House Majority Leader Eric Cantor: Mr. Gridlock

Sat. March 9, 2013:        {PART II}



Gentle Souls, all along we blamed Washington's obvious a**holes -- Obama, Boehner, McConnell.
But now the New Yorker's widely respected political reporter, Ryan Lizza, has researched where the real blame for dysfunction lies.

                                                         The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza
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[Spoiler Alert:  Like many of the best New Yorker articles over the years, this runs 11 pages.  (See below, for the full article).

But political junkies will find it a fascinating window into how Capitol Hill works, and therefore doesn't work.]

 

Eric Cantor, the GOP's House Majority Leader from Virginia, is clearly a gifted guy.  And, he is a genuine sweetheart to his Mother-in-Law.

But if we can believe this well-respected "centrist" writer Ryan Lizza, Cantor has done more than any other single guy to make Capitol Hill so hateful to us.

As Lizza puts it:  

"A poll in January 2013 deemed Congress less popular than cockroaches, head lice, and colonoscopies (although it did beat out the Kardashians, North Korea, and the Ebola virus)."

Worst of all:  In Nov. 2011, Boehner & Obama actually demonstrated excellent leadership, and were a phone call away from "I Do" on their huge fiscal Grand Bargain.  

And then, 

Eric Cantor -- the floor manager of the House -- decided to wreck it, because he didn't want to hand Obama any legislative "victory" for the 2012 Election.

Never mind what the country needed.

                          (The American Flag, standing next to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor)

Truly despicable, if true.  And Cantor quietly acknowledged to Lizza that it was true.

Lizza:

"As Obama waited by the phone for a response from the Speaker, Cantor struck.  

Cantor told me that it was a 'fair assessment' that he talked Boehner out of accepting Obama's deal . . . Why give Obama an enormous political victory . . . ?" 

For a remarkable ride through the political corridors of Washington, here's the whole piece:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/03/04/130304fa_fact_lizza