That Power-Hungry Little Weasel Eric...

I am, of course, talking about Eric Cantor (though the Billy Madison allusion is particularly apt...). Cantor has always been a little weasel and he stepped it up another notch recently on an appearance on "60 Minutes". At one point during the interview, Lesley Stahl brought up Ronald Reagan, obviously a hero of the GOP generally and Cantor in particular, and how his ability to compromise, including on the raising of taxes. This is simply a matter of fact and is repeatedly pointed out by Bruce Bartlett, who helped work on tax and banking policies for both Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Cantor hems and haws for a moment before his press secretary swoops in off camera and calls Mr. Stahl a liar.

This is not completely surprising considering the baseness of the current GOP. As demonstrated in the debt ceiling debate, neither the truth nor what is good for the country is important if it does not fit in with the GOP and increasingly the nutso Tea Party agenda. The American people instinctively felt the dangers of the debt ceiling intransigence, but now the negative effects are being shown as the economy starts to bounce back to around where it was before that "hostage taking" (as demonstrated on this chart). I hope people actually start taking these more extreme politicians, on both sides, to task for the dangerous and increasingly prevalent move towards increased partisanship in the next Congressional election cycle. If not, I do not know when our broken government will actually get back to business of governing.