Legal Commentary

Don't Know Much About History . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

Josh Marshall is of course right that it is doubtful that Eric Cantor (R-VA), the House GOP Whip, has ever read a book on Churchill, but I think the question is whether Washington Post reporters Michael Shear and Paul Kane know much of anything about Churchill. After all it was Shear and Kane who wrote this:

Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House minority whip who led the fight to deny Obama every GOP vote for the plan, is studying Winston Churchill's role leading the Tories in the late 1930s, a principled minority that was eventually catapulted into power over the Labor Party.

(Emphasis supplied.) I do not know what Cantor actually knows or is doing, but I do know Shear and Kane put their names to a story that stated this falsehood (as Josh explains, and as anyone even vaguely familiar with Churchill's life story would know, Churchill did not lead a Tory opposition in the 30s, the Neville Chamberlain government was Tory and Churchill was on the outs with his own party.) This is the Washington Post. Supposedly one of our great newspapers. What a wonderful world it would be if we had a better press corps.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 16, 2009 (boomark / email).