MRS. CANTOR
Right. I said buy! Buy! BUY! How many times do I have to tell you? When I say buy, I mean BUY! Don't you know there is a hurricane going on? There's big money to be made in Home Depot stock, but only if we move quickly. Now get on it!
(entering) AIDE
Excuse me, but Mr. Cantor is on the phone.
MRS. CANTOR
(into phone) I have to go. BUY! (hangs up)
AIDE
Line two.
MRS.CANTOR
(picking up phone and pressing line 2. changing tone.) Hello, Sweetie-pie. What's up...other than that bitch, Irene. (giggles) (pause) What? Are we really? That's delicious...mean, but delicious. (pause) Oh, you are good. You never let an opportunity to screw Obama pass by, even if it means holding the country hostage including the sucker Tea Baggers. (giggles) Opps, I said tea baggers again. (back to business) Slamming his idea about the payroll tax cuts was brilliant. I mean, BRILLIANT. Even if it was our idea and it made no sense, you went on the offense. (purring) I love that in a Leader. (pause) What? You want me to request FEMA money for storm victims in my district? I thought we were holding out for cuts in Medicare in exchange for saving children??! . (pause) OH!!! I have to seem to be compassionate about the so called damage this storm has made...but don't have actually BE compassionate. Damn, you're good. (pause)
Okay. Luntz wrote a press release for me and you're going to dictate to me? Right, gotta avoid a paper trail on this. Hang on. (reaches for a pencil and repeats as she writes) Shoot.
"First, at a time when so many citizens throughout our District are struggling to recover from Hurricane Irene, I have written directly to President Obama to assure that the full measure of federal disaster relief is made available to them."
Do I actually have to write a letter to the (gasp) President? Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. (continuing to repeat and write) Keep going.
"This is my responsibility as your Representative in Congress, and it is the right thing to do. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, I was the first member of the New York congressional delegation to send such a request to the President in regard to Hurricane Irene.
Is that true, Darling? (pause) Right. It doesn't matter if it is or not. If I repeat it enough, the crazies will believe it. Sorry, I forgot. Go on. (continues writing)
"During this time I’ve also been asked about how we think about the effect of all the disaster relief we’ve needed to provide across the country this past year on the federal budget."
(shouts with admiration.) Brilliant segue, baby!!!!! (back to writing)
"We all know the facts: Hurricane Irene, and other severe-weather events in the South and Midwest, have made it necessary to provide urgent funds that will ultimately reach several billion dollars, possibly 10 billion dollars or more, in the midst of the most massive deficit spending in our country’s peacetime history. Our deficit and enormous, mounting debt are not benign and distant threats; the federal government is spending money it doesn’t have, which means that there isn’t enough money left in the economy to make it strong and healthy."
You are SOOOOOOO good. Hold 'em hostage. (gets up and does the happy dance. back to writing)
"14 million Americans, including thousands of people right here in the Hudson Valley, need jobs, and they need a strong economy if they’re going to have jobs, so we really do have to get the government’s spending under control right now. Families in District 19 have to think every day about how to balance their budgets, and they have insisted, rightly so, that the federal government has to do the same thing.
I LOVE the way you keep hammering at that stupid family metaphor. They buy it every time. Especially since families would definitely try to increase income when they are in bad straights and we say that shouldn't be part of the solution. Lord, they are stupid.
"So, when we think about Irene, this is not complicated: we will mobilize the funding for disaster relief from less-essential spending, just the way American families do when they have to prioritize.
Luntz is da man! "Less-essential spending," and the family metaphor! A Two-fer. "Less-essential spending" is so vague and so pointed. Childhood nutrition cuts here we come! (writing again)
"We have a responsibility to the people and communities who are suffering after natural disaster, and we will absolutely fulfill that responsibility, and do so urgently. We also have a responsibility to provide that help without making things worse. We can, absolutely, do both. The last thing that we need is for the media or public figures to try to make this a political issue, because it is not. It is a matter of compassion and common sense, and Americans have both of these qualities in abundance"
The old "accuse them of doing exactly what we're doing" routine. An oldie but a goodie! OOOOOHHHHH, what would I do without you pulling my strings? You know, at first I thought we'd have a problem with this. You know, the mean old press asking questions and angry constituents, and the difficulty of getting good photo ops when I wasn't willing to secure FEMA money, but this makes it all good and everything. We get to demand cuts in Socialist Security in exchange for feeding children and saving lives!!!! HOSTAGE TAKING LIVES! Obama will certainly cave on this one. AND there is more in this press release about the federal deficit than about helping people and more about the debt than the suffering. My kind of release, Honey Bunch. I'll get right on it. Oh, and, listen, get FEMA to buy their supplies at Home Depot. I just grabbed a bunch of it and you should too.Toodles. (hangs up and presses intercom button)
Get in here now! We're back in the hostage business again! (releases button. to herself) This Congresswoman stuff is a piece of cake.
