrats. Dems get to use taxpayer money to bail out a favored constituency (the union) and the union, with understandable gratitude, will funnel a chunk of those taxpayer dollars BACK to Dems, as they are in the habit of doing, in campaign contributions. The mutual Lewinskys before the speech was just a symbolic reinactment of the monetary and political Lewinskys that was the GM and Chrysler bailouts.

It is hilarious to see your take that the economy, including presumably (almost) GM and Chrysler, was destroyed by Repulicans, in "fealty" to their "corporate masters", have so destroyed this economy and the middle class that we can't imagine anyone out there wanting to celebrate." THAT is a worn out liberal and Democrat article of faith that has little basis in reality (when has reality ever mattered to liberals?). But it ignores (I wonder why?) the substantial role of the subprime mortgage meltdown that was not a product of government DEregulation, but of government meddling in the housing market with "affordable housing" initiatives and mandates that pushed putting people who could not afford the houses they bought (not just poor people but also even middle class and rich people who bought houses with little or no money down on the assumption that housing prices would only continue to go up). Thank you, especially, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, and a host of other Democrats who gave us Fannie and Freddie in their late '90s and 2000 - 2008 form, and who opposed and pooh poohed any concern about Fannie and Freddie and any regulation that would have made their sizeable role in the U.S. housing market more prudent. Also, if Republicans "destroyed" the economy (including the auto industry) why were not non union foreing auto makers who were making cars in the U.S. not in the same sorry shape as GM and Chrysler. How did they manage to escape Republican "destruction"? Here is a little thought experiment: maybe the rich and unsustainable union contracts at GM and Chysler, and NOT Republican "destruction" had something to do with the near collapse of GM and Chrysler. Just a wild thought.

You say: "If this mess actually translates into Republican wins of any magnitude in November, it will only validate the worldview that the current majority of Americans are blind lemmings who vote for the wolves that eat them."

Actually, if the mess caused by Obama and Democrats does NOT translate into Republican wins of any magnitude in November, it will only show that too many Americans are blind lemmings who vote for Democrats who give "favors" to their own "special interests" that don't help the people as a whole, causes the economy to stagnate, imposes a crushing burden of debt (with skyrocketing interest on the debt that will crowd out other spending), and ironically just temporalily keeps the old unsustainable union model going long enough for a few more cycles of campaign contributions, but which will probably result in the eventual demise of GM and Chrysler if uneconomic wages, benefits, and pensions continue as they have and if GM and Chrysler become the "vehicles" for the imposition of "green" vehicles that cost too much, are too small, and are not what most Americans want to drive. Perhaps the individual mandate in health care will become the model for other mandates, such as the requirement that Americans buy union made "green" cars. Don't laugh. If Dems can do it in HC, why not in cars? Why not in food or the houses we live in?

It is not so much that Republicans are hostile to unions. It is that they favor and want to help EVERYONE. What good is it if a union worker get a short term "benefit" (higher than economically justified wages, benefits, and pension) and it ends up putting the company or the industry out of business or sends a company or jobs out of the country? What good is it to the GENERAL population if prices that everyone pays for a car or other things is higher than it would otherwise be because a company is unionized? Sure government union workers have a great deal: practically lifetime employment, better than private industry retirement benefits, and in recent years even higher compensation packages while working that counterparts in private industry. But the victims of unionization of public employees are the taxpayers, present and future, who have to pay for all of the benefits to union employees. Dems are concerned with looking out for their special interest groups, Republicans have their eyes on long term and broader welfare of all Americans.

Sadly the Virginia right-wing media are all but ignoring Waugh. They have already crowned Cantor while out of the other side of their mouths yelling about getting rid of the trash/incumbents in DC!