(Ben Sargent via GoComics.com)
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To rational observers of his long history of self-destructive bloviation and toxic narcissism, Newton Leroy Gingrich’s newfound “frontrunner” status in the GOP presidential race is a major mystery. The Washington Post, company paper for the political industry, dutifuly untangles how “Newt Gingrich Inc…. went from political flameout to fortune“, detailing the recent career of a professional con artist whose main distinctions from Sarah Palin are a larger vocabulary and a fatter rolodex. None of the repellant details collected in John H. Richardson’s August 2010 Esquire profile have become any less squirm-inducing. And yet, Triumphant Newt is the media’s, and perhaps even the GOP primary voter’s, candidate of the hour.
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It may just be the political version of Wall Street’s “greater fool” theory. Greg Sargent was deliciously sarcastic about Politico‘s breathless claim that “It’s nearly impossible to overstate how much Newt Gingrich’s resurgence can be traced to how strongly Republicans think he’d fare in mano-a-mano debates against President Obama“:
… Newt’s credentials as an intellectual heavyweight are entirely unearned, and… GOPers nominate a megalomaniac like Newt at their peril.
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Newt, however, is undaunted. Indeed, as he told us himself the other day: “I have more substance than any candidate in modern history.” If Jonathan Martin’s reporting is accurate, there are a lot of Republican voters out there who are prepared to believe him.
Frank Rich, on Rachel Maddow via NYMag, blames it on Rupert Murdoch: “… I think most of all it’s a practical decision.. throughout the political world, people really, really don’t like Mitt Romney… there’s something plastic about Romney, something off-putting. And fake. And I think the Murdoch empire wants someone who could win.” (Video clip at the link. Why does Rupert Murdoch, and/or his henchman Roger Ailes, hate America?)
The Unlikely Resurgence of A Grossly Swollen AmphibianPost + Comments (54)