Eric Cantor: Master of the Phony Outrage

A few years ago the GOP looked to Rep. Eric Cantor to express outrage over DNC Chairman Howard Dean’s assertation that the Republican Party is primarily comprised of white christians. They looked to Cantor because he’s the only Jewish Republican in the House (thus helping to prove Dean’s point in the process btw). Heck, Joe Lieberman, also jewish, got kicked out of the Democratic Party, endorsed John McCain for President, and he still won’t call himself a Republican (and no, it won’t cost him his committee chairmanship). There are 48 African-Americans in Congress, all are Democrats. There are 31 Hispanic members of Congress, only 7 of those are Republicans. There are 8 Asian Pacific Americans in Congress, all are Democrats.

So it should come as little surprise that House Minority Leader John Boehner recruited Cantor to issue a statement angrily refuting something Obama said in a recent interview on Israel. Anyone with half a brain can tell you, after reading said interview, that Obama is incredibly supportive of the state of Israel; but Boehner and Cantor decide to take a couple of words out of context and declare that this is how Obama truly feels about the subject.

Jake Tapper from ABC News:

He (Obama) talked about how “the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land.”

He assailed Hamas as a terrorist organization and said the United States “should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and abide by previous agreements.”

When the topic turned to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama said, “Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security.” When asked if Israel besmirches the United States’ reputation, Obama said “No, no, no.”

Then he said: “But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that … I want to solve the problem…”

It seemed pretty clear to me that by “constant sore” Obama was referring to the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As he says in the next sentence: the “lack of a resolution to this problem.”

Here’s Cantor’s statement, which Tapper then comments on:

“It is truly disappointing that Senator Obama called Israel a ‘constant wound,’ ‘constant sore,’ and that it ‘infect[s] all of our foreign policy.’ These sorts of words and characterizations are the words of a politician with a deep misunderstanding of the Middle East and an innate distrust of Israel,” Cantor said.

When Obama twisted Sen. John McCain’s “100 Years” comment, it was pretty dishonest as well.

But this may be worse, because Boehner et al are falsely accusing Obama of besmirching a nation and a people. They are accusing him of being anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic. It is false.

I disagree about the 100 years comment though. What McCain said is that he’s willing to stay in Iraq until troops are no longer being killed, even if that takes 100 years. That ain’t good no matter how you slice it.