For more than four hours, a confederacy of Republicans assembled in the Caucus Room...plotting [View all]

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Thursday, May 3, 2012 12:00 am

Early on, Obama and Rangel targeted by GOP

HERB BOYD Special to the AmNews

For more than four hours, a confederacy of Republicans assembled in the Caucus Room, an upscale restaurant in D.C., only hours after Barack Obama’s inauguration, plotting ways in which to immediately begin undermining his presidency.

This meeting included such senior politicos of the GOP as House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions. The Senate members were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl.

Among the other Republican notables were Newt Gingrich and strategist Frank Luntz. Oddly, neither Mitch McConnell nor John Boehner was present.

Luntz, the speechwriter, the same man Sean Hannity had thrown out of Fox Studios in 2008, was the organizer of the affair, according to Robert Draper in his recently published book “Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives” (Free Press, 2012).

. . . here’s how Draper quoted (Gingrich) at the end of that strategy session in the Caucus Room.

“You will remember this day,” he began. “You’ll remember this as the day the seeds of 2012 were sown . . . ”


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