Eric Cantor Rips Chris Matthews, MSNBC, HuffPo, Liberal Bloggers For Inflating Birther Story

[jefferson_dem]

:rofl:

Eric Cantor Rips Chris Matthews, MSNBC, HuffPo, Liberal Bloggers For Inflating Birther Story

GOP Rep. Eric Cantor says he’s no birther — he has no questions about Obama’s citizenship, his spokesman tells me. But Cantor is placing the blame for the spread of birtherism not on its authors or on those politicians playing along with it, but rather on Chris Matthews, MSNBC, lefty news outlets and bloggers.

Asked for Cantor’s views on birtherism, his spokesman, Brad Dayspring, emailed me this:

“Mr. Cantor doesn’t question the President’s citizenship, but he has serious questions about the President’s push for government controlled healthcare, taxes on small business job creators, and a huge energy tax on middle class families. He finds it ironic that those most eager to talk about the President’s citizenship are in fact some of his biggest cheerleaders–whether it’s Chris Matthews or others on MSNBC, the Huffington Post, or camera toting liberal bloggers chasing people through the streets of Washington.”

This is the first time Cantor has publicly declared his disagreement with birtherism. But that aside, this is actually a really interesting response. Cantor would rather pick a base-pleasing fight with those who are trying to knock down birtherism than denounce those who are promoting and playing footsie with the idea that Obama isn’t legitimately our president.

And that’s the number two in the House GOP leadership speaking…

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/president-obama/eric-cantor-rips-chris-matthews-msnbc-huffpo-liberal-bloggers-for-pushing-birther-story/

[Thrill]

1. I've been disappointed with MSNBC's continuing coverage of this

It gives the story news coverage. Andrea Mitchell was at it again today

[baldguy]

2. Its a liberal plot that makes 40% of Republicans say stupid things.

[Mass]

3. Surprisingly, I agree with Cantor. Way too much has been made of these idiots.

However, he forgets conveniently Fox and CNN in his complaints. Did they not start this thing?

[grantcart]

7. I disagree - the story is that the Republican leadership has remained silent on this

I don't remember Cantor telling the Birther's to shut the F*** up.


Until the Republican takes out the trash they own it, and the more exposure the better.


Even in this situation Cantor doesn't come out with face time to put down the radicals, but has a staff member send an email.

[Cha]

8. It's the republicon thing to do..when

backed in a corner 'cause you fucked up..lash out and blame the Democrats.

Fucked up Cowards.

[BlueMTexpat]

15. I absolutely concur.

In fact, check out Max Blumenthal's story in The Daily Beast, describing totally wacko Orly Taitz as "Queen of the Birthers" and "mastermind" of the cabal.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-30/queen-of-the-birthers/?cid=tag:all1

Given this paragraph further describing everyone who is signing up to be her "friend" on Facebook, one can understand how Cantor might be a tad sensitive.

"Among those requesting her online friendship, Taitz said, are House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA), and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. She has even received a request, she said, from someone saying they are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I personally checked and determined that it came from his office,” Taitz said."

Cantor's been "outed." He's one of them.

:rofl: :rofl: :popcorn:

[madaboutharry]

18. Thank you for the link to Max Blumenthal's

article. Orly Taitz is obviously mentally ill.

[Perky]

4. Cantor has a point

[DrToast]

14. There are birther Republican Congressmen! How can anyone blame the media for that?

[Ikonoklast]

17. Yeah.

It's at the top of his head.

[Mz Pip]

5. Fox News is liberal?

Lou Dobbs is liberal? I think I missed something.

I don't care about the birthers but the more I think about it the more I think they should keep up their rants. It's fun watching the Republicans try to distance themselves from them.

[Canuckistanian]

6. Yeah, right. Like we held a gun to Lou Dobbs' head

Or blackmailed G. Gordon Liddy into looking like an idiot on national TV.

They're stupid, bigoted and proud of it.

[left of center]

9. take responsibility for your own peeps!

These birthers are a minority, but they are a sizeable one in the Republican party. They're your peeps Cantor- not ours!

[jenmito]

10. There's a difference between shining a light on the insanity of the birthers (and SHOWING the birth

certificate, birth announcement in the HI newspaper, etc.) and eagerly talking about it as a legitimate issue that you BELIEVE in (like Lou Dobbs, Limbaugh, etc.)

[Cha]

11. How does he feel about lou birfer dobbs and

jon klein?

[Patsy Stone]

12. If he has to go around and keep denying it

that's a good thing. It means they can't just wish them away, and they're actually going to have to sit on these wackadoos.

Personally, I'll be sad to see them go; but any day Cantor has to talk about it is a win for us.

[theothersnippywshrub]

13. Cantor should be careful. Without birthers there is no republican party. n/t

[burning rain]

16. OK, sport, we'll studiously avoid any issue that casts conservatives in a bad light.

:eyes: Snark aside, I do think that recent media near-blanket coverage on birtherism and other racial controversies in part reflects media uninterest in healthcare reform. Media may on balance be mildly liberal on social issues, but they mostly plump for fiscal conservatism.

[moondust]

19. Shouldn't be too hard to stop, Eric.

I imagine all you'd have to do is get several members of the Republican "leadership" to pretend they are adults and step out in front of the cameras and be honest with the American people for a change and tell the truth.

I strongly encourage the media to keep this bigot's dream alive as long as the Republican "leadership" refuses to denounce it!

[LynnTheDem]

20. Sean hannity is an Obama-cheerleading liberal???

Really???

Wow, was I ever under a several misunaprehend!1!

[and-justice-for-all]

21. Well, that is your base Cantor, you douch nozzle...nt

[Prism]

22. I'm kind of with Cantor

I think Birtherism would've stayed firmly on the fringe right and never much heard about, but once liberal leaning blogs and media picked it up, it became a somewhat mainstream story. I admit, I have never read nor replied to any birther threads on DU, because I think the story is the worst kind of conspiracy theory. I'd no more take 9/11 trutherism or nuclear bombs in Indonesian faults seriously.

But once liberal media engines validated the story by discussing it so much, it grew legs and leaked into the mainstream.

Think on it this way. Look at Ohio 2004. I cannot recall a single conservative blog or major media network that really much bothered about the story. No one discussed it at any length. What happened? The story died on the vine. Sure, it was all over the liberal blogosphere, but it never leaked into the mainstream, because conservatives never bothered about it.

I think birtherism would've died a similar death had it been left alone. It was not, so here it is.

I understand the appeal, of course. It's somewhat difficult to resist the political points to be scored by pointing out how absolutely insane the birther movement is. Some would argue you'd have to be mad to pass up the opportunity. I get that. But we can't much complain about the media reporting on it. We did just as much to shove it into the spotlight as the actual proponents did. Granted, we have different reasons.

[NYC Liberal]

23. They're doing the good cop-bad cop routine AGAIN. Just like in 2004.

Remember the Swift Liars? They constantly attacked Kerry with the same level of nuttiness as the birthers are attacking Obama now.

In 2004, Bush put his hands up and claimed he was totally innocent, those Swift Liars have nothing to do with him.

Then, remember, we found out the top lawyer for the Bush/Cheney campaign was secretly helping out the Swift Liars and he had to resign?

So yeah, Cantor is wiping his hands of this in public, but that doesn't mean he isn't moving and shaking behind the scenes.

[karynnj]

28. Exactly

To make things worse in 2004, when the lawyer Ginsberg had to resign he became one of the "experts" on MSNBC. In 2004, I was amazed by the chutzpah of their contradicting complete official NAVY records, but this is attacking a record that everyone has.

[NYC Liberal]

29. Still gets me to this day when people say he never fought back

Which is bullshit. If you were only watching the MSM -- CNN, Faux, etc., then of course, you wouldn't know, because they refused to cover the 30+ page debunking of the Swift Liars that the Kerry campaign put out the next day after the book came out. Or anything else Kerry did to refute them.

The media treated it like it was a "debate," as though the facts were in dispute, when they weren't.

Anyway, that was totally off topic, but since you mentioned them attacking Kerry's Navy records, I really get pissed off thinking about it.

[karynnj]

30. Same here - I don't know how many times I have

listed the entire list I could come up with of things they did. They already had his records on his web site from April 2004 on. The most galling thing was there was no "Kerry" story - they were questioning the official Navy record, with no proof of any kind.

The fact is the media condoned a character assassination - that even now they refuse to acknowledge.

It was also pretty bad that when Kerry did publicly counter the lies before the Firefighters, they determined his 2 or 3 minute response to not be all that news worthy - those people caught in multiple lies were given hours of free coverage.

I'm still angry too - and angry that the DEMOCRATS invited Pickens to speak at a Democratic Policy Committee meeting - Dorgan is the chair and he and others really need to rethink their own values.

I have thought for a long time, that years from now when passions are a bit lower, I hope that someone compares the 2004 campaign as seen from CSPAN coverage of rallies to what was on MSM. I know I am biased - by November, no Democratic candidate had impressed me anywhere near as much as Kerry did and I first voted in 1972. But I really don't know if I would have seen what I did if I hadn't been drawn to watching CSPAN rally coverage by the Kerry blog. From the MSM accounts, you could not see that his record breaking crowds were huge and many people completely missed things like the fact that he was incredible on alternative energy an the environment. My regret is that Kerry was, in my opinion, the best of what I loosely consider my generation's candidates - and he was cheated out of a fair race with a level playing field - as was Al Gore. Kerry was the only major party candidate where none of the networks made a pre-convention puff biography. In 2000, they had them for W, is spite of a dearth of accomplishments.

[saltpoint]

24. Cantor is blathering nonsense and deceit. The birthers picked this fight.

Now, they're losing the fight they picked.

[Forkboy]

25. And he just took the bait.

:evilgrin:

[yellowcanine]

26. So.....Orly Taitz , Joe Farah and Alan Keyes are all liberal plants? Who knew?

[Blue_Tires]

27. cantor is full of shit

he knows damn well his own GOP base keeps this story rolling...but good job (i guess) of trying to distance himself (sort of) from them while the party grooms him for the future...