Patrick O’Connor in Politico:

Forget Rush Limbaugh.

For all the focus on the king of conservative talk, Democrats may have found a more important villain in House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, a telegenic young Republican trying to bring life to his party on Capitol Hill.

Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC news anchor, to Eric Cantor yesterday (after reading him that quote):

You don’t look like a villain to me.

You can watch that ritual absolution on this video, starting at the 4:37 mark. Gag alert: Mitchell’s simpering is matched by Cantor’s preening.

Maybe Mitchell doesn’t know how to recognize a villain? (The fact that she’s married to someone widely regarded as a key villain responsible for the current economic crisis may have something to do with it.)

People not married to people widely regarded as villains seem to regard Cantor as being one of the core flag-bearers of the Republicans’ current campaign of dishonesty and obstructionism and sheer irresponsible stupidity in the face of crisis.

For an elected official to just sit on his hands and do nothing constructive to help solve the crisis alone qualifies as villainy, in my book. To actively obstruct solutions, and obfuscate the debate for political ends, goes beyond villainy.

For good measure, by Josh Marshall‘s yardstick, Andrea Mitchell is lying to her viewers:

Let’s just stipulate DC Republicans are simply not part of the discussion when it comes to repairing the US economy or arresting our slide into deep economic misery. And any reporters who aren’t clear about this are just lying to their readers or viewers