Washington press/pundit coverage of the Republican Presidential race is all about the narratives told, sold and bought at cocktail parties inside the Beltway. You could pick any candidate and the arc would be the same: a narrative is formed, repeated, repeated again, and again until the fiction of the narrative trumps all facts. This is how Al Gore became fat and GW Bush became a Compassionate Conservative.
We are nine months away from the Caucus in Iowa and the GOP field is still sorting itself out. Over the next few weeks most folks will have to decide if they are in or out–and to help the process along, the media is busy creating über narratives about each of them. The other day Newt Gingrich formally entered the race and–almost as an unspoken rule–every time he is mentioned we need to be reminded that Newt is an idea man, an intellectual, a serious thinker and a serious man who just lacks “discipline”. Some have even taken to calling him “The Professor”.
As with almost any Republican, Newt’s flaws are almost always downplayed if mentioned at all. It is all wink, wink, nudge, nudge by folks who know that Newt doesn’t stand a chance in Hell of ever winning. Gingrich is just playing the game to keep his brand out there as a going concern and most of the Beltway media seems all too happy to help Newt pull off the con. Newt Gingrich is a liar, grifter, and hack and yet our failed media experiment has decided that he should be presented sold as an eccentric and thoughtful “Professor” who lacks the discipline to stay on narrative.
It is of course total bullshit. And I’m pleased to see that more and more folks are calling Gingrich out as the liar, grifter and hack that he has been all of his life.
Glenn Kessler, The Fact Checker at the Washington Post, went so far as to fact-check Newt’s campaign roll out on Fox’s “Sean Hannity Show.” The headline said it all: Newt Gingrich’s Pinocchio-laden debut. To fact-check all the shit Newt has said and will say in the coming months is beyond a full-time job, so I’m glad his campaign roll out got some attention. To fact-check everything that falls out of Newt’s mouth would be a jobs program as you would need a staff of twenty or more folks working overtime to run every lie to ground.
Gingrich has been a bomb thrower all his political life from the moment he started running for office in the mid seventies. He is one of the founding fathers of our current state of political malfunction. It is amazing to contemplate all of the shit he has been involved in over the years and all the crazy he has brought to the table. One would need a small library to hold it all, but Mother Jones Magazine has collected some highlights of the last 33 years. Think of it as a way to help Newt celebrate the launch of his campaign and to counteract some of “The Professor” bullshit with facts.
The first item of the Mother Jones list was from a speech that Gingrich gave to College Republicans during his first successful campaign for Congress. In it he advised the people who would grow up to run the Republican Party and modern conservative movement that:
“I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words.”
Gingrich went to Congress and when Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist and Newt’s fellow Georgian Ralph Reed (who may have heard Gingrich’s speech) took over the College Republicans in 1980 they followed Newt’s advice. “Nasty” is about the best single word I can think of to describe Wingnutopia. Newt’s vision has become our political reality. Crafting a politics that celebrates nasty behavior has been his most successful (and profitable) idea. Too bad it is also an idea that is destroying America, but a grifter can’t be bothered by scam fall-out.
A transcript of the speech that the quote above came from is here. I encourage you to give it a read. It helps to explain what happened to the Conservative movement and the Republican Party–and how Gingrich shaped the race to the bottom. It helps to explain the staying power of grifters like Gingrich, Reed and Norquist. And it helps to explain why Jack Abramoff has more photos of himself with Newt than he has of himself with his wife.
Cheers
Hunter Gathers
Newt today:
Newt on Wednesday:
(via Steve M.)
That’s not a dog whistle. That a dog bullhorn. He’s a Professor all right. A Professor of racist bullshit.
BruceFromOhio
It helps to explain the staying power of grifters like Gingrich, Reed and Norquist.
And Coulter and Limbaugh and Savage and Palin and Bachmann and Haley and Turdblossom and North and Yoo and Card and …
ETA: Lived in Texas for awhile. Most of it is flat, hot and inhabited by Texans. Why does Newt hate America?
Mark S.
Shit, if you had to vote for either Newt, Trump, or Palin, who would you go with? I actually might have to go with Sarah.
I know, it’s like having to pick between cow shit, dog shit, and moose shit, but it’s amazing how sleazy Newt and Trump are that Sarah actually looks good compared to them. Half-term, baby!
kdaug
Not sure if someone who marries an android for their third wife can go the distance.
General Stuck
Yep, and fighting tooth and nail for who gets in the idiot line, and who gets in the bigger idiot line. I figure Ron Paul will take the lead, and the others will outbatshit crazy each other to get some of what he’s got. Newt may well call for pilot programs to reinstate Jim Crow in the south, while some others explain their underwear and space ships coming to get them.
Ron Paul won’t be able to stop his blather on gutting the military and fed and a number of other plutocrat favs and will flame out, unless he can hold his tongue and stop saying what he thinks, which is just too freaky to consider for most of the wingnuts.
And they all will march dutifully over the SS Medicare privatization cliff, because the crazies demand it for the sake of Aryan and Ayn purity. Should be quite a show, not for the queasy though.
When the campaign gets going good, if you ever want to see just how fanatical and certifiable Ron Paul supporters are, just tune into Washington Journal every morning, when they will spam the lines and spout loony tunes.
Cacti
I’ve heard the trope in the wingnut sites that Newt would sooooo clean Obama’s clock in a debate, because…
History degrees from Emory and Tulane are waaaaay tougher than Magna cum Laude from Harvard Law. Or something like that.
RossInDetroit
I see this as a positive thing. The more shitheel racists enter the GOP candidate sweepstakes the more people might realize that they’re ALL like that. Fly the flag high, Newt!
Suffern ACE
Are those really my only two options – Texas or Detroit?
Cacti
@RossInDetroit:
!
The highest elected office Newt ever held was Congressman from Georgia. Southern strategy white resentment politics is all he knows.
Nom de Plume
Half-term, baby!
For a second there, I thought you were channeling Sullivan.
Scott
Yeah, I live in Texas, and you don’t want the whole country to look like Texas. Our economy is crashing down very, very hard. Our schools are about to nosedive straight to the bottom, jobs and salaries are going to crash, our elected officials are nearly all mega-rich and mega-corrupt.
And yes, it all happened because of Republican governance.
Cacti
@Scott:
And the governor talks secession, except for when he needs help from FEMA.
GregB
My emailed question to Senator Santorum was read on WMUR and was responded to by him.
He said that he was encouraged by the fact that the beltway pundits were dismissing him as not a serious candidate.
It gives him cred with the base.
kdaug
@Scott: There’s a reason that all the population centers – Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and (duh) Austin – all went blue in the 2010s.
Goodhair and the cronies are going after the low-information voter. And thanks to DeLay’s mid-term redistricting in the early aughts, it’s paying dividends. Texas is a big goddamned state.
It won’t last.
Nutella
@GregB:
ex-Senator Santorum, you mean?
It drives me nuts when candidates are called by titles they no longer have.
AlladinsLamp
kth
I guess we call assistant professors who were denied tenure at noncompetitive colleges “Professor”, but it seems a little grandiose.
AlladinsLamp
The GOP presidential candidate said his economic platform would be built around four points:
– “The correct capital gains tax rate is zero.”
– “The correct corporate tax rate is the Irish tax rate of 12.5 percent.”
– “We need to go to 100 percent expensing for all new equipment.” A move that he said would please farmers. Some of whom may live in Iowa.
– Elimination of the “death,” or estate tax.
The Dangerman
Hucks is supposed to make his announcement on running tomorrow night on FOX; smart money is he sits it out, though some are saying he’ll go into a delay mode so he can get a couple more paychecks from FOX, then decide to run.
The Dangerman
@AlladinsLamp:
Because having rich people pay ANY tax is so very wrong.
Sounds great for the first tax year deduction; what happens at year 2?
GregB
@Nutella:
Ex Senator Frothy Fecal Matter. Sorry.
Allan
Gingrich/Bachmann 2012: The Professor and Mary Ann
Suffern ACE
@AlladinsLamp: Running on the Bush Legacy.
Darkrose
@BruceFromOhio: Texas has an additional problem: Texans.
eemom
frankly I don’t see how I am going to survive this upcoming “election” season.
I’m pushing 50, ya know — and even in my young days I could suffer neither fools, liars, thugs, grifters, nor — most especially — disgusting tubs of toxic sewage like newt or trump….nor yet abominations unto the name of womanhood like palin or bachmann.
I think I’d better get my affairs in order. : (
Dennis SGMM
@Hunter Gathers:
Texas “creates” jobs the same way that China “creates” jobs.
asiangrrlMN
ME. The Republicans should vote for ME. I can give starbursts with the best of them. And, while I’m incredibly foul-mouthed, at least I don’t spew filth like the rest of the Republicans.
AxelFoley
@Allan
ROFL
cbear
@GregB:
You might want to look into a good keyboard cleaner, Phisohex maybe.
Just saying, bro.
AxelFoley
@asiangrrlMN
Just like I tell rikyrah, girl, I love it when you talk dirty.
JGabriel
Dennis G. @ Top:
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always thought Gingrich would be perfect as The Penguin.
.
JGabriel
@AlladinsLamp:
So Gingrich wants to collectivize the farms?
.
Anon.
I like the graphic… I hope people will develop similar 2012 graphics for each one of the GOP candidates; That would be wonderful. We’ve already seen the Trump “We Shall Overcomb” graphic that ABL posted last week. Moar like that, please… funny if possible.
asiangrrlMN
@AxelFoley: Bundled derivatives, baby! Anti-cap and trade. Oh, YEAH!
Fuck these mofos with eleven-billointy rusty pitchforks!
Dennis SGMM
@AlladinsLamp:
Noted that uber-patriot and idea man Gingrich neglected to add, “As long as that equipment is made and assembled in America.” Our offshore buds would thrive under a Gingrich administration.
asiangrrlMN
I don’t know why Newt Gingrich annoys me so much. I mean, more than many of the other purported Republican candidates. He just has gotten so much for so very little, and he’s a sanctimonious prick to boot. Asshat.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
OT: MSNBC has been running an hour long show called “The death of Osama bin Laden.” The most hilarious thing is the Pakistani who tweeted about the raid: Geeks all around the world look exactly the same.
Nutella
@kdaug:
Mrs Gingrich III wasn’t an android until after she married Newt. Here they are when they were just screwing around and he was still married to Mrs G II. She looked like a nice young thing, didn’t she? Obviously her years with the old geezer have not been good for her health.
asiangrrlMN
@Nutella: That actually makes me feel kinda sad for her. She’s nothing but a shell of herself now. She must hold her money really tightly to her chest as she cries herself to sleep at night.
Nutella
@asiangrrlMN:
Yes, she now looks just as tense and sad, not to mention as peroxided, as Cindy McCain. Their lives must be really grim to have that effect on their looks.
asiangrrlMN
@Nutella: I agree. It’s as if she’s afraid to say anything wrong all the time. Both of them, come to think of it.
FlipYrWhig
@Nutella: Wow. I kind of imagine that in Newt’s attic there’s a picture of Callista like that, while she walks around in the present moment all plasticky. It’s kind of the reverse of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. Of course, considering that he has a succession of abandoned wives, it’s kind of like _Bluebeard_ too. If you ever get invited to Newt’s house, don’t take it upon yourself to open _any_ doors.
asiangrrlMN
@FlipYrWhig: I wouldn’t go. I’d be askeered of what he’d do once he was out of the public limelight.
FlipYrWhig
@asiangrrlMN: Very believable. Newt is high Gothic.
asiangrrlMN
@FlipYrWhig: Goth, I don’t mind. It’s some of his other…tendencies that make me leery. Such as turning vibrant women into Stepford Wives.
Viva BrisVegas
@Hunter Gathers:
Newt has found oil in Detroit? This is good news for John McCain.
Origuy
Which one of his wives was Mary Ann?
FlipYrWhig
@asiangrrlMN: One of the _Tales of Hoffmann_ features a professor whose beautiful daughter turns out to be a clockwork automaton. I guess for “Gothic” read “uncanny.”
asiangrrlMN
@Origuy: This one.
@FlipYrWhig: OK, now you’re creeping me out. I hate the uncanny valley strain of robots.
kdaug
@Nutella:
See, now I’m torn. I hadn’t seen the “before” picture (lovely girl, really), which leaves me with two possibilities:
1). She’s trying to warn us – “He’s a fucking liar! Run! Run for your lives!” – but can’t say it front of the cameras (wonder if she was blinking in code).
or
2). Newt doubles as a voodoo zombie doctor thing / has a lab deep in his basement where he performs brain experiments in his spare time.
Either way, the difference is notable.
Carl Nyberg
Here’s my theory. Newt is the best positioned to win the GOP nomination.
Create a spectrum of the Republican Party with a few wealthy insiders on one end and the angry outsiders-looking-in Tea Partiers and Libertarians on the other end.
The insiders aren’t going to allow Ron Paul or Bachmann to get the nod. Those options are unacceptable.
But of the outsiders have to accept the insiders blocking the favorites of the outsiders, then they are going to block the insider candidates (Romney, Pawlenty, Huntsman and Daniels).
I think the insiders and outsiders can both live with Gingrich.
Origuy
@asiangrrlMN: OMG, you mean he was married to Mary Ann! I guess the current wife is Ginger.
asiangrrlMN
@Origuy: The current one certainly isn’t Lovey Howell!
Anne Laurie
@Carl Nyberg:
Nothing is impossible within today’s GOP, but after reading the stuff that’s come out about Newt over the last couple years, I have a certain faith in his enormous gift for self-destruction. Remember the very public tantrum about how Clinton wouldn’t let Newt ride in the front of Air Force One? Gingrich’s little ‘personality quirks’ have swollen & hardened with age, and there is no reverse-cialis for toxic narcissism. I don’t know what it would take to sicken the current crop of Media Village courtiers, but I’m sure Newt will be able to come up with something… being caught naked in cowboy boots hammering on Willard’s front door, screaming ‘DADDY NEEDS A GODDAMNED PONY, PINTO BOY!’ during the Romney family’s big holiday get-together, as filmed by Oprah Winfrey’s new cable network? Prancing around the Senate well, during a CSPAN-intensive debate on the debt ceiling or HCR, in a star-spangled thong and a giant mascot head stolen from that university where he used to ‘profess’? Showing up at the first nationally televised debate and throwing Oreos at President Obama? Between Gingrich’s innate perversity and Obama’s talent for picking all the right opponents, the possibilities are… as enormous as Gingrich’s ego!
Kyle
@Nutella:
Damn, that’s a frightening transformation; she was actually semi-cute not too long ago. Reminds me of Cindy McCain, an overprogrammed plastic Stepford product. Can’t imagine the inner turmoil and medication behind a deterioration like that.
Imagine if Newt does to the country what he’s done to her.
Suffern ACE
@Anne Laurie: Gingrich panics and he talks too much when he’s panicking. He can’t admit that he doesn’t know something and will blab on about it anyway. He also will take whatever opinion is opposite Obama—on everything. It’s not just that he’s trying to panic people to get attention – he appears to frightened of everything. Look at his “performance” during the start of the action with Libya. Every day a different position, each one a blusterbox of hyperbolic fear. “The President needs to attack Libya” “OMG the President is doing what I said I said! That’s the worst thing he could do!”
The President could beat him just by being photographed petting a kitten, which would cause Newt to go on TV and beat a kitten to death.
Yutsano
@Suffern ACE:
James E. Powell
@Carl Nyberg:
I don’t know that he is the best-positioned, but he is in better shape than Romney or, at this point, Pawlenty.
The key is the 27%-ers. No candidate can win the Republican nomination without them. They already know that Gingrich respects them, is one of them. And they understand and need hate. They know Gingrich hates. He hates everyone and everything that they hate.
JGabriel
@Carl Nyberg:
I think that reasoning leads to selecting Daniels, not Gingrich.
Romney, Pawlenty, and Huntsman are all stealth “moderates”. They’re not actually as crazy as the rhetoric they’re spewing. Daniels is a stealth extremist. Daniels tries to downplay social conservative rhetoric, but his actions say otherwise.
Gingrich is too irresponsible, unreliable, unelectable, and sociopathic for the insiders to put their faith in him.
I don’t think Daniels or Gingrich will get the nomination. But your reasoning would to Daniels — who is too short for the general, and too Middle-Eastern for the primaries.
I think the nomination is probably Huck’s or Palin’s for the taking, but I’m not sure that either of them want it right now. 2016 is a much better bet for the GOP to win the presidential race.
Which, on further reflection, means that Palin is a pretty good bet for them. Think about it: if the Republicans become resigned to losing the 2012 election anyway, then why not get historical credit for being the first major party to nominate a woman candidate? It’s a win for Palin too — it will give her a permanent income on the lecture circuit as the first female presidential candidate.
.
Jebediah
@JGabriel:
That makes sense except, I think, that it doesn’t account for her laziness and thin skin. Do you think she would want to do the hard work, and suffer the slings and arrows, of being the head of the ticket?
JGabriel
@Jebediah:
I don’t know. I don’t think Palin would want to do the hard work of presidentin’, but is losing the general campaign really a difficult job? The hard part would be winning the nomination, and I don’t know if Palin would want to do the work to get it or not.
.
Yutsano
@JGabriel:
Winning Iowa means sucking up to a lot of ordinary folks in less than glamorous situations. Palin has had too much of the taste of the good life to indulge in that kind of wallowing IMHO. Plus really her last actual campaigning was for governor of Alaska. Most of what she had to do for VP was show up and give off starbursty goodness.
MikeJ
@Yutsano: Normally people hit all 99 counties in Iowa. Palin will simply declare one particular cornfield to be “real” Iowa and the hellholes like Ottumwa unworthy of her presence.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: That would be kind of epic. And since the Republican caucus demands to be pandered to, the end result could be her placing even behind Ron Paul.
(edited for clarity. damn spacing. FYWP.)
Draylon Hogg
@4
Why are you spending all that money on Navy SEALS and helicopters that have to be blown up when you could literally petrify your enemies with Mrs Gingrich’s Gorgon glare?
I made the mistake of clicking your link and it’s just taken me fours hours to write this with my little finger.
MikeJ
@Draylon Hogg: Using the gorgons in battle constitutes a war crime. We’ll be safe and stick to depleted uranium, thank you very much.
MikeJ
OT, but did anybody see Fred Clark explain to he who shall not be named that sometimes blog comment systems choke when you feed them War & Peace?
Pat
Professor Grifter has a nice ring to it.
Uloborus
Yes, when I think about Newt Gingrich I think about Stephen Colbert’s friend ‘The Professor’.
JGabriel
@MikeJ:
More likely, Palin will declare all of the cornfields to be real Iowa and the arugala fields to be urban Iowa.
.
Donut
All I have to say is, I clicked through to the Michael Scherer piece on Swampland for the fuck of it, and was gleefully reminded of just how awful of a hack that guy is. You can always count on him to serve up the very best “look at how unbiased we are at Time” shit sandwich. Swampland went from a middling mainstream-y site for political news to a full-on fluff factory for the McCain camp during the ’08 campaign. And poor Michael Scherer was handed the crayons and made to scribble more drivel about ol’ Get-Offa-My-Lawn than the others. I used to go to Swampland for the comi-tragic relief he’d serve up. I suspect there will be more such good times next year. Can’t wait.
NamelessGenXer
@The Dangerman:
Also, too the hucksters have floated a deeply cynical scheme to collect email addresses from the dumb fucking hicks. I’m sure my good bud [email protected] will enjoy the Huckabilly Spam.
WHOIS prayforhuckabee.com?
Excellentia Inc
3434 W Anthem Way
Anthem, AZ 85086
Maricopa County. Big Surprise.
bkny
gawd help me … but i gotta give props to chris matthews who has been brutal in his commentary on gingrich over the past week. hell, he even humiliated a politico reporter who was doing her damnedest to defend newt, who finally gave up and literally said ‘i can’t defend it’…
bob h
All pundits seem to concede that Gingrich is “brilliant”, “full of ideas”. But to me the ideas seem shallow, sophomoric, fatuous, puerile. The Professor would have a tough time getting tenure at an unaccredited community college. Is this fraud what passes for intelligence in DC?
Davis X. Machina
@bob h: They don’t say “full of good ideas”, now do they?
JGabriel
@bob h:
Ideas? I guess that’s how the pundits spell shit.
.
debbie
I’ve wondered why Democratic politicians have never called Gingrich out on his bullshit (esp. that anticolonialstic racist garbage). He’s getting a free pass.
Poopyman
@kth: Can’t be repeated often enough.
debit
@bkny: Ok, now that I have to see. Do you recall what day it was?
Uloborus
@JGabriel:
That’s how they described Ryancare, so… yeah! I think you’ve cracked the code.
Meredith
And yet they so often refer to Obama as Obama. They forget he’s the President. Santorum doesn’t even deserve the respect of “ex-Senator.” Just Santorum is enough for him.
Mike in NC
Not to nitpick, but the Villagers didn’t climb on the “Al Gore is fat” bandwagon until after the 2000 election was thrown to Dubya by the Supreme Court. Prior to that, they all scorned Gore because “he invented the Internet”. I worked in DC at the time and it was the favorite Republican talking point.
bkny
@debit: it was thursday. the politico reporter was jeanne cummings; but the transcript isn’t up yet. however, here’s a link to a lcip with alter and david corn from wednesday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/#42996975
Uloborus
We do love America, but I don’t think we’re the party trying to fuck it.
ppcli
@Nutella: OK, no snark. Those two photos tell a frightening tale. Just make a poster with those two pics side-by-side and Newt wouldn’t even be able to get 27% of the women’s vote in a straight up or down contest.
debit
@bkny: Thank you! And I did find the clip you mentioned, here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/#43013853
pablo
Newtie…Paul Ryan’s mentor.
Josie
@kdaug:
From your lips to the gods’ ears.
bkny
@debit: debit … thanks! i thoroughly enjoy watching that clip..
debit
@bkny: Tweety was just unrelenting. I could hear the unspoken plea in that Politico reporter’s voice, “Come on, let me weasel on this, don’t make me say it.” but he just kept pushing until she crumbled. I love him when he’s on, I just wish he’d be consistent.
Dennis G.
@JGabriel: Well, he does have a 1960s Batman teevee villain vibe…
Robert Waldmann
Calling Gingrich “the professor” is just stating a fact. He is a former professor and out of date titles are often used. Yes the complete phrase is “the former professor” but that’s not always done.
It is entirely possible to be a professor a grifter, a liar and a hack. Personally I am a professor and a moocher (I am actually serious — you have no idea how little I work). There are a whole lot of professors in the world and many are not very bright and not very curious and … well I’ve never met one as depraved as Newt, but that’s because I have never met a person as depraved as Newt.
You did miss one high spot. In “Language as a tool of …” Gingrich pretty much said that he uses 1984 as an instruction manual. It is well worth reading (even if I can’t remember the full title). In it Newt explains that he drops buzz words. The suggestions for how to convince people are not suggested arguments — they are lists of words to work into what one says.
pablo
@ppcli: Done!
JPL
@Nutella: What a transformation. Newt’s first and second wives might be the lucky duckies after all.
Omnes Omnibus
@asiangrrlMN: Makes me think of this.
Mike
I guess the real question is going to be whether Gingrich violates the 11th commandment and goes after his fellow Republicans. If he does, that will end up being very interesting, indeed.
And for those of you missing Trump’s racist rants, don’t worry, the Newt is calling Obama the “food stamp” president. You didn’t think the GOP would actually back away from the Southern strategy, did you?
JPL
@Robert Waldmann: If you take away Newt’s adjectives, he has nothing to offer.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: He probably has an adverb or two. Unless, by taking away his adjectives, you give him nothing onto which to stick an “ly.”
Forrest
Hell, Newt deserves the nomination, after all, the GOP has been the party of Gingrich since about 1992. Trump, Huck, Palin, all of these pathetic grifters pale in comparison. Everything that went terribly wrong in this country can be laid at Ol’ Newtie’s feet. His perfected invective of demagogue-ing the Democrats to the point of making them inhuman has become the standard by which all Republicans politic, thus making governing impossible. Think of all the grifters and theives that ran the house of representatives for 12 years, all hand picked by Newt. Party of Reagan indeed.
theflax
@Robert Waldmann: Except, formally, Gingrich was never a professor: he never earned tenure (he was either denied or never went up for promotion, in part because he never published–a key requirement for tenure.) We can call him ‘the assistant professor’ at best.
JPL
According to the AJC Political blog Newt’s speech in Macon also had this gem… link
Hopefully, Gingrich’s staff are paid overtime because they are going to be busy.
maya
@Omnes Omnibus: You mean like: The jolly,jowly jingoist the Republican Party so Gingrichly deserves?
Nutella
@bob h:
FSU has some openings in the
KochEconomics department where he’d be more than welcome.Jay C
@bob h:
Yes.
SATSQ.
However, even though fleeting and dreadfully occasional, I have seen a few glimmers of hope for the “MSM” lately. I think that, despite their inbred myopia, blinkered parochialism, and utter incapacity for seeing anything but Republican rule as the norm, it’s starting to dawn on The Village that the contemporary GOP has run seriously off-the-rails, at least as far as Presidential politics are concerned; and that their facile old habits of talking-points reportage aren’t going to cut it any more.
I think the Donald Trump “candidacy” will prove to be the tipping point. Yeah, 18 months out is an eon in politics, and it’s far from unusual that the earliest stages of a campaign will bring out a gaggle of retreads, wingnuts and clown acts trying to hog the limelight for a spell. Some drop out, some flame out, some slog on through to the convention; but eventually a “Serious” candidate gets chosen, and the process gets back to “normal”
But The Donald’s meteoric rise (however temporary) in the polls, and his equally rapid implosion, has I think, pointed out a glaring flaw in the narrative: this time round, the retreads, wingnuts and clown acts are all the GOP has , and The Village find themselves stuck in the (to them) unenviable position of having to defend them. Or worse, stick up for Democrats…
Cacti
Here’s the problem I see for all of the GOP candidates, but that are especially pronounced for Newt.
Obama won with a coalition of:
Liberal and moderate whites
Women
Youth
Blacks
Latinos
In which of these groups will Newtie hope to make any inroads? He’s hard right (moderates), anti-choice and a serial filanderer (women), old (youth), and already blowing the southern strategy dog whistles (blacks). If he courts Latinos, he alienates the teatard primary vote.
Where is his path to victory?
boss bitch
So when Obama comes off as “professorial” in his speeches or statements, in the media’s eyes its a bad thing. When Newt does it, its a good thing? its a cute pet name?
huckster
@maya:
They deserve him because they are him. He is the mirror into their souls
huckster
@theflax:
Newt wanted to donate his “papers” to the U of West Georgia (my alma mater, and the college that denied him tenure, mostly because he spent all of his time running for office, and was, even then, a fatuous gasbag) with the condition that they name a building after him, they refused.
Think I’ll donate some money to the Alumni association
maya
@Cacti: He’s heavily counting on Diebold and state voter exclusion legislation of all of the above.
Uloborus
They’re not for or against intelligence or professors, per se. Obama is ‘professorial’ and that is bad, because he is calm and polite and tries to make people understand things. Newt is the ‘professor’ because he is an expert at spinning bullshit and a ruthless politicker. Those are very good and admirable traits to the pundit class.
maya
@boss bitch: Send $14.95 for a free copy of the Media Pundit Official Election Rule Book, 2012 ed., to: [email protected]
Kane
I find it fascinating how Republicans all have these wonderful reputations that the media repeats without question. Chris Christie is “popular.” Newt Gingrich is “the idea man.” Romney is “the economic wiz.” Paul Ryan is “serious.” Jeb Bush is “smart.” Sarah Palin is an “energy expert.” John McCain is a “maverick.” And every young Republican is a “rising star.”
Nevermind that there are no examples of popularity, great ideas, economic wizardry, serious proposals, signs of intelligence, energy expertise, maverickiness or signs of stardom. The narrative of these individuals possessing these attributes is more important than actually possessing these attributes.
Allan
@Nutella: Reminds me of Oscar Levant’s quip about Doris Day:
cmorenc
@bob h:
It used to be lots easier for utter cranks and nutjobs to get tenure at the more obscure local branches of state universities or less-competitive private colleges than it is now, when Starbucks in every major city has baristas with Ivy league Phds still hoping to get offered instructor gigs at similar-flight schools. I remember back in the early 70s, there was one tenured history professor at Pembroke State University in North Carolina whom I’d occasionally run into when I was visiting my hometown of nearby Lumberton. This professor had the peculiar notion that all of the truly important historical events in western world history had happened prior to World War I, and the several times I ran into him, he never failed to invent some way to weave that idea into the conversation, no matter what else we were talking about.
If Newt couldn’t get tenure at a small less-competitive college in Georgia back in that era, he must have been a real misfit. I could understand that happening in the current era to someone with otherwise stellar qualifications, and even back then tenure wasn’t something even those kind of schools gave out like parking passes, but still….
chris
@cmorenc:
Woot! Pembroke boy here…NC is well represented here at BJ
Nutella
@Kane:
A lot of it just the pathetic laziness of the media.
Going back a few years, Jerry Ford was always presented as clumsy. Every time he stubbed his toe the photo was in the papers. I think it’s because he seemed a bit bland and the first personal thing they happened to notice about him was a stumble. So that was it, they had their meme, and everything tiny little thing that supported it was published.
I believe Ford was the only president who had been a professional athlete so he was probably less clumsy than the others but the press always wants a bone-headedly simple story to tell.
Bruce S
Lawrence O’Donnell quoted this rather stinging column by none other than neo-con scion, John Podhoretz on his show. Considering the right-wing source, it’s pretty on-target regarding Newt being off the wall:
(That whole thing should be in blockquotes, but isn’t for some reason – it’s an extended clip from the same piece)
moops
@Cacti:
There is no GOP path to victory in this election. That hasn’t been the point all along.
the big money is going to pay their tithe to both parties, the GOP because of the GOP loyalty to the plutocrat cause, and the Dems, because they still want to buy their legislation.
Obama won’t need to youth vote this time. Which is good, since he isn’t going to get it. Nobody is this time.
catclub
@Bruce S: an earlier commenter asked ” I’ve wondered why Democratic politicians have never called Gingrich out on his bullshit (esp. that anticolonialstic racist garbage). He’s getting a free pass.”
and this is the explanation. The more people get to know Gingrich, the less they like him, so there is no need to analyze his so-called ideas. He will be the Giuliani of 2012.
He has high name recognition and high negatives. But the negatives can go higher.
Draylon Hogg
@91
The Newt. In green tights and hood. Skin tight bri-nylon. With a domino mask and a crest. And Adam West kicking ten bells of shit out of him.
ZOWIE!
Mind it’d be a tight contest between Newt and Burt Ward as to whose sleaziest.
catclub
is “The Professor is on the move” a reference to professor Moriarty? Call me slow… or call me Ishmael.
kimalanus
@The Dangerman: They buy more equipment. Duh. Eventually, they are buying stuff they don’t need to farm land they don’t have… Wait.
dennis boie
@AlladinsLamp: If you would do this kiss good by the rest of the country goodby. Republicans have proven you can’t eliminate revenue, spend like children with way too much allowance, and try blame everyone who actually can run a government for their failure. They get back into office on a promise of creating jobs, then do nothing at all about anything, they have excelled at taking vacations. P Ryan came up with budget plan that is supposed to be a fresh new approach, it turns into the same old crap. He spends money on defense with no holds barred, lower tax’s on the wealthy and raises tax’s, and cut’s proven fiscally sound programs for the working class. He punishes the elderly, disabled, poor children, hungry babies, and doesn’t even blush. He tells everyone he is screwing that it’s really good for them in the long run.