Is Eric Cantor The GOP’s Ralph Wiggum?

Poor Ralph Wiggum.

The hapless, slow-witted, frequently annoying son of Chief Wiggum on The Simpson’s is always getting picked on by kids at Springfield Elementary because he keeps saying totally out-of-context things like “I use the poddy now!” and “I wear rubber underpants!”

Ever since Congress reconvened in January, I’ve been trying to figure out who Eric Cantor reminds me of and this morning it came to me: He’s Ralph Wiggum, all grown up.

I knew a kid just like Cantor when I was in grade school; I suspect a lot of us did. He was an annoying little runt no one liked because he wouldn’t trade sandwiches at lunch, cried if somebody looked at him cross-eyed and kept asking for answers during arithmetic tests.

As a result, that poor kid at Webster School – his name was Butch – spent at least one recess a week getting tipped upside down in the boy’s room before getting his head flushed in the urinal. And the more Cantor’s on television, the more I am convinced that Ralph, Butch and Eric are soul mates because they were always getting their heads flushed in the toilet in grade school.

It would explain a lot about Cantor.

No one who spends a good chunk of their early childhood being held upside down in a urinal comes out whole. It’s undoubtedly life-altering. For example, it affected Butch so much that, by middle school, not even the audio-visual club would let him in – and the A-V club was the last refuge for guys totally unsuited for life. Last I heard, he was driving a diaper delivery truck. ‘Nuff said?

OK, so Cantor managed to escape Butch’s fate entirely, ending up as minority whip in the US House although that’s kind of the GOP’s version of driving a truck full of other people’s dirty nappies around. But he still acts like the annoying, whiney kid who just knows that the big kids are waiting to dump him in the urinal.

But instead of proclaiming “I use the poddy now!” Cantor shouts “No one likes Obama! No one likes Obama!”

By the way, if Cantor is Ralph Wiggum, doesn't that make John Boehner Groundskeeper Willie and Michael Steele Nelson Mundt?

Anyway, little Eric is still whiney, still annoying and still saying things that, like Ralph Wiggum, have no connection whatsoever with the world around him. Ralph’s salvation is that he’s funny; Cantor has no value because he thinks, sadly, the non-policies he keeps mouthing make sense.

I wonder: If Eric Cantor asks nicely, will the House A-V club let him join?