Serious Wanker
by digby
Man, the political establishment really is desperate for a Republican they can respect. First they try to pass off the winsome Paul Ryan as a deep thinker. Now it appears they are selling the youthful Eric Cantor as a "serious wonk."
Steve Benen noted the oddity of that designation considering his sophisticated constitutional argument against the Cordoba House. ("Come on!") But I'd like to take a trip back in time to Eric Cantor's finest hour. You all remember the ill-fated first TARP vote, right? Well then you also remember the Democrats and Republicans had made a deal to pass the thing on a bipartisan basis but at the end of the day, many of the Republicans balked and the vote failed. (Our "principled" heroes voted for it, of course, because Jonah Goldberg told them to.)
The GOP leadership, led by a sniveling Eric Cantor, came to the microphones to explain why the Republican leadership didn't deliver the votes they promised:
Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) held up a copy of Pelosi’s speech, saying, “Right here is the reason, I believe, why this vote failed, and this is Speaker Pelosi’s speech that, frankly, struck the tone of partisanship that, frankly, was inappropriate in this discussion.”
Seriously, that's what he said. They voted down the bailout because Nancy Pelosi said mean things in her floor speech. (“Democrats believe in a free market. But in this unbridled form, encouraged by the Republicans, it has created not jobs, not capital, it has created chaos.”) Of course, a few days later Boehner, Blunt, Cantor and Ryan came up with some sweeteners to soothe their boys' very, very hurt feelings and they got the thing through.
Cantor is not a wonk. He's a wanker. In fact, here's a good rule of thumb: anyone who is in the GOP leadership is, by definition, a corporate owned wanker, sometimes pretending to be either a revolutionary firebrand or a deep thinker, but a wanker nonetheless. It's not impossible that one could also be a "serious wonk" and a wanker (the Democrats have quite a few) but the it's highly unlikely considering the amount of whoring and wanking that's required for the job in the GOP.
The Republicans have an intellectual arm but it's not in the congress. It's in the myriad corporate sponsored think tanks that have been set up over the years to advance the interests of the wealthy and keep the rubes entertained with culture wars and real wars. If you're looking for conservative wonkery, there's where you find it.
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