"Eric Cantor and the tea party purge"

Eric Cantor and the tea party purge

by E. J. Dionne Jr. at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eric-cantor-and-the-tea-party-purge/2014/06/11/8195a4a4-f16e-11e3-914c-1fbd0614e2d4_story.html?hpid=z3

"SNIP........................



In 1961, John F. Kennedy said: “In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”

In November 2010, Eric Cantor said: “The tea party [is]?.?.?. an organic movement that played a tremendously positive role in this election. I mean, certainly, it produced an outcome beneficial to our party when you’re picking up at least 60-some seats.”

Yes, Republican leaders happily rode the tea party tiger when doing so was convenient. Now, Cantor has fallen to the very forces he and his colleagues unleashed and encouraged. After an electoral earthquake that shocked the party’s system, the GOP’s top brass will be scrambling to figure out what lessons they should draw.

Unfortunately, they’ll probably absorb the wrong ones. Rather than taking on the tea party and battling for a more moderate and popular form of conservatism, they are likely to cower and accommodate even more.




.......................SNIP"