Photo: Politico

Photo: Politico

Besides U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson bellowing “You lie!” Wednesday, two leading House Republicans were paying President Obama no mind — or respect — during his Wednesday address to a joint session of Congress. Minority Whip Eric Cantor, who had promised Republicans would be “very attentive,” instead was seen fingering his Blackberry. And a veteran journalist says Rep. Michele Bachmann displayed the most disdain toward a president he’s seen in more than 40 years of observing such events.

Cantor’s thumb antics (video below) came after he vowed that his side wouldn’t repeat the tweeting seen during Obama’s State of the Union address, Politico’s Ben Smith notes.

Bachmann’s behavior caught the eye of Albert Eisele, who writes at MinnPost that he couldn’t see Obama from the press gallery but saw Bachmann “in a black dress that matched her mood … [s]itting directly in front of the president six rows back on the GOP side.”

Bachmann described Obama’s speech afterwards using words like “fabrications” and “falsehoods,” but her body language during the event was even more expressive, according to Eisele:

On a number of those times, when Obama received standing ovations even from Republicans, she was the only member who remained sitting. And on many occasions, when her colleagues applauded Obama, she feebly patty-caked the back of one hand with another instead of bringing her palms together.  … I’ve watched every president from Lyndon Johnson to Obama address joint sessions of Congress, including every State of the Union speech since 1966, and I’ve never seen anyone display the disdainful attitude toward a president as Bachmann did.

Cantor and Bachmann may have been playing to the cameras and gallery observers with their bad behavior, hoping to reap rewards from the right. It’s understood that everyone at public events is just one nose-pick — or tooth-pick — away from starring in the next cellphone video to go viral online. Norm Coleman’s legal team was under the media microscope early in last year’s U.S. Senate recount, when one attorney was seen surfing the J. Crew catalog online.

Here’s Cantor caught on video: