Eric Cantor takes on Rush Limbaugh, harsh GOP rhetoric

Can it be? Another Republican leader taking on Rush Limbaugh? Apparently so. And that leader is Virginia’s Eric Cantor, the second-highest-ranking GOP member in the House.

But first a little history. Earlier this year Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, labeled Limbaugh’s talk show “incendiary” and “ugly.” After Limbaugh and his many listeners expressed their displeasure, Steele apologized--and pretty quickly, too.

Which makes today’s comments by Cantor all the more interesting. In a segment on “Political Capital with Al Hunt” being aired today, he touches on Limbaugh comments that have been, shall we say, less than inclusionary.

He also suggested that harsh rhetoric from party members might harm the GOP in the long run:

"The Republican Party in its root is a party of inclusion and we ought to be promoting that and making sure that voices are heard."

This bit of news comes from Bloomberg, in an article about Cantor's comments on the show, which airs on Bloomberg Television. As the article states:

"His comments about Limbaugh and other members of his party put him at odds with some party leaders. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, also took issue with Limbaugh’s comments, then relented.

"Cantor was critical of Republicans such as Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, who called the Democratic health plan a greater threat to America than terrorists and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who took fellow Republican Olympia Snowe to task for voting with Democrats. Pawlenty later said the Maine senator is 'absolutely welcome' in the party."

Follow this link for Bloomberg's full report.

-- Steve Padilla

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Photo: Eric Cantor. Credit: Associated Press

Comments

[Debra]

As a Virginian, I would just like to say that perhaps Eric Cantor is too politically correct. Surely, the latest elections have said that Conservatism is alive and well. Yes, the party should be inclusive, but people like Eric Cantor want to have the Republican party controlled by the elites, because who else could know best. Well, he had better be a little more inclusive, and not try to shut so many people out of the party - namely the majority of the party.

When you include so many that no one is sure what you stand for anymore, then you cannot win. And that is what has happened to the Republican Party over the last decade or so. The party tried to lay out it's principles, but then compromised those principles in order to embrace anyone who would carry the "R" flag, even if they were not committed to the cause. Think Arlen Specter. Did that work well for us? Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins have just been a source of tension and frustration. Frankly, I think we could do better than McCain and Graham.

Does Cantor mean by "voices be heard" that all voices are OK for the republican Party? Like Dede Scozzafava? Yes, he does, and no, we don't.

Cantor should not assume there is not a better candidate in his district who can represent conservatives without disrespecting them. It's as though he wants to represent us, but slap us in the face every once in a while. He would do well to watch and listen for a time. Chill out. Get some perspective. He is not God's gift to Virginia.

[Camron Barth]

Eric Cantor is not the right person to lead Congressional Republicans. There have to be better people than Cantor and Adam Putnam – they will lead the party to defeat.

[Jack]

It's not supposed to be about the party, it's supposed to be about principles, values, and standards. It's supposed to be about supporting the constitution and the the virtues that it exudes, protecting the citizens from the government and enforcing their rights and freedoms, not expanding government's role in the individual's life.

Republicans need to stop being Republicans and start being representatives, ones who operate for the people they represent, within the confines of limited government as outlined in the constitution. Our representatives are there to work for the people in their constituency, but their answers to the localized or national problems still need to remain within the boundaries of limited government and limited debt.

"Inclusiveness" is not a good thing in the political world. It is a fine thing in the school and playground, or the workplace, but not where laws and governing take place. What we need are "standards." "Values" and "Virtues" can be subjective, and are fairly easy to wear as the situation dictates, but "Standards" draw an actual line in the sand. Standards would have kept the GOP from wasting $900,000 in the NY-23 race on a candidate who dropped out to endorse a democrat, and the many thousands more of campaign money that will not come as a result of the actions there. More so, "Standards" define purpose and roles, help to shape goals, and enable cohesive and effective governing. You cannot hope to achieve goals requiring teamwork to be accomplished, if the members of the team have differing fundamental purposes.

The Republican party has not made itself the party of standards or values. Many of the republican representatives seem to be simply riding the train of big government like the democrats, only they are on the Red Line Express instead of the Blue Line. Unless we change the party mentality into a limited government, constitutional, individual responsibility Representative mentality, then the only way that Republicans will win votes and seats will be from the people's fear of what the Blue Team will do.

Mr. Cantor has his focus on the wrong area, and it will fail to provide correct solutions as long as it remains there.

[Gary]

And why should I trust the LA times to be truthfull. They are along the same lines as MSNBC and CNN etc...

[eonone]

Inclusion - as in, Rush Limbaugh should not be saying the things he does about minorities.

That's not about values or principles. Racism is not a Republican value. Rush Limbaugh has gotten the entire Republican party so well painted with the racist brush that I know people who would never consider the party because of it.

Why no one is allowed to point this out is ridiculous.

[hongdb]

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Within the preceding 24 hours, Rep Cantor stood there basking in TeaBaggy glory with a glorious view of signs depicting giant grisly photos of Holocaust victims and signs denouncing the age-old "Rothschilds" canard. Grinned and grinned and kvelled in the warm glow of ignorant bigots' worship. NOW he objects to Limbaugh's ancient slur? And says nothing about his vicious new friends?

Cantor is shonda. He is a filthy filthy shonda. I hope his family is unaware of his new associates.

[SF]

This is simply not true. Cantor is only calling Limbaugh out for his Hitler/Healthcare use. In this very article which you reference, Cantor says that he "PRAISES RUSH LIMBAUGH". For the record, Cantor also praised Michele Bachman. One should worry about such troubling comments from young Mr. Cantor. Additionally; it must be noted that Mr. Cantor stood by, smiling at the podium, upon the capitol steps, while protestors held actual photos of dead Jews, exterminated in Nazi death camps. Dreadful beahvior from the Honorary Trustee for Life of the Virginia Holocaust Museum. One thinks Mr. Cantor owes the nation an apology for his IN-action in the face of such horrible hate.

[Allen]

It seems that the Republican party can not get it's act together. With no leader and no ideas on how to deal with any problems that face this country the morons in this devided party should keep fighting until they figure out that the leader that can lead this party out of the dump and into prominance is Virginia Foxx with Joe Wilson for V.P.

[Bill Jensen]

The prior comments in this thread are typical of the intolerant and sanctimonious conservative sector of our nation. They need to realize that their silly antiquated notions of acceptable beliefs and values are not in the mainstream, and never will be. Thank God the majority of Americans do not embrace their intolerance - and kudos to Eric Cantor for standing up to a blowhard like Limbaugh. He and his obsequious wannabees have done a superb job of misleading otherwise decent (but overly-impressionable) conservatives.

[eaglewingz08]

So we are supposed to make comments about whether we support or object to Mr. Cantor's comments about Rush, under an ad asking us to vote whether or not Mr. Limbaugh 'is gay'. Way to go LA Slimes.
As for Mr. Cantor's comments I can only assume that he is repeating Ronald Reagan's comment that if someone is with us 80 percent we can excuse the other twenty percent difference. However Reagan never said that if someone is with us only twenty percent of the time (like Dede Scozzafava) or even forty percent of the time (like Arlen Spectral, or Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins-is she related to Barnabas Collins from Dark shadows(ed.?)) that they should be welcomed as republicans or conservatives. Once again we have the liberal Bloomberg media using a hyphenated quotation allegedly from Rush to ask a republican whether he agrees with the hyphenated quote, without any context to that. We know that Rush uses parody and satire and sometimes exaggeration in his commentary, and sometimes says things just to tweak the media, knowing they will get in their highfalutin self righteous mode. So without context it was inappropriate for Mr. Cantor to take the media's word for anything attributed to Rush, especially after the leftwing media was exposed as having manufactured those bogus slavery quotes against Rush.

[Richard Baker]

Rep. Cantor still doesn't get it. Inclusion doesn't mean you allow your enemies in the gate and then become like them. He is an embarrassment to my home State of Virginia. After last week, his ilk learned nothing about being an American.

[Amber Berglund]

The people who listen to Rush Limbaugh have issues. He shouldn't even be on the radio.

Has everyone forgotten about the 2006 Unitarian Church shooting in Knoxville? The perpetrator, David Adkisson, listened to Rush Limbaugh every day and felt inspired to kill a whole lot of liberals he considered "socialists" (people don't seem to remember that David Adkisson was on Food Stamps at the time of the shooting) He killed two people and wounded seven.

Rush Limbaugh encourages Republican Terrorism with his hate speech. He's as bad, or worse, than any other religious extremist.

More people should stand up against him, and not take it back, like Michael Steel.

Rush Limbaugh should be playing the smooth sounds of the 1980s. He shouldn't be telling anyone what to think. His father was a Lawyer, with plenty of money to send him to college, and he dropped out anyway. Even George W. Bush was given a degree by Yale. Rush Limbaugh had all the resources at his disposal to complete his education, but he was too stupid to finish.
...now, millions of stupid people listen to him, every day, and believe him, and agree with him.
Rush Limbaugh is a menace to society.

[Camron Barth]

Eric Cantor is not the right person to lead Congressional Republicans. There have to be better people than Cantor and Adam Putnam – they will lead the party to defeat

[Mags1234]

Cantor is just another one of those guys with big plans for himself. Get rid of him.

[Lordrobot]

Obama and pelosi have been great for the Conservative movement which is not a republican movement. If republicans and democrats want to form one big tent party under liberalism and big government, then the end result is they will run out of our money.

Conservatives represent 40% of the voting US population and growing. The Conservative message should not be watered down by big gov republicans that want to wrap their arms around RINOs, some of whom are nothing more than socialists. Let the republicans and democrats form one big happy party and call it liberals. It can be the party of handouts and government controlled industry and socialism. They can worry about every social issue and tinker with redistribution of wealth.

Let the Conservative party be for small efficient gov. free enterprise and less federal police power and the right to a person's own property. Conservatives don't want to be the policemen of the world but we want to clean up the US and that means tight boarders and tight immigration. Conservatives are peace loving people who do not engage in long distance protracted wars. If we must go to war, we want to win it not manage it like the big tent liberal party.

So the answer it that Cantor speaks for himself and ought not tell Conservatives how to behave in the republican party. Conservatives don't need republicans or liberals to tell them how to think.

[Dr. Alan Phillips]

Although I am a conservative Republican and hold the nation's constitutional freedoms in my DNA, I am concerned about many of Mr. Limbaugh's pronouncements and their subsequent acceptance without question by some. It sounds to me somewhat like Father Coughlin's speeches from the past.

During his radio broadcast of November 3, 2009, Rush Limbaugh continued his ongoing criticism of moderates in the Republican party. Apparently, Mr. Limbaugh sees a major disconnect between moderate political positions and the conservatism he claims to embrace. These days, one wonders if bestial RINOS might not be followed by a new hybrid creature called the SCINO (social conservative in name only)...a many-headed hydra with most of its vocal cords exercised over syndicated air waves and media outlets, but this conjecture can wait for another article.

Here, I want to question an implicit assumption shared by Limbaugh and others on the so-called "right." Basically, it goes something like this: Moderates are not conservative; they lack courage, conviction and a clear sense of solid values. Some devotees of Limbaugh uncritically accept his ongoing invective against moderation as a sort of watered-down, stealth liberalism, lacking all semblance of direction or moral worth.

Limbaugh's recent tirades against many former Republican hopefuls seems to indicate his rejection of the moderate label in politics and the larger culture war he has fought on behalf of his brand of conservatism--one which rejects the concept of moderation in favor of a rather immodest style of loud debate and bombastic labeling of opponents...even former friends.

Should Republicans--or any other Americans--accept his wholesale rejection of moderates as characteristic of social conservatism? At this point in my writing, I can envision an army of ditto heads sharpening their knives, ready to defend their leader's view of the less devout. They might even say, "A moderate is un-American, less-than-moral and maybe even unorthodox from a religious standpoint."

If they agree with such sentiment, how would they evaluate the following quote. In the Bible that many social conservatives claim to revere, the Apostle Paul wrote these words to early Christians: "Let your moderation be known unto all men" (Philippians 4: 5 KJV).

Have the boundary lines shifted to the point that the apostle's words are somehow liberal or even suspect in today's polarized climate? Is the broadcasting of immoderate sentiments a complete reversal from an early Christian point of view that commended God-given reason and balance? In the end, who will win the day in the American heartland: Limbaugh or the words of the great teacher? One wonders.

Dr. Phillips

[Douglas E RADCLIFFE]

I am a citizen of Virginia. I vote conservative. Eric Cantor has helped to keep the house republicans in lock step in the effort to stop socialized medicine, that is good. However, he is not perfect. He voted for the bailouts for expediency because the President was a republican at the time.

There are some serious lapses in his conservative credentials. If another conservative runs against him, I could be persuaded to vote for them.

I don't care about political persuasion, I vote conservative and it seems to me that the Republicans should be kissing conservative behind in order to win further elections rather than trying to alienate us.

[justiceserved]

The Rep. are managing to splinter into a second & third party which is good for freedom loving people everywhere as Rep. are toadies of big business to block affordable healthcare, green energy as they are owned by big oil, and wish to keep Wall Street deregulated. They would rather give the corps. all our money and then we'll all work for sustenance wages. The sad part is there are so many ignorant voters they may succeed!