House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is being volunteered by several reporters as a frightening Leader of the Fringe who are just trying to wreck the country. Rich Noyes reminded me yesterday that this is what they did when Newt Gingrich walked out of the 1990 budget talks that were George H.W. Bush's political undoing. Check out our golden oldies from Notable Quotables. Replace "Gingrich" with "Cantor" and this would seem awfully current:
Well, House Republicans are the big problem because they've been trying to count, and they really are a minority of a minority and they're inconsequential. So they are now being ripped apart....They are just really torn apart between wanting chaos, wanting to destroy everything and not have an agreement, sort of a scorched-earth, Newt Gingrich-led policy, and wanting to be conciliatory and come up with a solution....The Democratic plan is really a genius of a plan because it does everything that most people, 81 percent of Americans, would want: It raises taxes on the rich." -- NBC Capitol Hill reporter Andrea Mitchell on Sunday Today, October 14, 1990.
Here's a few more that demonstrate that some things really don't ever change:
"The American people have failed to realize that they have a responsibility in all of this. But one of the reasons is that for ten years, Republicans in the White House, first Ronald Reagan and then George Bush, have been telling them they don't have to pay for what they get." -- Andrea Mitchell, October 12, 1990 Nightly News.
"Many of those interviewed described the budget dilemma as partisan war, with the Democratic Congress trying valiantly to protect the interests of the little people against a pull-out-all-the-stops assault on spending by Daddy-Warbucks Republicans."
-- Washington Post staff writer Guy Gugliotta in October 6, 1990 news story on public reaction as gauged by Post reporters.
Bob Squier, Democratic Strategist: "I think that it was a game of chicken. I think what you had was Gingrich, who is supposed to be part of the leadership, leading people literally out of the deal."
Bryant Gumbel: "Acting irresponsibly."
Gumbel: "....Is this the legacy of Ronald Reagan politics, I mean, feel-good politics of the '80s, no-responsibility politics of the '80s?"
Roger Ailes, Republican Strategist: "I think that's a misnomer..."
Gumbel: "But weren't the '80s about spending what we didn't have? And that was Ronald Reagan."
-- Exchange on Today, October 5, 1990.
