GOP congressional leaders are acting a lot like their predecessors

By Dana Milbank
WashPost
Wednesday, January 5, 2011

For incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor and his House Republicans, something strange happened on the way to Wednesday's "Opening Day" of the new Congress.

For two years, Cantor and his colleagues campaigned against high deficits. Now, in the new majority's first major act, they plan to vote to increase the deficit by $143 billion as part of a repeal of health-care reform.

For two years, Cantor and his colleagues bemoaned the Democrats' abuse of House rules to circumvent committees and to prevent Republicans from offering amendments. Now, Cantor confirmed on Tuesday, Republicans will employ the very same abuses as they attempt the repeal.

For two years, the Republicans complained about unrelenting Democratic partisanship. Now they're planning no fewer than 10 investigations of the Obama administration, and the man leading most of those has already branded Obama's "one of the most corrupt administrations" in history.

(More here.)