GOP Leadership Rivals Throw Mike Pence Under the Bus
I’ve seen a lot of people link to this Glenn Thrush Politico item, but I have a slightly different take on it:
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) raised objections to an abbreviated alternative budget “blueprint” released today — but were told by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) they needed to back the plan, according to several Republican sources. [...] “In his egocentric rush to get on camera, Mike Pence threw the rest of the Conference under the bus, specifically Paul Ryan, whose staff has been working night and day for weeks to develop a substantive budget plan,” said a GOP aide heavily involved in budget strategy. [...] “It’s categorically untrue,” said Pence spokesman Matt Lloyd. “Cantor as well as Ryan and the rest of the leadership have been part of this process for weeks. They not only signed off on it, but their staffs helped edit it.”
To me the salient point here is that Pence’s spokesman is almost certainly telling the truth here, and the Cantor and Ryan staffers saying otherwise are almost certainly lying. As a simple matter of logic, Thrush’s item doesn’t really make sense. Look at the problems the majority party has keeping its caucus on message and united on matters of tactics and substance. There’s no way John Boehner could possibly force Reps Ryan and Cantor to endorse his joke of a budget if they didn’t want to.
Rather, Reps Ryan and Cantor saw that the press was reacting poorly to the Boehner/Pence flim-flam “budget” and decided to throw their colleagues under the bus. And, frankly, I’m not surprised that Ryan and Cantor were surprised. I was surprised, too. I’ve never really seen political reporters get outraged before about the fact that a policy document makes no sense in the past. It was a curious outbreak of substance among the press corps that I don’t think was particularly foreseeable.
27 Responses to “GOP Leadership Rivals Throw Mike Pence Under the Bus”
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March 27th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Semi-OT: I would not be unhappy if I never had to read the phrase “threw X under the bus” ever again in my entire life.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
…unless, I hasten to add, someone actually got thrown under a real bus, in which case its use is completely justified.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I’m not surprised that Ryan and Cantor were surprised. I was surprised, too. I’ve never really seen political reporters get outraged before about the fact that a policy document makes no sense in the past. It was a curious outbreak of substance among the press corps that I don’t think was particularly foreseeable.
LOL.
To me the salient point here is that Pence’s spokesman is almost certainly telling the truth here, and the Cantor and Ryan staffers saying otherwise are almost certainly lying.
Wow. It’s too bad we don’t know anybody in DC who might be able to do some reporting and figure out who is in fact telling the truth and who is lying.
Where’s a link to that Stewart-Cramer interview when you need it?
March 27th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I agree that the press reaction probably wasn’t exactly foreseeable. But the GOP made such a reaction much more likely by the way they rolled it out.
The problem wasn’t that the pamphlet’s proposals didn’t make sense. It was more that it wasn’t what the GOP claimed it was going to be: a budget or budget guideline. If you use the term “budget” and don’t include at least a few tables and some numbers, people may recoil.
It wasn’t a case where the press would have to do a few calculations in order to say “these figures don’t add up, and these are fudged.” It was “WTF? There are no figures.”
March 27th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
As an activist on transportation issues in Washington DC, I am one of the few still allowed to say inside the beltway and outside the beltway.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
My first reaction was that reporters might be realizing that the issues we’re facing could actually affect them, and therefore they should be treated as news rather than entertainment, but I think DTM @ 2 has got it right.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
If this is true then it’s as delicious as RuPaul’s drag race.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I’ve never really seen political reporters get outraged before about the fact that a policy document makes no sense in the past. It was a curious outbreak of substance among the press corps that I don’t think was particularly foreseeable.
I think you mean that a policy document has to be pretty insubstantial for the press corps to think substance is a matter for concern. Otherwise, they’re OK with vapid dreck.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
There’s no way John Boehner could possibly force Reps Ryan and Cantor to endorse his joke of a budget if they didn’t want to.
Maybe. But I wouldn’t estimate the authoritarian mindset among these clowns.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
What about if you’re assembling a PC from parts, and it says something like, “pass the cable through slot-A under the bus”?
March 27th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
So, you’re throwing “Threw X under the bus” under the bus?
March 27th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Paul Ryan did look dreadful during the conference, but he always looks kinda gloomy even when he’s smiling.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I imagine a lot of the press had their articles/TV scripts already written, with [INSERT NUMBER HERE] written where the bottom line spending and deficit numbers from the GOP plan were supposed to go. Then there were no numbers, thereby forcing the reporters to throw out their pre-written work, which they then replaced with ripping the GOP for not giving them any numbers to put in their stories.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Expressing weariness with the phrase “thrown under the bus” is cliché.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Maryland readers of this thread are urged to contact their state senator in support of H.B. 631, which has already passed the House of Delegates. The key provision is as follows:
(F) (1) IT IS UNLAWFUL FOR ANY PERSON TO OBSTRUCT, HINDER,
INTERFERE WITH, OR OTHERWISE DISRUPT OR DISTURB:
(I) THE OPERATION OR OPERATOR OF A TRANSIT VEHICLE
OR RAILROAD PASSENGER CAR;
and provides for punishment by not more than 18 months imprisonment or a $1000 fine.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Those opposed to ‘thrown under the bus’ will be taken out back behind the woodshed.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
This was actually really stupid on Cantor and Ryan’s part: they’ve taken ownership of the budget to come which means they have to take these principals and make them make sense AND cut the deficit AND deal with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security as well as a health proposal.
They’ve basically gotta do what Obama and Orzag and that team spent months on; which is gonna be hard and should be easy to pick apart.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
“It was a curious outbreak of substance among the press corps that I don’t think was particularly foreseeable.”
This is a really finely turned phrase here. Too bad it doesn’t have anything to do with the old bus cliche, or it could like, replace that.
March 27th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I see we’re taking meta-discussions to a new level.
Actually, it’s inward—deeper, ever deeper into our own linty navels.
March 27th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Just cross-posted a response to this piece at my own blog. http://themightyliberal.blogspot.com/2009/03/outrage-about-outrage.html. Please check it out and comment freely.
March 27th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Neither the Politico piece nor your comments were very cogent. This is understandable as the Republicans, whether elected or career staff, are rarely coherent these days.
There is no one who can be trusted with the daily talking points. It seems as though leaders are out for themselves, whether in local or national elections, way down the line. The permanent election mentality is so inclucated that it clouds any attempt at unity. This group has no Rove and that’s not a position Limbaugh, Gingrich, Steele, Romney, or any other name you mention can fill. (I would mention Joe the Plumber, but I don’t think he knows how to write.)
The “budget rollout” was a total fiasco precisely because Rep. Ryan’s staff has been working for weeks on something administration economists and statisticians have been working on for months. Yes, they had haelp from lots of others, but Boehner and Pence had a deadline for this week so put forward a fakery that, frankly, I could have better written in forty-eight hours. (Have you ever seen such pitiful graphs?)
What makes me think you are wrong about who is lying: Rep. Ryan, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, did not sign the document. To throw salt on the wound, Rep. Boehner says Ryan’s numbers will come out on April Fool’s Day.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Matthew,
You’re wrong. I spoke to my sources on the hill this morning…and all of them told me that Ryan got thrown under the bus. These are people that, like me, are disgusted with what’s been going on up there…especially with respect to the morons that are in leadership (and that especially includes Cantor).
You’re reading too far into this…or you have friends with an ulterior motive. I suppose the same could be said for me, but I think I’ve made my independence known in this forum.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
God, no Republican in Congress had better dare go to Maryland.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
I think you’re probably wrong. Why couldn’t they force acquiescence? We do not know the type of bargaining that could have gone into this situation, nor do we know the type of pressure Pence and others in the party could wield (think Treasury v Dodd).
The fact that Cantor and Ryan’s staff ultimately caved in a cooperated by offering assistance does not disprove the contention that they did not want the thing to go forward. Things like this happen all the time.