Eric Cantor blames media for lousy GOP messaging, and focus on their debt and deficits whining.

The deficit was $1.2 trillion when Obama took office. That was the bill left by free spending Republicans during the Bush years. Before that the U.S. had projected surpluses. So who do you blame? That's an easy one right?

So how odd is it for Republicans to be this outraged Obama hasn't paid off their check yet? 

Why don’t Democrats ask Republicans to pay off the tab they ran up before anyone talks about tax cut and reform?

And because Democrats haven’t framed the issue as I have above, and held them accountable, they’re now able to exploit the issue:

The Hill: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) ripped the media in a speech to the Ripon Society, arguing press coverage is partly responsible for the GOP’s messaging woes. Cantor said the party’s economic message is often drowned out by coverage of debt and deficits. 

Huh, but "debt and deficit" is all the GOP is talking about...oh, never mind. It's the media's fault for the Republicans lousy message of austerity and plans to rob our kids retirement safety nets. The laughable jumble of words and idea’s below should give you an clue as to why low information conservative voters stopped trying to understand what’s really going on:

“The media has done a great job of sort of shoving us in the corner, because all they say we are concerned with is somehow balancing the budget and cutting spending and taking things away from people,” Cantor said. “What we’re trying to say is that we need to do those things in order to reenergize the opportunity machine of America. We’re about giving people opportunity. And that’s really what our agenda this year is about.” He said the party must do a better job of speaking to the concerns of people at the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

Like telling people on the lower rungs they’re squandering food stamps on junk food...that they’re not paying their fair share of taxes? Speaking to those concerns?

Republican got us into this mess, and should be required to pay off the bill, even if it means a temporary tax increase. That would be leadership, the tough decision. They’re a little late on the fiscal discipline talk. Get back to us guys.

Still, Cantor said Republican leadership is committed to “fiscal discipline” that he said would drive economic growth … He pointed to initiatives such as … a bill that would allow employees to choose how they would like to get reimbursed for overtime. 

Really, are employees clamoring for "choices" in how they would get paid for overtime. Was time and a half too complicated? I sniff another employer con job coming...

Rep. Cantor Usurps the President with Foreign Leader

What if Nancy Pelosi met with a foreign leader and told him the Democrats would undermine, and keep George Bush In check? That’s what Rep. Eric Cantor said to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Compare the Republican response to past phony Democratic outrages, to Cantor’s similar, but real, traitorous act:

Huffington Post: In the past, Republicans have been sharply critical of Democratic trips abroad that could be seen as undermining the official foreign policies of the U.S. president. For example, in 2007, both the Bush White House and its Republican supporters lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) for visiting Syria, saying that she was trying to circumvent President Bush (never mind that Republican lawmakers were also in Syria and Pelosi didn't criticize the Bush administration).

"It has long been the established principle of this country that the president of the United States leads our foreign policy," said former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. "And if you don't like the president, then you change him. But you don't have the two parties each conducting foreign policy in the way they think it ought to be conducted."

John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, added, "I would simply hope that people would understand that, under the Constitution, the president conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House."

In 2006, conservatives went after former vice president Al Gore for criticizing "abuses" committed by the U.S. government against Arabs post-9/11 in a speech in Saudi Arabia, with the editorial page of Investor's Business Daily saying he demonstrated "supreme disloyalty to his country."

But in fact, in 1996, Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) also tried to signal to a foreign country that it might have better luck working with Congress instead of the president, traveling to Colombia and telling military officials there to "bypass the U.S. executive branch and communicate directly with Congress."
In 2007 National Review op-ed, Cantor wrote, "Presenting Assad with 'a new Democratic alternative' -- code for making President Bush look feckless -- Mrs. Pelosi usurped the executive branch's time-honored foreign-policy authority. Her message to Assad was that congressional Democrats will forbid the president from increasing pressure on Damascus … Several leading legal authorities have made the case that her recent diplomatic overtures ran afoul of the Logan Act, which makes it a felony for any American 'without authority of the United States' to communicate with a foreign government to influence that government's behavior on any disputes with the United States."

So what has been the blowback for Eric Cantor?

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday during a meeting in New York that the new GOP majority in the House will "serve as a check" on the Obama administration, a statement unusual for its blunt disagreement with U.S. policy delivered directly to a foreign leader.

Ron Kampeas from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news agency found Cantor's comments extremely surprising, writing, "I can't remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president … to have-a-face to face and say, in general, we will take your side against the White House -- that sounds to me extraordinary."

Where are those same Republican critics now?

Related articles

• GOP will 'check' Obama, Cantor tells Netanyahu (jta.org)
• Eric Cantor Decides We Shouldn't Speak With One Voice On Foreign Policy (alan.com)
• Cantor: If Pelosi stays, then Dems don't get it (sfgate.com)

How many ways can you avoid saying you support high deficits and the Bush tax cuts? Cantor goes for record.

And he's one of the Republican party leaders? In a surprisingly weak performance from Rep. Eric Cantor, the easy Fox News question "do you support keeping all the Bush tax cuts" left him scrambling to find different ways to say "yes." Kinda.

After Cantor proudly defended the idea of saving "small businesses" the pain of losing the Bush tax cut, I conveniently inserted a small piece by Keith Olbermann on what constitutes a "small business." It should put things in perspective.

Still, as clever as I think I am by doing the video clip below, the fun is still seeing Cantor evade outright support extending the Bush tax cut on the wealthy. You can't say Chris Wallace didn't try:

Related articles

• Cantor's cracked calculator (washingtonmonthly.com)
• Eric Cantor Opposes Compromise On Extending Bush Tax Cuts, Says Government Shutdown Will Be Obama's Fault (huffingtonpost.com)