By popular request, Tweety tearing into that insufferable prick Eric Cantor:
I forgot who described Cantor as someone who looks like the proprietor of the jerk store, but he reminds me of that jackass in Die Hard.
My favorite thing is when Cantor says, at about 7 minutes in, it is time to stop the finger-pointing and fix things. Why is it that every time Republicans screw something up horribly, they run around saying it is not time to point fingers and lay blame. According to them, no one should every be responsible for anything. They tried this shit in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and I remember, because I was defending Bush and company in the immediate aftermath of Katrina until it became clear that they had in fact made a total hash of it.
calipygian
If McDouchebagington’s were a theme restaurant, Eric Cantor could totally be a busboy there.
He still would have been a more credible VP candidate for McCain than Sarah Palin though.
DFD
Wexler got to sit back and laugh most of the time. Talk about an easy gig. Go Tweety!
demkat620
Oh I agree. Bet he’ll be part of the ticket next time. Unless they totally lose their bench and have to run that insufferable prick McHenry. They have a lot of insufferable pricks to choose from but for my money, McHenry and Putnam and Cantor are on a level beyond everybody else.
Laura W
This is another good day for McCain.
Savannah Guthrie just hosted a lovely little Palin Mythbusting Lie Exposing party over at NBC nightly news.
I think they listened to Amy P (as Hillary)’s admonition to grow a pair. You know when it’s on Nightly News it’s getting serious.
I feel like dancing.
BFR
It’s all about appeasement, Chris.
AkaDad
Blaming the people responsible for screw-ups is unpatriotic and just downright rude.
Jess
That was beautiful. It also nicely underscores that in his 2 minute ad Obama is doing what Bush should be doing but isn’t.
Considering the circumstances (that he’s a lying prick trying to defend the indefensible) Cantor handles himself better than most would. He has balls as well as a giant load of bullshit.
Jake
“At least I’m not Eric Cantor!”-Tom Cruise, defending criticism that he’s the king of all douchebags
Brian J
I asked this question at the bottom of the previous thread, but since responsibility for this mess is a topic related to this thread, I’ll post it again: What would you make of the following statement?
I’ll let you know who wrote it, but because I fear instant rejection, first I’d like to hear some thoughts. (Don’t worry, it’s not Don Luskin.) I ask because I hear Obama speak about this, and while I like, on the surface, a lot of what he’s saying, some of it doesn’t seem related. He throws in stuff about consumer protections and huge executive paydays, but I am not sure if this are well connected. Maybe he’s just doing it for political reasons, but I’d like to hear more concrete ideas of what, if anything, could have prevented this.
Bubblegum Tate
I remember the evolution of this around Katrina. It was irresponsible or even offensive to “play the blame game” (I got so goddamn sick of the phrase “blame game,” lemme tell ya…) while people were dying in New Orleans. Then, once the worst of the crisis was over, it was irrepsonsible or even offensive to want to bring up ancient history like how much the Bush administration had screwed the pooch.
Neat trick, right? If we want to talk about responsibility, we should wait until the problem has subsided, at which point the problem is in the past, and we should be looking toward the future.
Fuck these people.
Ian
Chris lost a lot of money today, and is PISSED. I guess that’s what it takes.
Stuck in the Fun House
Shorter Cantor
Republican, what’s that?
He never did say the R word. Out of all the GOP yard signs here, I haven’t seen one that says republician. Most of them are also now blue instead of the usual red. And Obama is now back up by two points in the daily Gallup.
t jasper parnell
That guy is a maroon of incalculable maroonisity.
JL
Laura W, What lie did Palin say today? I have lost track although Andrew Sullivan is keeping track. Chris Matthews was right in stating that it does not look good for Bush to be in hiding.
gravie
Hey, John– I’m really glad you abandoned the party of dopes and came around to this side after Katrina. Your blog is a daily must-read for me now. And yes– Cantor is an insufferable douche.
mantis
he reminds me of that jackass in Die Hard.
Dr. Hathaway? Are you wearing makeup?
cf.
Brian J
You forgot the almost absurd levels of copying that the Republicans have done of Obama’s slogans.
Zifnab25
Not true. I think between Carter and Clinton, you can find a Republican laying square blame on one of them for every American tragedy from gay AIDS to $4 oil to the market crash in ’87.
Obama regularly gets blamed for every stock market slump while McCain is lauded for every half point jump. By GOoPer reconning, the only thing keeping the entire country from catching fire and dieing of gay bowel syndrome has been a steady stream of McCain / Palin press releases.
Once Obama gets elected, I am fully confident that GOoPers will remember exactly why the President is to blame for everything.
ThymeZone
Cantor is right. It’s because the Democrats want to tax capital creation that the markets are tanking right now.
That other party that cannot be named which has been running the store for most of the last decade? Only they are qualified to come in and reform this broken system.
John, that Schiavo thing fried your brain. You should have stood by your party. This is their finest hour. Whoever they are.
r€nato
You forgot ‘sexist’, if a female Republican is involved.
tom.a
Nice job by tweety, but tomorrow he’ll feel guilty about rolling a Republican so hard and will come up with something stupid and superficial to hang around the neck of Obama.
RAM
After every Republican screw-up we’re told “Now is not the time to play the blame game. There will be plenty of time for that later.” But later never comes, because when it’s later “That’s old news; we need to move on.”
If the Democratic Party doesn’t play the blame game now, they’re a pack of cowardly fools (which, of course, they are, but still…).
Bleester
As a senior making less than $50K, my favorite part was when the Obama guy said we got to take seniors making less than $50K completely off the income tax rolls. w00t!
donovong
Wow!
Tweety barracuda!
D-Chance.
Personal responsibility, bee-yatches!
PeterJ
With the economy blowing up and the republicans refusing to acknowledge that they are republicans or willing to take any responsibility for the last eight years, I’m not so sure that he will.
mannemalon
+1
ThymeZone
Is it too early for me to push my bet with DougJ?
I said that McCain was going to be the worst candidate you have ever seen. I said that he’d end up with a smaller percentage of the popular vote total than did Barry Goldwater (right around 38%, I think). I bet DougJ that McCain would not get 35% of the total.
A hundred bucks. Another week of this, and I am pushing the bet. Pay me now, or the bet is two hundred dollars.
Ecks
Ahhhh! That makes a ridiculous amount of sense. It’s all clear now. Ian FTW.
rawshark
A wingnut at work played that trick with me that Cantor is playing on Matthews. No matter what the question, say what you want to say.
I asked what the process was for making tax cuts permanent, you know what he replied? Have I ever heard of the Laffer curve. WTF? I asked like 7 times, someone else was standing there and even he couldn’t get the guy to focus on the actual question.
I’ve also noticed a lot of political ads playing in phoenix don’t mention the candidates party.
stickler
Thymezone –
38% is pretty bad, but it’s about the floor, as I recall. (Doop-de-doo, a little Googlation, …. and…)
Yep. Must be; Herbert Hoover got 39.65% in 1932. (Source)
You have to figure, between Hoover in 1932 and Goldwater in 1964, you’re looking at about the low point you’ll ever see in American elections, short of the bind-torture-kill-wilford-brimley event some other website talked about once.
In other words, mark out four of the next ten Americans you meet, and think to yourself: “These idiots will vote for any chucklenuts who gets their party’s nomination. Anybody.”
And yeah, I think you’re right about McCain. Look at how Palin is turning out: clown shoes dropping left and right, every damned day.
Laura W
I think it’s just different day, same lies, since she never says anything new. It’s more disproving things she’s already said, including the ones she continues to repeat in every speech.
The NBC report was more a recap…a lot of the stuff we’ve read on blogs every single day for two weeks now, but presented as a very credible and researched report chock full o’confirmed mistruths. And I believe it came about 8 min into the broadcast, which is before the first commercial break so the placement gave it more gravity, IMO.
That was my memory of it anyway. Probably on their web site by now? I should go watch it again. Maybe I romanticized it.
Soylent Green
I’ll take that bet, TZ.
The election will be as close as the last two were, the winner yet to be determined.
I know you enjoy repeating that bromide of yours, but surely you don’t honestly believe it.
PeterJ
That would be the first presidential election after the stock market crashed in 1929. As much as I would want to see McCain crushed in November, I really don’t want another 1929… I would be much happier with Obama just winning 55%, or even 51%…
BTW, Hoover went from 444-87 in 1928 to 59-472 in 1932. That must be a record.
ThymeZone
Uh huh. Put your money where your mouth is. Tell me what percentage you think McCain will get, and how much money you are willing to bet on it.
Then we’ll see if we have a bet.
mannemalon
As much as I’d love for you to be right, I’d take that bet in a sec. Half of this country is far far too dumb and ignorant for that to ever happen.
ThymeZone
Well, you are a little late. I offered it months ago and put up my fun money already. My money now goes to the Obama Campaign (I plan to be all $4600 in by late October).
But I will make you the same proposition I made to Chuck Heston, I mean, Soylent: Tell me what percentage of the total you think McCain will get that you can bet on, and tell me how much you want to wager. I might be interested.
stickler
PeterJ:
Your wishes are irrelevant. We’re already at the worst crisis SINCE 1929, just listen to the news. Doesn’t matter. Sure, the train wreck had three years to affect American politics before 1932, but we’re moving at Internet speed now. Shit, I don’t even know if WaMu will still exist when I wake up tomorrow.
And the only Presidential candidate who’s addressing it in a coherent manner is Obama.
limbaugh's pilonidal cyst
Word to republicans who find themselves commentating on the teevee: It’s the Democratic party (or candidate), not the Democrat party (or candidate). That little slur is so middle-school, I know newtie said it was cool back in 1994 but it just makes y’all look like the petty and silly little twerps that you really are.
You’re gonna learn to be a lot more polite after January 2009, though. But noone will probably be noticing you after that anyway.
PeterJ
Hoover got the record, but Taft’s results in 1908 and 1912 shouldn’t be forgotten. 321 EVs in 1908, 8 in 1912… From 66.5% of the EVs to 1.5%… (Hoover went from 83.6% to 11.1%…)
ThymeZone
One little problem with your theory: All of that history rests on relatively low voter turnout. I think you will see high voter turnout this year, and the numbers you are accustomed to will change drastically. I also think that this is a 1964 type election, which is: an outlier.
But everybody is in a mood to say the same thing tonight, so ponder the offer I made to Soylent. Give me a McCain percentage you like, and a dollar figure, and let’s see what we can do. Let’s make it interesting.
stickler
Sorry. I screwed up. Neither 1932 nor 1964 are the recordholders for blowouts. 1940 was even worse: Alf Landon got 36%. I’m not even including the link; the map is so red it’ll burn your retinas.
Eric K
Brian J,
I don;t think the regulations themselves have changed much. What the Republicans do is simply not enforce them. You see it all over the place. For example, they don’t change the oversight laws on Mines to make it easier for companies to ignore safety regs, they just appoint industry hacks to the oversight roles and stop inspecting, and so on…
mannemalon
Forget about an actual wager. Gentleman’s bet, I think McCain gets 47%. Which I think most would be happy with. The one caveat is if this economy continues to crash. If it keeps getting worse with huge companies folding, I think McCain gets around 42%.
ThymeZone
I don’t know why I can’t find somebody to bet me real money on McCain and 47%.
Oh well.
Anyway, there is no way McCain gets 47%. The two major candidates will be splitting about 94-95% of the total, which means that half of the remainder is going to be around 47%. McCain will not get half of the remainder, not even close. If he gets 42% of the total, which is around 5 points less than half the 94% available, I will be disappointed. I think he breaks Goldwater’s record but that money is already on the table. To make another bet I need to see a McCain number that starts with a 4 and ends with … something greater than a 5. Like a 7. 47 is a nice number.
BFR
Palin’s going to bring the numbers at least into the 40’s no matter what she does or McCain says or the market does not do.
The tinfoil hat in me says that the Palin pick was forced on McCain by the GOP to do two things:
One: keep the base turnout high enough to win in downticket elections and
Two: Make sure that McCain couldn’t win
On that note, I’m also skeptical that Carly’s that tone-deaf to be honest.
rawshark
There it is.
That’s why Mike Brown was running FEMA.
jenniebee
You know, Cantor is the congressman for the district that starts 10 miles from here, in the suburbs (I’m in Bobby Scott’s district at the moment). And we’re looking to buy in the suburbs – Cantor, of course, is a suburbs kind of guy – this next year.
I’m just putting it out there, if BJ wants to back me, I’ll volunteer to run against that *(*@$^@)@ in 2010. And, if necessary, in 2012. 2014. Cantor can’t decide whether to spend more time calling for an end to finger pointing or blaming Democrats. And he’s calling for more gifts to the “capital creators” as an alternative to “benefiting a select few.”
John Cole for chairman of the Constitution Party.
Also, in “O Brother Where Art Thou?”, if you’ve seen it lately, Pappy O’Daniel goes ballistic when his advisor suggests that he should get him some of that reform because he says that the incumbent can’t be the reform candidate. Pappy O’Daniel didn’t have the same kind of corrupt vision, that’s all there is to it.
stickler
TZ:
Thanks for the challenge. But: I don’t bet. Ever. My uncanny black majik is not a force to summon lightly: any athletic team, politician, independent state at war, which I bet on … loses. My record in poker is gates-of-hell horrific.
Your evaluation of the race so far is about the same as mine. So there’s no reason to tempt fate.
Seriously, I don’t bet, ever, for any reason. And I’m hoping that my superstition (re the geld I’ve sent him) doesn’t overrun reason, science, and politics.
Brian J
It seems like a very, very plausible idea, but what regulations weren’t enforced?
Soylent Green
TZ, McCain’s total will be somewhere in the forties. I can’t pick the final percentage. By all rights Obama should be way ahead of current polls but on election day will still be found guilty of campaigning while black by millions of voters who will never admit it.
The only bet I took was against that goofy 35% of yours.
Chuck Butcher
One thing I’ll point out about Matthews, this is the second day he’s gutted an (R) for dodging the (R).
The (R) vote is going to go to McPOW minus some of the moderates, not many. The legacy (R)s may desert. (D)s are up in registration numbers seriously, this bodes well. TZ’s 37% assumes the (R)s and that’s about it. I can see white flight to an extent, I think low 40s McPOW.
Now, if the economy tanks (please no) McPOW better hope GeorgeII starts another war to break 30.
The DOW losses mean nothing to the average investor, you just hold long term and wait it out. If you’re living on it, wow. The really bad part of it is that stock price is a business’ credit rating essentially. Credit seems to be a bit of a problem right now. This shit will just slaughter my business, construction work of damn near any kind is big ticket and that means stock market problems will worry the hell out of customers and they sure won’t sell any to finance and credit is difficult.
Beej
Brian J, Erik K, and rawshark,
If I remember my history, and I don’t guarantee that I do, most of the deregulation of markets and financial institutions took place under Reagan and GHWB (remember the S & L debacle?). Then Clinton came along and actually put some people in there who would enforce the regs that were still on the books. Result: the crash was postponed. Under GWB the enforcers are either party hacks with no understanding of what they are supposed to be doing or party hacks with their hands in the pockets of the people and institutions they are supposed to be regulating. Result: everybody is screwed.
DonnaInMichigan
Fool me once, shame on you. (2000)
Fool me twice, shame on me. (2004)
And this is the reason why this 49 yr old white female, from Michigan, whom by the way has voted Republican, since I was 18 yrs old, is voting for Obama this election.
The Iraq war and then Hurricane Katrina was the catalyst, for me.
Also, Republicans can thank Bush, Cheney, Rove, for not only me leaving the party, but there are many of us in Michigan, who feel the same way.
BTW, its been 2 days since these bailouts, and WE still haven’t heard a word from our President! Where is he?? A REAL leader would of been on TEEVEE, the first night..calming the American public fears. Instead we have heard nothing from him….nothing.
rachel
Perhaps his handlers have realized that the sight of his stupid smirking face and the sound of his inane chuckle would annoy the public more than they are already. Or perhaps nobody’s gotten up the nerve to tell him yet, like what happened during Katrina.
Big E
cantor & Tenn’s Marsha Blackburn
are just insufferable –
both grotesque and repugnant
grendelkhan
Oh, if only. Remember, the floor is about thirty-five percent for Republicans. While I’d like to think that people who hold opinions closer to my own aren’t blind button-pushing twits, I don’t think you can say with certainty that the Democratic party doesn’t rest on the same base. Worst case here, we’re talking about more like seventy percent of the electorate identifying as chucklenuts-voters.
Napoleon
TZ, I have said this in the past but you seriously underestimate how fractured the electorate is. McCain will not dip under 45% (and truth be told I will be surprised if its 47%).
The Republicans could run 2 dogs that do nothing but sniff each other’s asses at campaign stops and so long as the RNC put out a press release saying they are against all things liberal, taxes, and gays, and Rush says vote for them Fido and Spot would get 45%.
Original Lee
What DonnaInMichigan said.
I don’t live in Michigan now, but I’m from there and a lot of my family still lives there. Almost every single one of my family members in Michigan has called me this week to tell me they’re on board with Obama now. (The only ones who haven’t, have been living on Wingnut Island too long to be capable of rational thought anymore.)
Be brave, little Piglets! Obama may very well win after all.
grendelkhan
I kind of wanted Matthews to tell Cantor to “say ‘Republican’… I double-dog dare you. Say ‘Republican’!”.
I do admire, to some extent, the discipline it must take to back more of the same policies (deregulation, tax cuts at the top) that got us into this mess while explicitly saying that it’s useless to point out that those policies did indeed get us into that mess. I’m in awe of the sheer hackery. Perhaps they’re just that brazen because they’ve gotten away with it for so damned long.
Beth in VA
Man, Wexler was terrific in the opening: Jobs Jobs Jobs. Excellent for sound bites and it’s an excellent solution to the economic problems we have.
Cris
Eric K’s answer to Brian is great. But I’d like to second Brian J’s request for specifics. Not so much because I’m a skeptic, but because if I happen to be placed in the position of defending Obama’s assertions, I’d like to be able to present something concrete.
Cris
which would be totally different from what they have done this year