Yahoo Reports: Eric Cantor "goes down" and "no one saw it coming"

With internet media, we have Associated Press, we have bloggers who get it wrong most of the time, and we "Yahoo News".  The name makes Cookie's flesh crawl.  Thirty years ago when you got "Yahoo News" it was about some idiot in the Ozark who has a pig that looked like Jesus Christ.

Moreover, I have a hard time suppressing that vision of a grit pointing to his barrow, while it wallows in the mud, and saying "The face is the spittin' image our Jesus as he wept."

Cookie misses the day when editors made sure that headline writers used to use succinct wording to tell a story in a limited number of characters.

For example, in the days of print media, when column inches were the rule of thumb, the Top headline would have read: "Washington Stunned by Cantor Loss".   Simple, eh?

Instead, see above, And Washington, DC,  just wasn't caught off guard, but Washington is caught, not partially, but totally off guard.  No one, absolutely no one, not even one idiot saw this about to happen?  Really?

Being no fan of Eric Cantor - he reminds Cookie of a snide asshole college roommate - I was surprised by the news, and I was caught off guard - pleasantly so.  But I am old enough to know that in politics, nothing should totally surprise you.

However, it is the second headline that made Cookie chortle and role the eyes this morning:

"The second-highest ranking Republican in the House goes down, and no one saw it coming."

So did Cantor lose the election or did he do a Colonel Angus on some woman?

If Eric Cantor were to go down on a dick, no one would have seen that coming, either, I guarantee it.

What Cantor did was what his own hubris, and a safely Republican district, deemed improbable.  He lost the primary election to someone more conservative than he is, and in doing so, he also became the first sitting House Majority Leader to lose.  And it wasn't one of those 49.4% to 49.55% loses, it was a ten point spread.

A better secondary headline, one that was clear would have read: "Unpredicted primary defeat for House Majority Leader dumbfounds Washington insiders."  Or they could have gone with "First sitting House Majority Leader to lose in primary election."

Officially, Cantor is now a lame duck, and wins the Fickle Finger of Fate Award: he is now a Jeopardy question, ("This Congressional Majority Leader was the first to suffer defeat in a primary election."  Who is Eric Cantor?") all in one.