Is Eric Cantor making a conscious attempt to talk like Barack Obama?

It really struck me today on "Meet the Press," and when I commented on it, Meade said he'd already been thinking that. I know the exact point in the transcript when the realization occurred to me. David Gregory was questioning Cantor about whether the GOP needs something more than "re-branding": "Isn't it some of the central beliefs in the Republican Party that have hurt it with the electorate?"

Cantor said (transcript, video):

David, what I talked about this week at AEI was the need for us to connect our conservative principles with helping people and making their life work again. And I've talked about a man who is a dad here in the inner city of the District of Columbia who, all he wanted was to find a safe place for his kids to learn. He's got four kids.

And he discovered, after having fought with the local school system....

I talked about working parents who are hourly wage earners who are having a tough time getting through the month right now. Those are the things that people-- that we've got to be concerned about. I don't think that Joseph Kelly, the dad here in The District of Columbia, cares one iota about re-branding the Republican or the Democratic Party.

That sentence I've boldfaced is the one that struck me as perfectly Obamaesque. The yellow highlighting marks a key Obamaesque repetition.

I think what we care about, and what he cares about, is his kids. And that's where Washington really needs to remember is these are real problems. These people are having a tough time. And we ought to be about providing relief to those who don't have a job and those who do... making their life work again...

You know, I've got a constituent, she's 12 years old, her name is Katie. She was diagnosed with cancer at age one. I mean can you imagine? That is a parent's nightmare, the worst nightmare.

And the federal government's got a role in research, in basic medical research, trying to find cures for disease. We can work together on something like that.... you've got so many millions of Americans who feel that they have become an afterthought. My purpose in saying this is we have conservative principles that actually can work for their life again....

The work-life-again combination can be switched around. The words are so generic. People have lives and the lives need to work. The GOP can make their lives work, and the GOP can work for their lives. Again.

The GOP, working for your life again, so your life can work again.

Anticipating disruption from Occupy Philadelphia, Eric Cantor cancels his speech on income equality at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that a sophomore said, "Yeah, it’s definitely really ironic." And an English professor said, "I think it’s a shame that a speech at a university should not occur because of some fear that there will be skeptics and critics in the audience."

The word "audience" refers to people listening. Didn't these protesters intend to chant or shout or otherwise wreck the speech? If a university arranges a speaking event for someone who is invited as an honored guest and the event transmogrifies into one in which he will serve as a platform for other people who want to yell out their ideas, then the university should expect him to decline to participate in what has become an alternate event of a sort that he would never have accepted if it had been the original invitation. To portray the erstwhile honored guest as fearful of critics and skeptics is demagoguery.

You can read the speech Cantor would have given here. Excerpt:

There are politicians and others who want to demonize people that have earned success in certain sectors of our society....

Instead of talking about a fair share or spending time trying to push those at the top down, elected leaders in Washington should be trying to ensure that everyone has a fair shot and the opportunity to earn success up the ladder. The goal shouldn’t be for everyone to meet in the middle of the ladder....

We must ensure that those who abuse the rules are punished. We must ensure that the solution to wealth disparity is wealth mobility. We must give everyone the chance to move up. Stability plus mobility equals agility. In an agile economy and an agile society, people are climbing and succeeding.

"I think, frankly, he’s in over his head as to what to do about this economy."

Cantor on Obama.

“Cantor didn’t say a word the whole meeting.”

Today at the debt talks.

"Don’t call my bluff."

It's what Obama said when he stormed out of the debt-talks yesterday. Let's analyze it. Glenn Reynolds says:

UM, ISN’T THIS A CASE OF CALLING YOUR OWN BLUFF?... I mean, I’m not a big poker player, but I thought the point of a bluff is not to admit it’s a bluff . . . .

UPDATE: “I’d love to play poker with him. Does he know that it’s played with cards?”

I'd say the biggest problem with the poker metaphor is that it characterizes the talks as a game... and, more particularly, a game in which, on any given hand, somebody wins the whole pot. At the point in poker where you make a comment like "Don’t call my bluff," you are trying to lure the other player into making the wrong decision so you can win it all. In the ultra-serious debt negotiations, where supposedly the 2 sides are engaging in give and take to reach a consensus for the sake of the people, it's bad to reveal that you see it as a game and you're trying to win it... for yourself.

Now, there's also the question whether someone who plays poker competently would use the phrase "Don’t call my bluff." Glenn is right that you don't want the other player to know when you are bluffing, but saying "Don’t call my bluff" isn't admitting you're bluffing. Indeed, if you were playing with someone who thought it was, saying "Don’t call my bluff" would be a great way to get them not to fold when you have an excellent hand. You could just as well say the opposite — "Call my bluff" — in the same situation for the same reason. The other player has the same problem he has when you don't say anything at all — when you keep a poker face: He doesn't know what you have.

Think about when someone outside of a poker game might use the phrase "Don’t call my bluff." Meade and I were talking about that and he said: It's something a father would say. "Son, don't call my bluff." In other words: Do you think I'm kidding? Try me. Within some father-son relationships, that's a very powerful move. The father is demanding obedience, and the son is afraid of what will happen if he does not accede to his father's demands. The father isn't saying what the consequence will be, but the fear of the father's power is enough to make the son comply. He can't risk finding out. It's a test of parental authority.

And we know Obama would like us to see him in that fatherly role. He would like to have our compliance because he knows best. Eat your peas.

The cool one lost his cool.

"President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of a stormy debt-limit meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday, a dramatic setback to the already shaky negotiations. 'He shoved back and said "I’ll see you tomorrow" and walked out,' House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters in the Capitol after the meeting."

"Cantor and Kyl just threw Boehner and McConnell under the bus."

"This move is an admission that there will be a need for revenues and Cantor and Kyl don't want to be the ones to make that deal."

So says "a senior Democratic aide" after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl dropped out of the debt talks today, leaving no Republicans in the group.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pushes Paul Ryan to enter the 2012 presidential race.

"Paul’s about real leadership. I think that that’s what this public so desperately wants to do right now. They don’t want to see individuals that just dismiss problems that we can just sweep under the rug."

Here's that poll I took on the blog a couple weeks about about whether Ryan should run. People were pretty evenly split, but the paucity of candidates has become more obvious since then.

Should the Constitution be amended to empower the states, by a 2/3 vote, to repeal provisions of federal law?

Dana Milbank notes "the unfortunate echo of nullification," but nullification was the idea that individual states could disregard federal law they opposed. The Repeal Amendment would institute an orderly structural safeguard as part of the Constitution, a check on federal power that requires a supermajority vote of the states.

Instapundit thinks Milbank is being — pretending to be? — too obeisant to the original Constitution:

The amendment process, after all, is part of the Constitution. The Framers had no illusions that they were creating perfection, and believed in the sovereignty of the people and in the power of the people to revise the Constitution as needed, through the process they created. The idea that the text of the Constitution should be revised only through judicial reinterpretation is a modern conceit, and one that does no honor to the Framers at all.

Since the Repeal Amendment, proposed by Randy Barnett, can easily be portrayed as an effort to return to something closer to the balance of power provided for in the original Constitution, it is pretty silly to portray yourself as brimming with respect for the Founders when what you really support is the shift of power to the national government that occurred over the long stretch of time, a shift that the courts have allowed to take place.

You know what else is silly? This, from Milbank:

Lest you think this is a hair-brained scheme by one Republican lawmaker, consider that the Repeal Amendment... has won the endorsement of the man who will be the next House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

Let me dig up William Safire:

Folk etymology is the term for the creation of new words by mistake or misunderstanding or mispronunciation....In today's language, "Hare-brained" is often giddily and irresponsibly misspelled "Hairbrained," perhaps on the notion that the hair is near the brain.

Folk etymology... hmmm. There's also folk constitutional interpretation, isn't there? Or is folk the wrong word when it's journalists purveying the bogus constitutional wisdom?

Health care summit update: Boehner & Cantor respond to Obama and Gibbs to Boehner & Cantor.

Boehner (and Cantor) said:

[L]ast May, Republicans asked President Obama to hold bipartisan discussions on health care in an attempt to find common ground, but he declined and instead chose to work with only Democrats....

Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward on health care in a bipartisan way, does that mean he will agree to start over so that we can develop a bill that is truly worthy of the support and confidence of the American people?...

Will the President include in this discussion congressional Democrats who have opposed the House and Senate health care bills?...

Will the President be inviting officials and lawmakers from the states to participate in this discussion?...

Will the President require that any and all future health care discussions, including those held on Capitol Hill, meet this common-sense standard of openness and transparency?

Your answers to these critical questions will help determine whether this will be a truly open, bipartisan discussion or merely an intramural exercise before Democrats attempt to jam through a job-killing health care bill that the American people can’t afford and don’t support.  ‘Bipartisanship’ is not writing proposals of your own behind closed doors, then unveiling them and demanding Republican support.  Bipartisan ends require bipartisan means....

Gibbs responded:

...

That wasn't meant to be a joke. It just turned out that way. I edited the Boehner/Cantor letter down as I read it and saw that it was a series of questions, so I started reading Gibbs's letter with the idea of editing it down to the parts that responded to the questions. You see what happened.

Why the Obama honeymoon ended so abruptly.

"... Obama doesn't grasp the essentials of presidential leadership. Rather than making a compelling case for his economic policies, he has resorted to curt rebuffs, such as telling House Republican whip Eric Cantor, 'I won.' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the same thing the same day: 'We won the election; we wrote the [stimulus] bill.' This is the trope of a party that has lost its ability to make an argument. Mr. Obama and his team would be well advised to put aside the imperious FDR model and study Ronald Reagan's first 200 days in office. The contrast is instructive."