Wednesday, July 13, 2011

"Don't call my bluff."

Eric Cantor overplaying his hand against the man who killed Bin Laden:

"Eric, don't call my bluff. I'm going to the American people on this," the president said, according to both Cantor and another attendee. "This process is confirming what the American people think is the worst about Washington: that everyone is more interested in posturing, political positioning, and protecting their base, than in resolving real problems."

Cantor, speaking to reporters after the meeting, said that the president "abruptly" walked off after offering his scolding.

Or, as someone else who was in the room put it:
“He (Obama) lit up Eric Cantor like he’s never been lit up,” said one in the room.
Light him up, baby. And the rest of the Tea-rants with him.

Mitch McConnell at least has the good sense, a day after revealing his hand, to go full weasel. Admitting abdication of governance for pure Party politics, admitting it in public, no less:

Watching silently was McConnell, who had used a conservative radio interview earlier in the day to bluntly warn his party it was setting itself up for a fall at the polls in 2012.

“I refuse to help Barack Obama get reelected by marching Republicans into a position where we have co-ownership of a bad economy,” McConnell told his host, Laura Ingraham. “The reason default is no better an idea today than it was when Newt Gingrich tried it in 1995 is that it destroys your brand and would give the president an opportunity to blame Republicans for a bad economy.”

He's already (and often) said that thwarting President Obama's reelection is his single goal as Senate Minority Leader, so McConnell admits he is only concerned with making the President look bad, not with getting America back to work, not with putting guardrails on the greed that caused our most recent financial meltdown, not with saving the planet from destruction. Not even bringing peace to the Middle East.

That not governance, that's certainly not statesmanship.

That's simply sabotage.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Heh heh heh: Great opening line...