Neil Cavuto, Fed Up with Imus's Silly Jokes, Comments on the ELECTION

Fox Business Network’s “big mucky muck” Neil Cavuto rolled off the couch in his office and into the studio with Imus today, after covering the elections until 2AM last night on television. So one could imagine he didn’t take kindly, in his sleepy state, to Imus calling yesterday’s event, “the big erection.”
 
“It gets old,” Cavuto said of the long-running, long-not-that-funny-anymore joke. “It’s sophomoric, actually.”
 
Imus had generously phoned in for an interview with Cavuto during his election coverage yesterday, but felt the appearance fell flat because Ken Langone was present on set, and “there’s no bigger creep on the planet” than Langone, formerly of Home Depot and the New York Stock Exchange.
 
Cavuto insisted Langone is “a wonderful human being,” then told Imus, “I always wonder if Mother Teresa were alive, how you would rip her a new one? ‘Oh, get over yourself, Toots.’”
 
Which is pretty much what Republicans said to President Obama last night, as they gained at least 56 seats in the House of Representatives, which they will now control, and at least five in the Senate, where they will remain in the minority.
 
“By not taking the Senate, I think the Republicans actually did themselves a favor, because they can argue that Barack Obama still controls two-thirds of the branches of government: the White House and the Senate,” Cavuto said.
 
It remains to be seen whether Obama will “pull a Bill Clinton,” as Cavuto put it, and move toward the middle. “I suspect he’s not going to do that,” he said.
 
Since the President has already gotten much of what he wanted, like health care reform, Cavuto suspects he will now try to prove his approach just needs more time. “I think he’s going to try to pull a page from Harry Truman and run against the ‘do-nothing’ Congress,’” Cavuto said of Obama’s plans for 2012.
 
As the Republicans prepare to return to more than a modicum of power in Washington, Cavuto noted that the onus remains on Obama to act in the interest of the people. “The Republicans controlling the House does give them the power to stop the spending, to slow the spending, but very little else,” he said. “The President, say what you will, good or bad, controls the agenda.”
 
Imus does not believe the Republicans have much motivation to work with Obama, since he’ll take credit for any accomplishments between now and the time he runs for reelection in 2012.
 
“You can work with him on the things that help you,” Cavuto pointed out, always happily prepared to throw one back in the I-Man’s face.
 
Voters were not kind yesterday to big business, handing losses to former executives Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman in California, and to Linda McMahon in Connecticut. Cavuto, however, chalked it up to “the tough road” Republicans face in certain states, saying, “In California, the Republican candidate has to pick up all the Independent vote, all the Republican vote, and 20 percent of the Democratic vote to get elected. That’s an uphill battle.”
 
Sort of like appearing on this show. Especially the morning after Erection Day.
 
-Julie Kanfer