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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

The Orchestrated Effort to Start Limbaugh vs. Cantor

You can tell who the Democrats feel threatened by based on who they attack. What is more telling is who they do not attack.

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  March 2nd, 2009 at 12:21 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I told you yesterday that the ABC News story saying Cantor rebuked Limbaugh was an organized effort on the left. Today we find out why.

The Politico publishes a list of the people Nancy Pelosi hates. Rush Limbaugh and Eric Cantor are the top two guys on the right that she hates. It’s kind of sad Boehner and McConnell aren’t up there.

But Cantor and Limbaugh it is, so the left must work to cause a feud between them, thereby helping Nancy wreck havoc on the nation.

It is very, very interesting what the Politico says about why Nancy hates Eric Cantor and very instructive about who we should all be looking to in the House of Representatives for leadership against the left.

See below:

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.). It’s no surprise that Pelosi isn’t crazy about the young, aggressive minority whip, who has marshaled an anti-Pelosi GOP insurgency in the House.

Pelosi has good personal relationship with House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). But members of her leadership cadre are starting to really dislike Cantor, despite their public pose of studied indifference. Part of the reason: Cantor is employing many of the same techniques Pelosi used so successfully to torture former House Speaker Dennis Hastert when she was the Democratic whip in 2002 and 2003.

It remains to be seen if Cantor’s power-of-“no” philosophy will work — congressional approval ratings have actually spiked on the stimulus — but he’s gotten traction by nitpicking Pelosi’s proposals and magnifying the majority’s blunders.

Good for Cantor. That also makes him a great whip. By and large, Boehner has to be seen as a bit more likable. Cantor’s job is to hold the Republican conference in line and fight for freedom. Thus far he’s doing very well.

And so he has become the new target. Remember, the Democrats felt threatened by Newt Gingrich, so they worked to demonize him.

The Democrats felt threatened by Tom DeLay, so they worked to demonize him.

Now the Democrats feel threatened by Eric Cantor and Rush Limbaugh, so they are working to demonize both of them.

You can tell who the Democrats think are most dangerous by who they turn the media against in their attempts at demonization.

You can also tell who they don’t feel threatened by based on who they ignore. And that is actually more telling.

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COMMENTS

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  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    when I saw the headline of the ABC report on the show, I knew that it was most likely an overstatement. And I read and watched the whole thing and also your take on it.

    Cantor still looks bad.

    And Rush opened his show inviting elected republicans in DC to call in and explain what part of Obama’s agenda they want to succeed.

    I would be surprised if Cantor does not call in and explain himself, both what he did say and what he didn’t say.

    I don’t deny your point, but you know, given the level of incompetence of of our leaders in Dc in debate and on these shows, I’m glad for this in many ways. At least now, we have leaders that do agree with Rush and who will come on the show seeking penance, a pep talk and to explain themselves.

    more later

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    to separate the elected Repub from Rush. Yes, they want to neutralize Cantor.

    But Cantor and most repubs in DC have too much fear of Obama, and correcting that circumstance is more important than the game the libs are playing.

    In other words the damage Cantor and others do to themselves with the deference to Obama and in what they don’t say is worse than the damage the libs can do themselves.

  • peg_c

    I love Rush and like Cantor a lot. I’d like to see him call in and kiss Rush’s feet. Rush does more for our movement than Cantor ever could but we need both and we need them support each other. But I listen to Rush, not Cantor. Obama wants to destroy Rush because people like me hang on his every word.

    As for Boehner, I’ve now lost all respect for him. Kissing up to that inarticulate megalomaniac Pelosi?? I’ve lost all respect. The collegiality of the Senate needs to be blasted to smithereens.

    THE RECOVERY STARTS WHEN OBAMA LOSES HIS JOB.

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    is due to this fact. Cantor was on Rush’s show after he orchestrated the unanimous GOP House vote against the stimulus, after all, and Rush doesn’t have guests but rarely!

    But eventually today or at the latest, tomorrow, Rush will deal with the ABC allegation which does have some poor soundbites from Cantor to back it up.

    It will have to be and should be dealt with.

    Fear of Obama must end in DC among the GOP.

  • bk
  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    if our best does so poorly on ABS when confronted with a Rush quote and says he “wants no one to fail”, then our best ain’t good enough.

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    We can control us and trust we the people to get it

    or

    we can live in fear of Obama and the media and continue to be the monority party and wave good-bye to America as we have known it as the Shining City on the Hill..
    the lights are dimming as we speak

  • EagleWatcher

    The Democrats felt threatened by Tom DeLay, so they worked to demonize him.

    The Dems demonize people they like. They criminalize people they think pose a threat to them.

    They tried to criminalize Rush, Tom Delay, Bill Frist, Newt, Palin, and the list goes on. These people are ruthless partisans who will do anything to hold onto power. If the GOP doesn’t get its message straight, we are looking at 8 years of Obama.

  • The_Rebel

    then we can expect more of the same from the RNC in supporting people like Specter over a conservative primary opponent. After the 2006 and 2008 debacles, they still don’t get it. I know one person who does get it, though. Newt.

  • The_Rebel

    Meant for bk.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    I’m of the opinion that every counter to “accusations” should begin with, “And your point is?” probably followed by, “So what?”

    Any other response lets the left off the hook and accepts a premise that usually isn’t anywhere near the truth. We allow them to define conservatism and conservatives by accepting what they say at face value.

    Simultaneously, we’re allowing them to tell us we don’t have a right to exist, as a group or individually, and that’s not what the United States is about.

  • EagleWatcher

    If this is the kind of leadership we’re going to get from Steele then get ready for 8 years of Obama and a Dem controlled Congress. Steele and Cantor don’t seem to know how to manage the media. They are being played like helpless children.

    Newt was great at handling the MSM. They should take a few lessons from him.

  • pilgrim

    Just because Politico writer Jonathan Martin writes a column charging that Michael Steele is attacking Rush Limbaugh does not make it true. Don’t let the drivebys frame the narrative.
    Read the transcript for yourself
    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0902/28/dlh.01.html

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    But I’d have to have to see or hear the whole interview with Steele to make a final decisive opinion. I’d like to point out more specifically than GC that the media is no friend to conservatism. That includes the politico. Notice how they used the words in quote many paragraphs before they even quoted a whole sentence or two from the interview.

    If we go on just what ThePolitico reported, their job is down and we’re back to chaos, which is just where the opposition wants us.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    Look below. Is that a case of gmta or one great mind plus a lowly hillbilly…

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C
  • Old_Dominion

    …it’s worth noting that before he went to work for Politico, Jonathan Martin was a Republican Hill staffer.

  • Old_Dominion

    is how easily the Dems draw conservatives in to arguments involving some overrated, obese, and barely entertaining radio figure. Do you ever notice how Pelosi & Co. never get mired in conversations about twits like Olbermann and Randi Rhodes?

  • pilgrim

    .

  • Aaron Gardner

    Most staffers in fact are not Republicans….and certainly not conservatives.

    If our elected leaders on this hill would realize this we would be in better shape as a nation and as a party. Just ask Achance.

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    I agree that we shouldn’t accept the media spin. But Rush and I watched the Steele and Cantor interviews.

    Steele sucked. He called Rush’s statement re Obama failure incindiary and ugly while the RNC sends out press releases saying why the Pelosi-Reid agenda is wrong!

    Fear of Obama is disgusting.

  • Mike gamecock DeVine
  • Mike gamecock DeVine
  • The_Rebel

    and I think it speaks for itself. Steele did not have kind words to say about Rush. He could have said something favorable, but he didn’t. Again, it’s what was left unsaid that really matters. I find it laughable that he had to put Rush in that old “entertainer” label after they brought that hip hop “entertainer” into the interview. Steele better get a grip on how to do media interviews. I don’t care who is doing the interviewing.

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    The GOP not so much

    The elected GOP is too gutless to oppose Obama by name

  • Mike gamecock DeVine
  • Rod_Patrick

    I was one of those who have been fooled by the ABC report re: Rush vs Cantor.

    I am very angry. Why? Because even before Palin and Jindal, I have had Rep. Cantor to hope for as a good conservative leader in the near future. I was really disappointed of Rep. Cantor because of that diary that reported the ABC lies.

    My own realization:

    Many of us say that MSM is biased and oftentimes lying against the republicans. But we still continue to read and listen to their lies.

    My lesson:

    Never trust MSM particularly ABC ….. even on a very non-consequential thing. From now on, I will always be skeptical to any news or analysis that directly uses any reports from ABC and other liberal MSM.

    My wish:

    To get out of this mess called libe’lism…. CONSERVATIVES NEED A RELIABLE NEWS OUTFIT THAT CAN HELP US TELLING OUR OWN SIDE OF STORY …. THE TRUTH AND THE ASPIRATIONS OF REAL AMERICANS.

    To Erick Cantor:

    Please accept my sincerest apology. I should have trusted your credibility and good judgment rather than believing what the MSM people are saying.

  • johnCV

    About time, too.

  • Rod_Patrick
  • johnCV

    “Now, what of this were true…” .

    I have taught that to my kids and it’s amazing how that one little point of view starts the thought processes going.

  • peg_c

    In fact about 5 new ones. Someone is going to need major surgery…

    I’ve kinda lost track of what is going on here since I boycott the Drive-Bys. Maybe we can have a full start-to-finish wrap up eventually. All I know is I don’t take anyone’s side against Rush. Seems like we really do need to rebuild from scratch. This is hideous!

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    I think he is giving Cantor and others some time

    He said earlier that he knows the GOP in DC will eventually grow a spine. I suspect he means after Obama’s popularity wanes.

    But I know Rush was aiming his opening remarks at Cantor and others that he likes but didn’t name them.

  • Mike gamecock DeVine
  • Mike gamecock DeVine
  • peg_c

    You cannot believe a single word they say or write. Stop supporting their lies!

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    Steele made the mistake of consenting to a portion of a lib’s characterization of Rush’s comments as incindiary and ugly, hoping to dismiss it and get to a point he wanted to make that he thought would ameliorate it. Steele failed. We didn’t want him to!

  • Mike gamecock DeVine
  • Rod_Patrick

    But … thanks to the admonition, bro/sis.

  • Bob_Frazier

    I warned all of you about Michael Steele. He did not join forces with Christine Todd Whitman for nothing. He agrees with the liberal republican approach. It is a disaster that he is now where he is. The republican party still does not get it.

  • Rod_Patrick

    The other night, I was really caught “unguarded” by that diary. I should have known better.

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    and that matters even more

    I watched the whole thing on podcast and read the transcript

    plus I saw Cantor on Hannity last week go out of his way to not criticize Obama and reject the failure theme. It was painful to watch such fear of Obama in Cantor.

    made me sick

    not what an msm guy said he said

    what he said and didn’t say

  • Mike gamecock DeVine
  • Rod_Patrick

    Cantor and the rest of the Republican leaders should learn this lesson. (I still assume that they really don’t fully mean what they said about Rush …. in a hateful way as described by the media.)

    Any hint of negative or doubtful word by a conservative against a fellow conservative will be blown out of propotion by the MSM. It’s really like “feeding a troll”.

    As a humble suggestion, I think that it’s about time for the Republican Party to adopt the RS concept of “Hinz Rule” especially against the trollish mediamen.

  • pilgrim

    I listened to Rush today, and I did not conclude that he wants to see Michael Steele thrown under the bus and thoroughly crushed. I concluded that Rush wants instead for Michael Steele and other inside the beltway Republicans to get fired up and be passionate about conservatism and have confidence in the conservative message. I also think Rush presumed that the drivebys would take a lot of sound bites out of the portion where he spoke about Steele to project their false premise that Rahm’s plan to have Rush and Republicans fighting each other is working.

  • pilgrim

    The reason those governors have a problem there is that what the stimulus bill does is it puts in place a permanent change to their unemployment laws that will require them to do certain things that have a cost attached to it. In two years, that $100 million that they’re getting today, they won’t get in year three.

    So the state has got to come up with that $100 million in year three. And number two, they’ve got to have a permanent change to their laws in order to get the money that they’re getting now. So the reality of it is, those governors said, look, I’m for this portion because there’s no strings attached. You want to help the people of my state, great. But don’t tell me how to run my programs and give me an unfunded mandate in year three.

    I happen to support a form of privatization of Social Security that allows an individual to have a choice. Now, for my mother, who God bless her, is still kicking at 80-plus, and my dad, they’re still doing their thing out there, I don’t want to touch their money. I don’t want to touch it. Let them do and get what they deserve because they’ve earned it.

    But for my 20-year-old son, who wants — who is now looking at markets and is in the market playing and doing his thing, let him have some options and choices. And there are ways to do that in which you don’t have to put your money just willy-nilly into the market. And I think what the administration poorly explained, they were not going to go into stocks of Google or stocks of something else, but very slow growth, very safe investments, bonds and other types of securities, in which you had very little risk given the fluctuations of the market. But when you don’t explain that, when you don’t lay it out, and you don’t set it as part of a broader plan that separates those who are currently in the system versus those who are going to be coming into the system, you get the mess that we had in ’06.

    And one of the things I recognized and what moved me into the GOP when I was 17 years old was the idea that this party focused on the individual, the right and the ability of the individual to articulate a vision and a future for themselves and move towards that.

  • LoveThatConstitution

    That would be perfect!!!!

    Heck the libs say that to people all the time. Ask Charlie Rangel, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Jamie Garelick, Franklin Raines, William Jefferson, Henry Hyde, Robert Byrd, etc… They all have their so what stories.

    We should at LEAST use the so what retort when it comes to being conservative. So people listen to Rush, so what, the answer should be “yes, and you better worry”.

    The same should be true for all the fake alarm they have in their accusations. Take race. Classic example of when you apologize for something you didnt do you end up seeming guiltier.

    “I dont accept that premise.” should be the answer to any reporter on the attack. “youre an idiot if you think that” is better but less PC.

    If the Republican lawmakers (hate that word) were to be on the offensive instead of cowering people might realize they have a different story than what the MSM is dishing out.

  • Rod_Patrick

    Sorry for interrupting the flow of discussion here.

    But I just want to express MHO that Rush really knows what the MSM are trying to drive at: Creating a big match-up between Rush and the Republican leaders.

    Following the cue of the MSM lines won’t do any good to Rush and the rest of the conservative movement.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    I agree. However, I’m not afraid of him. What’s the worst he can do to me? And once he has done it, who will it really hurt?

    He can make me unaccountably poor and he can take my life but what he can’t take is inside: my heart, my feelings, my common sense, or my faith in God over man. They can call us names and try to bully us into giving in but what is inside is still there.

    Just a little over a decade ago, I promised myself never to fear another human being for as long as I live on this earth. That goes for the president and his minions, too. I’ve never looked back through good times and bad (lately more bad than good but still better than before).

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    and watch them faint.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    What if Rush’s comments are incendiary and ugly? Not that they are but… so what? Can those saying such name one thing he has said that is any uglier or any more incendiary than the mildest of things the left has said, not only about Rush himself but conservatives in general?

  • bk

    people will look for jobs that offer short-term employment and lifetime unemployment benefits.

  • LoveThatConstitution

    n/t

  • Mike gamecock DeVine
  • Mike gamecock DeVine
  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    That would be Dixie.

    Loyalty is also a great values down here.

    So, those that want to dismiss Steele’s use of that word for obviously non-ugly commentary, especially against a man that is deservedly beloved by conservatives and the GOP and even more especially for a man that went out of his way to defend Steele himself in 2006, face a dilema.

    It was suggested that my criticism means that I want to throw Steele under the bus but that Rush doesn’t. That is a strawman, but it does raise a good question, and

    so, if Steele does not apologize to Rush for his ugly use of the word ugly, then yes, I would want him to resign.

    If anyone called Pilgrim, Erick, and others here “ugly”, I would feel the same.

    Steele made a huge mistake. He needs to be a man and admit it.

  • JadedByPolitics

    …