GOP Whip Skips Obama to Attend Britney Spears Concert

Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress at 2:41 PM on March 25, 2009.

In recent weeks, congressional Republicans have been critical of President Obama for doing anything that isn’t directly focusing on the economic crisis — such as going on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno or filling out his NCAA bracket. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) even called Obama’s decision to overturn the ban on embryonic stem cell research a “distraction.” However, Wonkette reports that instead of watching Obama’s prime-time press conference last night, Cantor decided to pursue his own distraction — the Britney Spears concert. A statement from Cantor’s office:

After attending the NRCC dinner, Eric, like President Obama has been known to do, enjoyed a night at the Verizon center. It was a bipartisan night, as Eric was joined by Senator Landrieu and other Democrats.

Cantor’s office quickly backtracked, saying that it could not “verify with 100 percent certainty” that Landrieu was there. ThinkProgress spoke with a staffer in Landrieu’s office, who said that the senator was indeed not at the concert.

Tagged as: obama, britney spears, cantor

Amanda Terkel is Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and serves as Deputy Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.