It is, of course, a mere coincidence that the firm for which the spouse of the House Republican whip works has scarfed up a couple of hundred million bucks in the banking bailout. Really. (I can understand why you might wonder, considering Rep. Cantor's role model seems to be the disgraced Tom DeLay.)

So for now, we'll take them at their word. But just imagine that this happened with the spouse of the House Democratic whip, and picture the heated Republican outrage! The press conference, the cable TV talking heads frothing at the mouth! The decrying of greed, the cries of pained incredulity...

Because the firm didn't actually need the money. They simply restructured their tax setup so they would be eligible. After all, you can never have too much money:

WASHINGTON — A bank that employs the wife of Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-Va., benefited from the $700 billion Wall Street bailout that Cantor helped steer through Congress last fall. Diana F. Cantor runs a Virginia-based subsidiary of New York Private Bank and Trust. The New York bank received $267.2 million from the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program Jan. 9. A spokesman for New York Private Bank and Trust told ProPublica, an investigative journalism Web site that first reported the relationship, Diana Cantor was “never aware that the parent bank was seeking or received [bailout] funding.” A spokesman for the New York bank declined to comment for this report. Diana Cantor, the managing director of the subsidiary, Virginia Private Bank and Trust, did not return a phone call seeking comment Monday. She also serves on Media General’s board of directors.

[Editor's note: Props to Media General for following up on an embarrassing story about their own board member. After all, she's an attorney, a CPA and an investment banker. You might expect her to be better informed about these things!]