I've been thinking about our brief conversation yesterday about my great friend John Boehner. As with any other analysis, it helps to comparison shop for political leaders.

So, yesterday, everyone in the House of Representatives had to vote, for or against, a 90% tax on certain bonuses by certain businesses.

Politics is such an ugly business. Ugliest when they screw up during an actual life threatening crisis.

Let's look closely at one of those who would push aside John Boehner, if he gets the chance. Who would that be and what, if anything, does it mean to us?

Eric Cantor is reasonably talented Member who has risen fast. He's also a little like a promising player/coach on a weak team. He puts himself in the game too much. He throws too many air-balls and makes too many mistakes.

When he's talking to the press after a win; then, he takes credit for everything.

(Dropping the runaway sports metaphors...) What's worse, Cantor has an overly aggressive staff, one which does not prepare him well. Instead, they feed the gossips and fight-promoters in the congressional media circles.

Not to assign all the blame to staff; Cantor's got enough of an ego that he's just digging the media attention he's now getting. He can be good on TV; sometimes, he's very good. But, he has too little experience to understand that he's merely in phase 1 of the seduction dance as played by the media.

Kid thinks it's love. Wait 'til he gets to phase four: that's the "you're phucked" phase.

Listen to this truckload of sophomoric BS:

Cantor is a near-constant presence on cable and network TV, and his press team fills reporters’ inboxes every day with a barrage of comments, reports and other items meant to help shape their coverage. Boehner’s office is also prolific, but no one rivals Joe Pounder, a veteran of the McCain campaign who now spins for Cantor with the intensity left over from that presidential fight.

Just what we need...more McCainiacs playing their love songs to reporters as they pound, shove and slime their teammates. GFY.

So, what's this mean? Why should anyway care? Because one-half of the Congress just voted to put a cap on capitalism. How can any Republican vote to put a cap on capitalism? How can we elevate a Member of Congress who gets swept away by the madness of the crowd?

We need strong leaders, who have the capacity to see through and around the periodic dust storms which blind most of their colleagues. We need leaders who stand athwart history and yell stop.

Eric Cantor flunked that test. He has many talents, but too little spine.

His excuse will be he was voting against the AIG bonuses. He lies. He was loving being with a huge crowd, smelling the war paint and, not so deep inside, voting to dethrone Boehner, a man he knows will not play dirty.

Go play on some other team, Eric. And, GFY and the horse you came in on.

Regarding the compare and contrast of Cantor and Boehner, note this other portion of the Politico story I linked to before. Boehner was one of the first "no" votes yesterday, but Cantor equivocated and then capitulated.

As the vote began Thursday afternoon, Boehner was one of the first to register a red “nay” on the big board. “This is a bad bill with bad consequences,” he said.

Cantor held his cards close to his vest. Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday morning, he repeatedly dodged questions about the bill. And as voting began, Cantor held back, talking to colleagues on the floor until it became clear that the Republicans wouldn’t be able to defeat the bill. Only then did he cast his vote in favor.

It might have been a huge 328-93 victory for insanity among all Members but it was close call with death for Republicans. Here's the vote breakdown:

H.R. 1586: to impose an additional tax on bonuses received from certain TARP recipients

ON THE MOTION TO SUSPEND THE RULES AND PASS THE BILL PASSED 328-93: Roll Call 143

Republican YEA – 85; NAY – 87

Democrat YEA – 243; NAY – 6

Republicans voting YEA: Aderholt, Alexander, Barton (TX), Biggert, Bilbray, Bilirakis, Blunt, Bono Mack, Boozman, Brown (SC), Brown-Waite, Ginny, Buchanan, Calvert, Camp, Cantor, Cao, Capito, Cassidy, Castle, Crenshaw, Davis (KY), Dent, Diaz-Balart, L., Diaz-Balart, M., Duncan, Ehlers, Emerson, Fleming, Forbes, Fortenberry, Frelinghuysen, Gallegly, Gerlach, Goodlatte, Guthrie, Heller, Herger, Hoekstra, Johnson (IL), Jones, Kirk, Lance, Latham, Lee (NY), Lewis (CA), LoBiondo, Manzullo, McCaul, McClintock, McHugh, McMorris Rodgers, Mica, Miller (MI), Moran (KS), Petri, Platts, Putnam, Rehberg, Reichert, Roe (TN), Rogers (AL), Rogers (KY), Rogers (MI), Rohrabacher, Rooney, Ros-Lehtinen, Roskam, Royce, Ryan (WI), Schmidt, Schock, Shimkus, Smith (NJ), Smith (TX), Stearns, Tiberi, Turner, Upton, Walden, Wamp, Whitfield, Wittman, Wolf, Young (AK), Young (FL)

Democrats voting NAY: Bean, Kissell, McMahan, Minnick, Mitchell, Snyder

Out of all 50 states plus Washington DC, the lucky recipient getting the most economic stimulus spending per capita sent to it from our leaders in Washington DC is ... Washington DC!

In fact, the District of Columbia receives more than twice the average per capita stimulus provided to all the states of $525 (and median of $488).

1) Washington DC ... $1,089
2) Alaska ............. 834
3) Wyoming ............ 751
4) North Dakota ....... 718
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26) Pennsylvania ...... 488
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51) Nevada ............ 406

Who knew things were so tough in the nation's capital?

As it helps push for legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize, the country's fastest-growing union is engaged in its own labor dispute with employees it is seeking to lay off.

The Service Employees International Union, considered the most influential union in the nation, has notified the union that represents about 220 of the SEIU's national field staff members and organizers that it is laying off 75 of the employees.

In return, the workers union, which goes by the somewhat postmodern name of the Union of Union Representatives, has filed charges of unfair labor practices against the SEIU with the National Labor Relations Board. The workers union's leaders say that the SEIU is engaging in the same kind of practices that some businesses use: laying off workers without proper notice, contracting out work to temporary-staffing firms, banning union activities and reclassifying workers to reduce union numbers.

Troubled insurer American International Group Inc., now 80% owned by U.S. taxpayers, spent the weekend deflecting mounting criticism of how government funds have been funneled to various banks...After calls for more transparency, AIG disclosed Sunday that roughly two-thirds of the $173.3 billion in federal aid it received has been paid out to trading partners such as banks and municipalities in the U.S. and abroad.

When redemption became a term of power, "redemptive liberalism" was born -- a new activist liberalism that gave itself a "redemptive" profile by focusing on social engineering rather than liberalism's classic focus on individual freedom. In the '60s there was no time to allow individual freedom to render up the social good. Redemptive liberalism would proactively engineer the good. Name a good like "integration," and then engineer it into being through a draconian regimen of school busing. If the busing did profound damage to public education in America, it gave liberals the right to say, "At least we did something!" In other words, we are activists against America's old sin of segregation. Activism is moral authority in redemptive liberalism...

What drew me to conservatism years ago was the fact that it gave discipline a slightly higher status than virtue. This meant it could not be subverted by passing notions of the good. It could be above moral vanity. And so it made no special promises to me as a minority. It neglected me in every way except as a human being who wanted freedom. Until my encounter with conservatism I had only known the racial determinism of segregation on the one hand and of white liberalism on the other -- two varieties of white supremacy in which I could only be dependent and inferior.

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:02 AM | link  

Sunday, March 15, 2009