http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=A3B7F6B0-741C-4808-81BF-8C3378304C32 Carl Bernstein: GOP leadership ‘cancerous’
By: Tal Kopan
October 16, 2013 07:26 AM EDT
Journalist and author Carl Bernstein said Wednesday that Republican Party leadership is “cancerous” and has put the United States at risk by letting the tea party lead the GOP.
“The Republican Party today has become a rabid organization from the top down. The leadership is cancerous,” the former Washington Post reporter said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.
Bernstein called the current situation a “terrible moment in our history” and said only segregation politics offers a comparison.
“You have to go back to the party, the Democratic Party of segregation to find this kind of scorched-earth politics putting the national interests nowhere and putting ideology and ideology above all else,” Bernstein said. “The full faith and credit of the United States, our reputation abroad, our stability, our national security has been endangered by [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell, by [House Majority Leader Eric] Cantor, who have embraced and cowardly appeased these forces who are know-nothings.”
It’s up to Republicans like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to “throw these people out,” he said.
“This is a watershed moment in American history, and unless some people, McCain and others, throw out the leadership that appeased this tail that is wagging the Republican dog — the tea party is not just a movement. It has been cowardly embraced by Eric Cantor, by [House Speaker John] Boehner, who has gone along with this craziness and allowed himself to be the speaker of this party and what it stands for,” Bernstein said.
