Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
by DougJ| 70 Comments
This post is in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute
Bobo and Bobo with extra Jesus both come out against Newt today.
I am beginning to wonder if the walk-back Dennis G predicted may not be as complete as I thought. Is it possible that a Gingrich nomination would just lead the VSPs to double down on Bloomberg-Bayh?
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jibeaux
Gingrich has many Very Serious Thoughts about himself, so I’m just going to point you to the gigglefest that is Gingrich’s Very Serious Musings and Doodles. My favorite is this one, with “NEWT Action”
Also, too? “A pattern rather than a single point”? GREAT tag.
mistermix
Sorry, I didn’t get past “lack of Hayekian modesty” to figure out how many words Brooks will have to eat to crank out his inevitable Gingrich endorsement if Newt gets the nomination.
Hill Dweller
Limbaugh, who probably has more influence on the Republican party than the VSP’s mentioned, already preemptively warned the sheep about listening to the establishment.
Egg Berry
what would jesus do?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Democrats should be praying every day that Newt gets the nomination and should refrain from airing any of the dirt until after he’s locked in at the convention.
Linda Featheringill
Bloomberg? Really? Never happen.
Who in the flyover country is going to vote for a mayor of NYC?
jayackroyd
If by “double down” you mean spend even more column inches, sure. Bobo’s teetering perilously today, for instance, with his “wtf! Gingrich?” column.
But they don’t have anyone, certainly not a whinier, New York Jew version of Perot who substitutes condescension for wackiness.
jibeaux
Okay, I’ve read Bobo. Between the Hayekian modesty, Hamiltonian, Hamilton-Theodore Roosevelt strain, and bitching about the ’60s, you can’t tell me he isn’t using an online Bobo Column Generator.
Gin & Tonic
@mistermix:
Everybody who understands this phrase raise your hand.
Brandon
I would love to see that because it is an idea that is a guaranteed loser and even at its most successful, would only ensure a Gringrich presidency by taking votes away from Obama. 27 percenters ain’t gonna vote for those jerks, no way, no how. The walk back will come, believe it. These guys just need to.get on record first so they can do their phony tut-tutting later on the sad state of our politics and how both parties suck, while explaining that we would all be better off if we just followed the Greece and Italy by allowing our betters to install a non-partisan technocratic government with Bloomberg as Prez, Paul Ryan as the kings hand and all cabinent positio s filled by VSPs, Masters of the Universe or Galtian overlords. Then life would be so much better.
mistermix
@Linda Featheringill: You’re right, we need a fusion ticket with a Real American from the heartland on top: Bayh-Daniels, the bi-partisan choice? Or maybe: Bayh-Lieberman, true Independents. Bayh-Roemer would capture the Southern vote, of course. The possibilities are wanktastic.
eric
SO let me get this right: they think a new york jewish “liberal” republican and a former Dem senator are going to have appeal to the GOP voter of today, or that Dems around the country would vote for a republican and republican lite over obama???? insane. beyond insane. Maybe Jeb-rubio or some such fantasy. this shows a tone deafness rivalled only by the firiest of the firebaggers. no way. nu uh. nope.
Aris
To those who think that Gingrich is unelectable and all liberals should rejoice if he’s nominated, I’d like to remind you that Bush 2, an ignorant, inarticulate, incurious, unintelligent and deeply weird man was elected twice. Twice. Please let that sink in.
It happened because the mainstream press did not bother to define him as the unelectable idiot he really was. And Gingrich has several advantages over Bush 2: he’s articulate, his bombast comes across as knowledge and he’s a Washington insider who’s been showing up regularly on all the Sunday shows.
Indeed the fluffing has already begun by the usual suspects. There was a story on NPR’s Morning edition yesterday that took seriously Gingrich’s Dickensian scheme of forcing poor to do manual labor, instead of using repeated screeching and howling to remind listeners that some things have been settled as immoral already. Then again, torturin’ is no longer taboo, so why not press poor (i.e. black) kids into hard labor?
____________________________________________
Schlemizel
@Linda Featheringill:
Not a problem – they don’t need to get a majority to vote for Bloomberg, or for their own bozo. All that needs to happen is for Bloomberg to siphon away 5-10% of the Obama vote (the low information morons who will rightly be repulsed by bozo but still not sure about Obama) and you have 1999 all over again. Coupled with a most excellent voter suppression efforts they won’t even need to call in favors from Fat Tony or his lackey Thomas.
jayackroyd
Odd that Gerson would choose this measure of disqualifying political character:
“A candidate who shot dogs for fun would be disqualified for cruelty.”
The Moar You Know
Bobo comes out of the closet in the very first sentence.
jwb
If Gingrich gets on a roll and avoids fatal forced errors (a big if), he has a much better chance of taking this thing than any of the previous not-Romneys. The VSPs recognize this, and it has sent them into a most amusing panic. I have to wonder what Rove’s play against Gingrich is going to be.
driftglass
Full Massage…but no Happy Ending: in which Our Mr. Brooks suddenly discovers nice things to say about Newt Gingrich (and wraps his mild criticisms in Tiffany boxes):
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/12/full-massage.html
ChrisNYC
Absolute funniest thing about this is that Romney must despise the GOP by now. Right? The other candidates made him their punching bag in 2008. Now, there are daily stories about how he is so unwanted as the candidate. He’s gotta hate them. He’s gonna explode at some point.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Aris:
Personality matters. Bush came across to low-info voters as an amiable doofus, i.e. somebody you’d like to have a beer with. Gingrich comes across as a sort of right-wing version of Al Gore, i.e. an annoying pedant who thinks he is so much smarter than you that you are lucky to be allowed to be in the same room with him, and can’t be bothered to conceal it even for politeness sake. If one of the things voters think about is: “Do I really want to have to listen to this person being on my TV for the next 4 years”, Newt will be doomed.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@ChrisNYC:
While watching the endless parade of clowns each getting a turn at the top of the GOP polls for no other reason than because they Aren’t-Mitt, I keep thinking about all the soiling humiliations that Richard Nixon had to endure, and what it did to him. I wonder how Mitt is taking this all in?
Judas Escargot
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
So does Tribalism: Any GOP nominee starts out with 40% of the vote, for free. As Herr Rove taught is, they only need to get an additional 11% to rule (for they come not to govern, but to rule).
Gods forbid, but one mistake, misfortune or scandal in late October 2012…
Ken
@Gin & Tonic:
I think it means proper humility before our corporate overlords, but it may involve some form of obeisance before the holy altar of the free market. Or both at once.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Aris:
Really, enough with this faux Cansandra act. Anyone the GOP nominates is going to be fluffed and made out to be the new Abraham Lincoln/Ronald Regan by the press. It won’t matter if its batshit nuts Bachmman, Perry the dope, Newt the Grifeter or Mittens the Empty Suite. They will all get free passes from the press.
And 40% of the vote will go to them, not matter what.
Paul in KY
@Aris: The Gore campaign also did a poor job of hilighting what a maroon Bush was.
Pres. Obama will not make that kind of mistake.
handsmile
With the probable exception of Richard Cheney, there is no American politician whom I despise more than Michael Bloomberg. His tenure as “mayor” of New York City has demonstrated conclusively the pernicious operations of a corporatist neo-feudalism that has now become the ascendant political trend within Western “democracies.” Under emperor Bloomberg, this great democratic (small “d”) metropolis has become an authoritarian Disneyland.
Being professional courtiers, of course the Village media long for an aristocracy. But I suspect the presidential candidacy of a divorced Jew from a Democrat-run city in which a lesbo heads the City Council and a Chinaman ostensibly holds the pursestrings would not enjoy wide-ranging political appeal. Perhaps only in those “enclaves” in which Bobo and Sully and the Mustache ply their trade.
Moreover, the billionaire Bloomberg, by no means a stupid man, simply does not have the capital to launch a national third-party candidacy. In his 2009 mayoral reelection bid against the non-entity Bill Thompson, he blew through over $300 million from his counting-house and received only 50.7% of the vote
As for that talking bowel movement, Evan Bayh, this article by Ezra Klein, “The sad, hypocritical retirement of Evan Bayh,” is perhaps my favorite column of 2011:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-sad-hypocritical-retirement-of-evan-bayh/2011/03/10/AB4MZzY_blog.html
piratedan
@Gin & Tonic: maybe this was a name-dropping effort by him to meet at Applebee’s with Salma for lunch?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Judas Escargot:
Of course it does. Hell, I’m the one who is constantly saying on this blog that US politics is the continuation of civil war by other means. Our elections today, now that the Southern Strategy has reached its logical conclusion, will never be the sort of wipeouts that FDR and LBJ, or Nixon in 72 enjoyed. I very much doubt that either major party can get more than 54% of the vote today under any circumstances whatsover. But for the GOP the problem in terms of winning that 11% that they need to get from 40 to 51 is that you have to dip deeply into the pool of people who just don’t care that much and would prefer to tune it all out, in order to get that last couple of percentage points you need to win. And the qualities which animate the GOP base which are giving Newt his current surge in the pre-primary polls are the exact opposite of what you want in a person to appeal to the lowest of low info voters, based on casual first impressions.
W had a huge advantage coming from a major political dynasty with all of the connections and money and staff which that provided, and not really needing to work that hard at being cruel, vicious and nasty in his public persona to capture the GOP base and finish off Johnny Walnuts in the 2000 primaries. A few Karl Rove dirty tricks in the SC primary, lots of money, and shazzam! instant amiable doofus nominee for the GOP, ready to be trotted out as a “compassionate conservative” just in time for the general election. That’s a trick that Newt can’t pull off.
ChrisNYC
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Right, but Nixon at least had the press and elites as the enemy. Mitt is in a death match with his own voters. His acceptance speech in Tampa can be, “My fellow Republicans …. I beat you, you fuckers!”
Gus
No surprise on Bobo. Heard him on NPR months ago say that he wouldn’t hire Newt to run a 7-11.
BGinCHI
WTF?
Bobo is a performance artist, right? He can’t be real.
And btw, it’s “rationale” with an e. Does the NYT even read or edit his fucking column?
Cris (without an H)
I’m thinking of Salma Hayek playing a pole dancer (and muse) in Dogma?
Barry
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: “While watching the endless parade of clowns each getting a turn at the top of the GOP polls for no other reason than because they Aren’t-Mitt, I keep thinking about all the soiling humiliations that Richard Nixon had to endure, and what it did to him. I wonder how Mitt is taking this all in?”
He’s probably not that worried. He’s seen how many ‘Not-Mitt’ candidates soar and crash? He’s probably just making sure that things are nailed down as much as possible, because right now his only real problems are (a) believing the media hype, and (b) screwing things up.
BGinCHI
@handsmile: Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.
AA+ Bonds
Brooks will pull a SCREECHING 180 on Gingrich if he becomes the Republican candidate
BGinCHI
@AA+ Bonds: I wouldn’t even be surprised if he described himself as “pulling a 190.”
Donut
OT, but I’m listening to Luke Russert unquestionably parrot the GOP talking point about how they want to save Social Security from Obama and Democrats, sot that’s why they wanna let the payroll tax cut expire.
Excuse, now I need to go pound my head on my desk so that I will be in the proper frame of mind for cable “news” programming.
Steve M.
I’m more worried about Huntsman/Bayh — the pouty scion is leaving that third-party door open more than a crack…
MattF
Owwwch. DId I just read Brooks saying that Gingrich is a DFH? Head, it hurts.
Gin & Tonic
@BGinCHI: Since “lesbo” isn’t, either, I read that as snark. And good snark, although I prefer “generalissimo” to “emperor” for Bloomberg, myself.
handsmile
@BGinCHI:
You’re out of your element…The Chinaman is not the issue here.
BGinCHI
@handsmile: This isn’t Nam Smokey, there are rules!
BGinCHI
@Gin & Tonic: See Lebowski, Big.
(I’m always tempted to change my handle to Nice Marmot)
somethingblue
@BGinCHI: I’m assuming both “lesbo” and “Chinaman” are in implied air quotes, as the terms likely to be used by 27%ers. Focalized, as the lit-crit crowd likes to say.
schrodinger's cat
@Egg Berry: Hayek was modest? How do we know that?
Maude
@Donut:
He is so stupid. He didn’t bother to read about the general fund. But, he got there by merit alone, amirite?
BGinCHI
@somethingblue: I am the lit-crit crowd.
It’s from a movie and was what we like to call intertextual humor with a side of allusion.
AA+ Bonds
Brooks:
You’d think that Brooks would have a Black Friend or two to run lines like this by before he Blackberried in his column
Tractarian
I used to think this was right, but I’m not sure any more. When I imagine Newt as the nominee, I can’t help but think of all the ways he can implode. I can’t help but think that a strong third-party conservative challenger will emerge.
I can’t help but dream.
ChrisNYC
OT — aaaaand Cain got his Fox job.
schrodinger's cat
My reaction to the GOP clown show.
RSA
Gerson, on moral failings:
I’ll note that Gerson does not include invading a foreign country under false pretenses as an example of recklessness. Similarly, he doesn’t even mention “ethics violations” in his description of Gingrich’s “transgressions”. That is, he comes out against Gingrich, but only for very specialized reasons.
Schlemizel
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yes, this exactly. Add in a “completely reasonable, middle of the road, centrist” ticket & you have a recipient for Bozo 46%, Obama 44% CRMOtR 10% and 4 years of further unbridled destruction of what is left of America.
handsmile
@BGinCHI:
You said it man. Nobody f*cks with the Jesus!
[Ah, intertexuality! This game could go on for quite some time. I’m happy to stop now, but please, the last riposte should be yours….
FYI, a few weeks ago, as part of its “My Favorite Movie” series, the Guardian published an appreciation of Lebowski. Hundreds of delighted and delightful responses, though more than half were simply favorite quotations.]
schrodinger's cat
@Tractarian: Wow a sea of blue from sea to shining sea. Wouldn’t that be wonderful.
somethingblue
@BGinCHI: I have tasted my own medicine and it is bitter.
Linda Featheringill
@Steve M.:
Huntsman/Bayh? Oh, my. That combination might be able to run a decent race. Hmmm.
BGinCHI
@handsmile: Calmer than you, dude. Calmer than you.
DanielX
@The Moar You Know: Now all that’s needed is for Bloody Bill Kristol to come out against Newt, and his nomination is assured.
@handsmile: As to Our Boy Evan (as opposed to Our Man Mitch), count yourself lucky if you don’t live in Indiana. We’ve had to put up with the hypocritical sonofabitch for over two decades. At least now he’s finally come out of the closet and exposed himself as the whore he’s always been.
Paul in KY
@RSA: And includes a Clinton dig to boot.
WereBear
I know, but there are some key differences:
*Bush had a dynasty and a machine behind him. Gingrich can’t even keep staff.
*Bush had access to lotsa lotsa money. Gingrich spends lotsa lotsa money.
*Bush could be sold as a success because no one was allowed to hint that he was a failure. Gingrich is already a known failure; and has thousands of pages about his ethics violations in the public domain.
Mnemosyne
@Aris:
You mean that Washington insiders and the press corps gave a free pass to a guy who was the son of a president and the grandson of a senator, a guy who they had known for years who was one of them?
Gingrich is not one of them. He did not go to Andover. He did not go to Yale and Harvard. He doesn’t have brothers who are also politicians. He’s some dip from Georgia who wants to think he’s part of the upper class, but he’s not from a Good Family like Bush was and he never will be.
Ironically, Romney is from a Good Family even with that Mormon background. He’s one of them, and they’re going to fight to get him the nomination.
JPL
@WereBear: MSM is already crediting him with balancing the budget even though he was fighting for tax cut for the rich.
Mnemosyne
@Aris:
Also, too, Bush was only “elected” once. In 2000, Al Gore got 543,895 more votes than GWB did. The Supreme Court’s intervention handed the presidency to Bush, but to say he was “elected” in 2000 is not accurate since he lost the popular vote.
Special Patrol Group
@Gin & Tonic:
This is what Elitist Fuckhead David Brooks means when he mentions “Hayekian Modesty.”
Just look at all those photos of Hayekian Modesty. So modest. So Hayekian.
Special Patrol Group
Hayekian Modesty!
Paul in KY
@JPL: If we are lucky enough to have him as the nominee, I expect Pres. Obama will ensure people don’t get the wrong idea about Newt’s tenure back then.
SRW1
The typo makes the title just about perfect. Prolly intended.
Sly
Hayekian modesty…
Predicting that the welfare state created by the post 1945 Labour government would inexorably lead to a fascist dictatorship in Great Britain, and situating that asinine prediction as the central thesis of the most over-hyped book of the 20th century, is certainly in keeping with the level of modesty that Gingrich displays on a daily basis.