The Taliban Or Churchill–Decisions, Decisions!

Alex Massie flags this item from the Post:

But 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. He calls the stimulus bill “a stinker.”

Massie remarks:

Well! It’s a shame the Post doesn’t seem to know any more British history than does Mr Cantor; then again it’s a shame Mr Cantor should want to make such an ass of himself. Presumably he hasn’t actually spent very much time studying 1930s British politics.

He would probably do better to look at how the Conservatives and Unionists recovered from their 1906 thrashing, since that is much closer to where the GOP is today politically, but that might be a bit too much to expect. Dave Weigel tries to find some way to interpret this in a way that doesn’t make Cantor look ridiculous, but despite his best efforts I don’t think Cantor can be saved on this one.

It is hardly a secret or some obscure piece of ancient lore that Churchill succeeded to the leadership only after Chamberlain’s ouster, and the Tories were in power for almost the entire decade before the war after the first Labour government imploded. I assumed this was the sort of thing Republican officeholders were required to learn by rote before they were permitted to take their seats, but evidently the one thing greater than GOP love for Churchill is ignorance about his actual political career. Mind you, Cantor’s Churchill Plan comes just a week or so after Rep. Sessions declared that the Taliban offered a possible model of political insurgency, so I suppose you could say that the House GOP has made a lot of progress if they’re thinking about following Churchill’s lead instead.