You’ve been hearing a lot about Eric Cantor over the last few days, but you’ll really be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t watch at least part of this bizarre video that he put out in 2007. I wasn’t able to figure out what it was about, but Clay Risen of TNR says it’s about something do with higher taxes on private equity firms. I think it’s supposed to be modeled after one of those choose-your-own adventure books that were so popular back in 2007.
More Cantor: He’s going to have House Republicans oppose Obama’s mortgage plan, whatever it turns out to be.
opium4themasses
Great, so if carried interest is such an important source of money for start ups, why does the budget for this thing get rivaled by high school news productions?
NutellaonToast
Carried interest is so important, you’ve never heard of it! Carried interest is the Illuminati. I am putting you all in danger just by typing about carried interest in these comments.
Carried interest cures cancer.
ricky
Given this video, the one sent out about AFSCME, and the video on the Republican fight against the stimulus replete with the Arrowsmith ode to a hooker, I would say Cantor is the perfect boy to carry forward the intellectual revolution spawned by Newt. He is spawn of Newt. Tongue of Newt. His followers are newttwittious. Newt cases. You get the drift.
Carry my interest back to old Virginny on this the day after what was really not Washington’s birthday anyway.
Seanly
Ummm… okay…
I was a better actor doing little videos with my brother when we were all stoned out of our gourds.
Great homeschool brat collection of names in the video too.
Oh & new rule ~ when you give a percentage, don’t give more than one significant digit. Saying 16.37% is so douchey…
MelodyMaker
I made all the right moves, and got no facts. (I’m not getting on his list, man. no way)
Start over!
MelodyMaker
Dang, Cantor. Share the love. I bet they didn’t even knock Barney Frank’s door.
Mouse Tolliver
Outtakes from this choose-your-own-adventure video, filmed surreptitiously by Mark Foley in the Capitol men’s lavatory, are posted at Megarotic, but they’re NSFW.
Does Eric Cantor remind anyone else of the coke snorting yuppy asshole from Die Hard? He doesn’t have a beard, but he does have the same douchy smirk.
MelodyMaker
@Mouse Tolliver:
I’ve never seen Die Hard, but yes.
AnotherBruce
Really, the people that produced this video are in dire need of a massive dose of LSD.
Oh and a cockpunch too.
Anton Sirius
Well, he’s right. It *is* a beautiful edifice.
Nathan R
I got hit with a dead end just two clicks in and got bored, all without even learning what carried interest is. Who exactly is the target audience for this thing?
On another note, why, oh why, is Joe the Plumber an author now? Er, an "author"?
MelodyMaker
"maybe he just disappeared!"
Fascinating. tell me more
Tokyokie
Who said Republicans didn’t have creative talent? Or weren’t snappy dressers? Dang, I’m going to watch again just to get another glimpse of Caitlan’s shapely ankles.
MelodyMaker
the younger Michigander has 133% more to answer for.
I’m sold. Cantor rocks.
passerby
@Nathan R:
Damn that was cheesy. After I clicked the wrong Michigan man and was told to go back to the last scene, I just said fuck it. I don’t know what they were talking about or what their quest was for.
Cantor apparently just slaps stuff together just to make himself feel that he’s actually "working". As I said before, I’m almost embarrassed for these guys.
I wonder how many views this POS has gotten since it was posted. I wonder whose money he used to get it done. I wonder how did this guy get elected?** Oh, the mysteries of life.
[ **Same question I asked myself when David Vitter got elected.]
MelodyMaker
@Nathan R:
If Jesse the Body can run for office and win, so can…. OK, I give up.
It’s not a perfect metaphor. (dr.H)
And Norm Coleman can’t beat anybody. hehe
Follow the money.
Heavily edited. ajax on FF2 on Linux is a hassle. today
Lesley
I’m intrigued by the first meeting in the underground parking garage. Was he trying to replicate Deep Throat from All the President’s Men?
R-Jud
Now I understand: the entire GOP House delegation is made up of info-product marketers. But they also think they’re spies!
Michael G
The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
Thoughtcrime
Everyone involved in this project has a great future in Hollywood….
…East.
headpan
I’m not real sure what that was supposed to be, but it reminded me a lot of the old instructional films we had to watch back in school.
Michael D.
Why did Eric Cantor get a British woman to narrate his video? Couldn’t he have found an American worker to do that?
headpan
I think I’d rather watch a slug race, but thanks.
sgwhiteinfla
Cue all the videos of Cantor and others saying they wanted housing to be a part of the stimulus bill and thats why they were opposing it. Seriously, if they don’t rake him over the coals with his own words from the floor of the House of Reps then somebody should be fired immediately. There should be a youtube channel full of attack ads up and ready to go by the end of the week just in case one of them steps out of line.
cosanostradamus
.
He’s dreamy!
Maybe we could send HIM to Afghahoovistania! Surge, baby, surge!
.
camchuck
Anagram fun with Eric Cantor:
Erratic Con
Cancer Riot
Cancer Rot I
A) Incorrect
Erotic Narc
Air Concert
oh really
Yeah, I gave it about 45 seconds. Sorry, I’m not going to waste any of what little remains of my life watching crap like that. (Note: That would be equally true if I were immortal.)
Needless to say, Cantor’s planned move to Hollywood is not going to happen anytime soon.
Montysano
What kind of fuckery was that? I lasted about 26.58 seconds.
If I want to watch Cantor, I go to the greatest hits collection.
kay
@sgwhiteinfla:
Cue all the videos of Cantor and others saying they wanted housing to be a part of the stimulus bill and thats why they were opposing it.
I think they probably nail McCain on that when Obama releases the housing plan, and conservatives fan out to blindly oppose it, prior to reading it. As you will recall, housing was McCain’s one and only rational economic argument: "fix foreclosure", that was about the extent of The McCain Plan.
There’s Town Meetings. Lots of them.
Rommie
I fired up Grand Theft Auto 4 for the first time since before the General Election last night – the satire was so over-the-top that I didn’t get sucked into the game like I did Vice City.
I had forgotten how over-the-top the conservative talk radio station was – except, given the last 9 months, it’s no longer so over-the-top. The satire is fairly close to dead-on. Those wily Scots nailed the meltdown. I just have to laugh – it’s as sublime as the SNL skit. What’s next Cantor – a mass walkout from Congress? A feed-the-homeless Turkey drop?
Tom
I tried watching it, but it was unbearable. I can’t believe he has a site that still hosts it. As a film goes, as someone else eluded to, it’s the equivalent of some high school kids f’ing around with dad’s camcorder.
JL
Eric Cantor’s interns would not even make it on HGTV. Maybe it got better but I quit after 15 seconds.
Do you suppose they were sent to the garage in order to look for Newt. Wasn’t that his old hang out or hang loose place?
Litlebritdifrnt
OT – but not really. Mika’s dad (I am not even going to attempt spelling his name) was on Morning Joe this morning and while I couldn’t watch the whole segment (I had to leave for work) he was proposing some sort of National Economic thingy whereby all the people who have made billions over the last several years give something back. He told a story of 1909 during a economic crisis when J. P. Morgan (I think) got all the bankers and financiers in a room and locked them in until about 4 am until each of them agreed to throw some money into the pot to bail out the economy. He hinted that there could be some "clawback" of bonuses etc., but basically proposed that they be encouraged to do it voluntarily to begin with then if they don’t step up to the plate start publishing lists of the names of these people and just how much money they have taken from the system in order to get the little folks riled up and sharpening their pitchforks. It was very interesting (I do so love hearing him speak he is so smart). I am hoping I will be able to find a clip of the entire thing somewhere because it sounded like a very good idea to me and I would like to hear how he expanded on it after I had to switch off.
joe from Lowell
Man, Obama could not ask for a better nemesis.
Anyway, thank God Eric Cantor was on the case, and tried to stop the people who "put our economy at risk." We might have had a downturn without his close attention to carried-interest-taxes!
DougJ
That’s way too much. What I had in mind was just to click on the beginning and notice that it involved three interns wandering around a parking garage.
The Other Steve
Private Equity firms sound so quaint today.
But at the time they were a clear sign of the epidemic. Too much money available for investment, with too few opportunities to invest, such that the uber wealthy decided to endrun the stock market and buy the companies outright.
headpan
Litleb: Zbigniew Brzezenski
K, I’m an a-hole masquerading as a smarty-pants – I looked it up
Paddy-Paddy Buke-Buke calls him "Zbig" – guess that means they’re "tight"
headpan
Don’t forget the Frontline program on PBS on the financial meltdown, airing 2nite, 9:00 pm EST
zzyzx
I only made it one click before getting blocked. I saw a horrid video of them at the Washington Monument and they said, "Hey let’s go get dinner and forget the whole thing." I guessed they had the right idea.
It was fun to be reminded of non-digital cameras though.
Bubblegum Tate
"All for Silas, all for Silas!"
scarshapedstar
I turned that shit off after 2 seconds of looking at a smug College Republican intern.
neff
@camchuck — You can get even more fun anagram results if you plug in Cantor’s full name (his middle name, believe it or not, is Ivan)
My favorite anagram for "Eric Ivan Cantor" is "I, craven rat icon"
J. Effingham Bellweather
Two brushes with the "Erratic Con" here.
The first was actually impressive. A born and bred Manhattanite, the mid 90s to early 00s found me living in Richmond, VA – and only marginally politically aware. One day I answered a knock at my front door to find Mr. Cantor who wanted to introduce himself and ask for my vote. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I had heard of such things, but never experienced a politician running for national office going door to door and asking for votes. I also remember thinking he was the very embodiment of a "putz."
The second was sleazy. I was working as a third-year associate for a "white shoe" VA law firm. One day the lead partner knocks on my office door and introduced me to Mr. Cantor, who again requested my vote and asked what I’d like to see done in regard to my area of practice, namely corporate immigration. I told him that a significant rise in the H1-B cap would provide a huge boost to my practice, which mainly consisted of acquiring non-immigrant employment visas for Indian programmers. He assured me that this would be a top priority, etc. should he be elected.
This second encounter is a great example of the bipolar nature of the right. On the one hand, Cantor was only too happy to grasp the hand of the head partner of one of the most plugged-in law firms in the south, and walk from office to office as the partner "whipped" votes from lowly associates like myself as the candidate promised the moon. On the other hand, there was no way in hell that Cantor would ever push for raising – even non-immigrant – caps on brown people.
I knew he was a putz then. I know he’s evil now.
ricky
And in between the bank that employs his wife got a quarter of a billion in Bush bailout bucks.