Feelings Hurt, House Republicans Tell Ordinary Americans to go Screw Themselves (Updated)

Unable to produce the votes necessary for passage of the $700 billion bailout, House Republicans took to the microphones this afternoon to pin blame on Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

Several Republican aides said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had torpedoed any spirit of bipartisanship that surrounded the bill with her scathing speech near the close of the debate that blamed Bush’s policies for the economic turmoil.

Eric Cantor, John Boehner and others held a news conference at which they said that they had a lot more yes votes for the bailout until Pelosi spoke.  For dramatic effect, Cantor held up a copy of Pelosi’s speech.

Pelosi attacked not House Republicans but the economic policies of George W. Bush and praised Bill Clinton’s.  Here’s her speech:

So if I understand Cantor and Boehner, House Republicans do not vote for legislation they do not believe to be in the national interest. They had enough votes for the bailout, which, by definition, they believed to be in the national interest. Then they heard Nancy Pelosi express her opinion that George W. Bush has been a bad presdient.  Their delicate sensibilities injured, the House Republicans then decided to disregard the national interest in favor of standing up for George Bush. 

What a statement by the Republicans: standing up for George W. Bush at the expense of working people. 

UPDATE:

Video of the Republican news conference:

UPDATE TWO:Allah restores my faith in the intellectual honesty of (some) conservatives:

There are, conceivably, good reasons to vote against a bailout in a national emergency — if you think it’ll do more economic harm than good, if you think it accrues too much unchecked power to the executive — but being honked off at Nancy is not one of them.

UPDATE THREE:

Per TPM:

Now Rep. Blunt is blaming the Jewish Holidays. Are there enough Republican Jews in the House to make that credible?

Uh, no. And I can imagine what the leadership of that party might’ve thought if members failed to attend meetings and votes on that basis:

UPDATE FOUR:

Barney Frank reads NachonBlog: