World comes to a halt as Republicans take to the stage in Iowa to debate future of humanity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ah, yes, there was a Republican debate last night in Ames. Good times. Maybe if I weren't on vacation I would have cared. (I was too busy watching The Makioka Sisters -- a stunningly beautiful film.)

Or maybe not.



No, no, let me be serious for a moment.

Did last night's debate mean anything? Well, not as much as Saturday's straw poll -- which won't really mean anything either, though it will clarify both public and insider GOP perceptions and possibly even help separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say.

Not that we don't already know what's wheat and what's chaff.

Romney is wheat. He's the national frontrunner -- though doubts remain on the right (if not venomous opposition from conservatives and other Tea Party types, and he may have a fairly low support ceiling.

Bachmann is also wheat, or at least what passes for wheat these days in the GOP (and on the far right generally). She's a serious contender, craziness notwithstanding.

Other than that?

It's amusing to see Santorum and Gingrich try to convince us we should take them seriously. Do they take themselves seriously? Of course. Do they know they've become joke candidates without a hope of winning anything other than the political equivalent of a Razzie? Maybe -- if they're being honest with themselves, but one doubts either one is capable of such self-effacing honesty.

It's also amusing to see more of the Bachmann-Pawlenty spat. T-Paw, lagging far behind in the polls (not even doing well in Iowa, so close to his Minnesota home), is still so desperate for attention that he's taking the gloves off, as they say, hopeful of emerging as the compromise candidate (particularly liked by the Beltway punditocracy) between the establishmentarian, business-oriented Romney and whoever ends up leading the charge from the radical right, either Bachmann or Perry (or both). Yes, I suppose he still has a shot. Yes, it's a long, long one. And he doesn't stand a chance against Bachmann in their little ongoing feud.

Pawlenty death watch: He'll "reassess" matters if he does poorly in Ames. Now there's a nice, lovely euphemism for "make up some self-aggrandizing excuses and get the hell out."

Perry life watch: It looks like he'll take the leap on Saturday. Not that he's trying to upstage the Ames straw poll or anything. No, of course not.

Cain? Yes, he took time out of his busy schedule scapegoating Muslims to grace us with his presence.

Paul? Hey, did you know he really hates government and much, much prefers the Hobbesian state of nature?

Huntsman? Oh, yes, Huntsman the Formidable, as I've dubbed him. He remains to me and impressive figure, an old-school, Reagan sort of conservative who in other, saner times would have been the clear GOP pick. Now? Not so much.

Wait, you want substance? Come on, you all know how it went. Obama is the satanic incarnation of anti-American evil. And taxes are bad, so very, very bad!

(But if you want some helpful fact-checking, check here. Needless to say, there was some fastness and looseness going on last night. What else is new?)

Besides, that spat is what seems to have gotten the most attention.



And, overall, it does now seem that civility in this Republican field is a thing of the past. As Slate's John Dickerson explained:

The debate had the makings of a serious discussion about leadership,
what form it should take, whether the candidates have demonstrated it,
and how it should be applied in Washington. However, this discussion
took place in a roller derby where that underlying theme was obscured by
people trying to bruise and batter each other. Criticisms and veiled
critiques broke out into the open among candidates desperate to avoid
being eliminated from consideration. In the end, there was a lot of arm
flailing. Everyone went round and round, and the lot of them wound up
where they had stood before the debate began.

Fight, fight, fight! Isn't that what we all crave -- what really gets us going? Who cares that the global economy is imploding or that our civilization is crumbling? Or that it's this right-wing ideology, so much on display last night, that is one of the main causes of our present (and future) crises?



Politics is a bloodsport.

And now, on that note, I'm going to go sit out on the deck and read (about something that has nothing to do with American politics circa 2011).

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This day in history - July 21, 1925: High school teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution

By Richard K. Barry

In Dayton, Tennessee on this date a high school teacher was found guilty of teaching evolution. Yes, John T. Scopes was found guilty of teaching science. (That's Darwin to the left, by the way, not Scopes).

So, where do the current crop of declared and potential GOP presidential hopefuls stand on teaching science in our schools?

Michele Bachmann has said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other and that schools should teach intelligent design as an alternate explanation for the origins of life.

Tim Pawlenty thinks that creationism should be taught alongside evolution, which is Sarah Palin's view.

Rick Perry supports teaching creationism in Texas public schools.

Rick Santorum is a creationist, obviously.

To his credit, Newt Gingrich seems to have a more nuanced view (hell, let's give him credit for something).

Mitt Romney, also to his credit, once said that while he "believed that God designed the universe and created the universe," he also believed that "evolution is most likely the process he used to create human beings."

Even those who want to support science see the need to equivocate in order to keep a large segment of the conservative base happy.

All in all, things really haven't changed that much.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Pants on fire

By Capt. Fogg

The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

Article III of the U.S. Constitution

There is no Supreme Court in the American Constitution.

Newt Gingrich

Really, Newt? Are you really a history professor? Do you really think we're that stupid?

It's getting hard to tolerate the stench coming out of the pre-primary Republican cesspool; from presidential candidates getting government funds -- our tax dollars -- to teaching people how to pray away the gay and advocating the use of federal might to stamp out all forms of pornography frowned on by their frowning religion and to legislate and limit and punish our personal relationships -- while griping about too much government interference and too much spending and too much social engineering. It's getting damned hard to tolerate morally, mentally, and ethically bankrupt creeps like Newt Gingrich, who is quite happy to feed the malignant idiocy now consuming the remnants of our Republic by telling us that our constitution does not "mention" much less provide for a Supreme Court, Article III of the Constitution notwithstanding. 

We now have this entire national elite that wants us to believe that any five lawyers are a Constitutional convention. That is profoundly un-American and profoundly wrong,

lies the moral multimillionaire elitist with the million dollar line of credit at the jewelry store and a string of illicit mistresses and abused ex-wives. That's profoundly un-American and profoundly wrong and profoundly Republican. But of course anyone who thinks the highest court is an extra-legal ad hoc assembly of five self-appointed members foisted on the public by "elitists" and with no constitutional authority can hardly be considered an elitist of any kind unless there's a ranking of candidates according to their ignorance and mendacity and greed. Perhaps Newt just forgot that the Supreme Court justices are approved by Congress or perhaps he's just a lying tub of septic scum who thinks he's entitled by birth and party affiliation to feast on the corpse of America.

You can fool some of the people all of the time: you can fool a lot of them in fact. They're called Republicans. They're called perverts, they're called liars, thieves, embezzlers and saboteurs.


(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Right-wing evangelical theocrats love them some Rick Perry

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Republican presidential field is still embarrassingly weak (and even more embarrassing because the best Republican candidate by far, Jon Huntsman, isn't really catching on at all), and there is still a good deal of talk about some savior coming to the rescue.

With Huckabee not running this time, social/religious conservatives perhaps more than any other core Republican constituency seem to be driving that talk. Much of the rest of the party is already represented, after all, particularly the moneyed establishment (Romney) and the Tea Party (Bachmann, Paul). The theocrats only have Santorum, a distant also-ran with zero electability, and Gingrich, a joke of a candidate who's in it to glorify his ego and fill his coffers, and also Bachmann, though she doesn't seem to be what they're looking for.

The so-called "social conservatives" (actually moralizing right-wing evangelical theocrats) used to be a powerful force in the party, if not the dominant one, but they've been reduced to a bit of an afterthought, even though they still wield enormous influence at the grassroots level. And so it would be foolish to ignore them.

And who are they now looking to as their savior? Why, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, of course, who has done a great deal to appeal to them, presenting himself as their kind of theocrat. They're pushing him to run and no doubt he'd be a formidable candidate if only for their support. Could he actually win the nomination? Maybe. Or maybe he'd be the #2. (How does Romney-Perry sound?) Either way, social conservatives aren't about to let this election cycle pass without trying to wield their influence, and they may just be able to do that through Perry.

For more on this, see Amy Goodman's piece at Time: "Christian Right leaders have sought to find a new – preferably electable – candidate to carry the social conservative banner." They've picked Rick Perry.

WARNING: GOP presidential candidates cause brain damage, coma & media-assisted suicide during CNN debate

By Nicholas Wilbur

What an embarrassing performance by the Republican presidential candidates during the CNN debate Monday evening. 

The voting public's general lack of enthusiasm for any one candidate was reinforced by their anti-Obama bandwagon harping – blaming him for everything from Bush's bailout to the price of tea in China (it's cheaper) – and their hollow promises to right every alleged wrong that this country has ever seen. They offered nothing but clichéd, tired, and overly rehearsed talking points about how much they love our troops, how much they sympathize with those effected by the recession, how much they worry about their children and grandchildren, and how much of a better job they would do if they were president.

ChristianPost

We are no closer to a Republican candidate than we were yesterday, and if the debates continue to provide no more than political platitudes and make-believe prescriptions for solving the country’s problems – if the candidates can't go beyond promising blanket repeals of everything Obama has done – then they are securing their own fate as uninspiring, unelectable, and unqualified talking heads. This was a waste of time.  

I'm sure I am not alone in feeling dumber for having tuned in to this poor excuse for a debate. 

My reactions to the debate, in reverse order, via Twitter:

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann is using multi-syllable words during CNN debate: "vital," then falls back on "the," to," "it," "I."

@MuddyPolitics:Pawlenty, in answering question about bringing home U.S. troops from Afghanistan: I just want to say thank you…

@MuddyPolitics: Coming up: withdrawal or don't withdrawal troops from Afghanistan? expect mass anti-Obama lectures. 

@MuddyPolitics: Santorum's only chance in 2012 was to have a presence at the debates. He doesn't. He's done.

@MuddyPolitics: Summary of #CNNDebate #GOPdebate : get rid of the courts, the federal government & Congress – that is, the U.S. government. Problem solved.

@MuddyPolitics: Cain doesn't believe in the 14th Amendment. Must have consulted Palin on that answer. #GOPfail 

@MuddyPolitics This is weird to say, but Ron Paul is the most sane, most realistic of the bunch. I know...I know... #oxymoron 

@MuddyPolitics: Ron Paul: protect our borders, not those between Iraq and Afghanistan. 

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann stands for life, and gets a round of applause. No pro-death candidates so far... 

@MuddyPolitics: Bachman: I've fucked up 5 of my own children, 23 foster children. Poor bastards. 

@MuddyPolitics Santorum: we need 2 look @ the authenticity of a candidate – throws Romney under the bus, & for good reason. #abortion

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann would consult "commanders in chief" over DADT. Past presidents?

@MuddyPolitics: Pawlenty says, "I was in a union." He just lost all his chances of winning the nomination. 

@MuddyPolitics: Cain doesn't know what "right to work" is.

@MuddyPolitics: Newt's second accusation of Obama policy being "stupid"

@MuddyPolitics: Pawlenty's only valid quote of the night: "We live in the United States of America." True...true... 

@MuddyPolitics: Santorum mentions "trickle down." #GOPfail

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann uses her hands a lot when talking. Especially when talking about liberals. #CrazyArmCircles

@MuddyPolitics: Paul: I have no uplifting metaphors, just boring details. Hence my popularity.

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann "We're going to win...President Obama is a one-term president!" 

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann: Tea Party is a group of "disaffected Democrats." hahahahahaha

@MuddyPolitics: Newt cites Heritage Foundation. Bravo! 

@MuddyPolitics: Romney: "I can't wait to debate him." Declares he's the GOP's nominee!!! 

@MuddyPolitics: I think American Idol is more stimulating than this. 

@MuddyPolitics: Ohhh... #Obamneycare comes up. Mitt says he'll overturn #Obamacare. Goes on defensive about Romneycare. Hilarious.

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann "will not rest" until she overturns #Obamacare ... 

@MuddyPolitics: These aren't candidates, they're candidebts. Intellectually speaking. 

@MuddyPolitics: Ron Paul says Federal Reserve caused the financial bubble. Government's fault. Duh. & people don't understand. Duh. 

@MuddyPolitics: Ron Paul can't think of anything Obama has done to boost the economy... wow... 

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann says: "I filed my paperwork today to seek the office of the president today." Today she did that. 

@MuddyPolitics: Newt: "They ought to start creating jobs." Great details so far in this debate.

@MuddyPolitics: Romney pulls "Pelosi/Reid" card in demagoguing Obama." FUCKING ORIGINAL!

@MuddyPolitics: Romney gives kudos to Pawlenty for recognizing that the president needs to go. BRILLIANT! 

@MuddyPolitics: CNN asks, where were the jobs after Bush's tax cuts? Pawlenty doesn't answer, but talks to time limit.

@MuddyPolitics: Santorum says "I'm...uh...not...uhh...wait...what was the question?"

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

So long, Newt Gingrich. It's been a train wreck.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I never thought The Newt ever had a realistic shot at the Republican presidential nomination, for a variety of reasons that I'll get to shortly. But I thought he'd be in the race at least through the early primaries, if only to reinforce the Gingrich brand that has been so profitable to him.

Actually, I'm not sure if I thought that. Given that there's really no good reason for him to be in the race, it was inevitable that his candidacy would flame out. It was just a matter of when.

Even after he challenged Paul Ryan and the new GOP orthodoxy, though, even after he repented and predictably lashed out at the media, refusing to take responsibility for himself (as usual), even when it was clear that his candidacy was doomned, I figured he'd make it into the summer and then bow out (or middle finger out, or somewhere in between) quietly, without anyone really paying any attention, without any sort of eulogy to his catastrophic campaign.

He may still last that long, but it's over, more or less. The headlines say it all:

Politico: "The Newt Gingrich campaign implosion."

WaPo: "Gingrich presidential campaign implodes."

(The word of the day, kids, is implosion.)

NYT: "Gingrich’s Senior Campaign Staff Resigns."

MSNBC: "Senior Gingrich aides resign campaign en masse."

And from the state where it all begins, and where you pretty much have to make your mark if you have any hope of winning it all:

The Des Moines Register: "Gingrich's entire paid Iowa campaign team resigns."

Etc., etc., etc. His top people in Iowa stepped down, but so did his top people in New Hampshire and South Carolina. This was indeed massive.

Now, was this because his staffers finally came to the conclusion, however obvious to the rest of us, that he has zero chance of winning? And perhaps also because they wanted to back a winner, and to go work for a winner, instead of continuing to ply their trade with a loser?

You'd think so, right?

Well, at the Weekly Standard neocon rag, Fred Barnes claims that the problem was Calista, Newt's (third) wife. Sort of:

Aides to Newt Gingrich have resigned from his presidential campaign in protest of what they felt was a takeover by Callista Gingrich, the candidate’s wife since 2000.

The euphemism offered by departing staffers was they disagreed with Gingrich's "strategy" for the campaign. Indeed, they did disagree. But it was a strategy – a part-time campaign, in effect – that Gingrich's wife favored.

If this is true, it hardly matters that it's Calista who's pushing the strategy. What matters is what the strategy is -- a strategy that pretty much proves that Newt isn't a serious candidate and isn't serious about trying to win the nomination.

And if he's not in it to win it, if I may quote Randy, then what is he in it for? Well, again, it would seem purely for himself, for his brand, to keep his name out there in the media spotlight, to profit from being a national political figure.

This is what he's always been about, ever since he left the House. He's always been tantalizing us, or rather his supporters and others who follow him and erroneously think him a serious man who deserves our attention (like those in the media associated with the Sunday morning talk shows), with the prospect of running for president. That's partly how he's been able to remain relevant, if only to the media, as well as to build his self-serving brand into a sort of mini-empire of profitable egotism.

I was somewhat surprised that he jumped into the race, as I didn't think he would, but his lack of seriousness as a candidate, if less so as a partisan policy advocate, proves the point. This is not about winning, this is about self-promotion, about marketing, about what it's always been about.

For whatever reason, his top people decided it was time to go. And it's clearly not just because of his wife, or even mainly so. Here's Politico:

Gingrich was intent on using technology and standing out at debates to get traction while his advisers believed he needed to run a campaign that incorporated both traditional, grassroots techniques as well as new ideas.

One official said the last straw came when Gingrich went forward with taking a long-planned cruise with his wife last week in the Greek isles.

There you go. His team wanted him to run a campaign that could succeed, while he only wanted to keep his star aloft. Period.

**********

I wrote that I'd get into the variety of reasons he doesn't have, and never has had, a realistic shot at the Republican presidential nomination. But do I really need to?

Aside from the fact that he's an egomaniacal blowhard who's only in it for himself, he has way too much baggage, way too many strikes against him, not least at a time when the Tea Party and other GOP constituencies on the right are imposing litmus tests on all Republicans -- and particularly on those with presidential aspirations.

Newt's a conservative, to be sure, but he's had to make all sorts of concessions along the way, like most legislators do, and he's just not conservative enough for today's Republican Party. Consider what he said about Ryan's draconian, anti-Medicare budget plan. He was right. It is "radical." It is "right-wing social engineering." It is "too big a jump." But look how much trouble that got him into. He may not have such problems to the degree Mitt Romney does, but he has said enough and done enough throughout his career to place him on the wrong side of GOP orthodoxy. All it takes is a single transgression. He is man of many.

For my general take on Gingrich, a more thorough examination of his many flaws, see this post.

**********

For what it's worth, Newt says he's staying in the race. He even took to Facebook to make the announcement:

I am committed to running the substantive, solutions-oriented campaign I set out to run earlier this spring. The campaign begins anew Sunday in Los Angeles.

So he's committed to running an unserious campaign with no hope of winning anything. Okay. Whatever.

I suppose he can say his campaign will begin anew, now that he's lost his top people, but there's no way it lasts much longer. He's done.

Tiffany, lobbying, and the corruption of the Gingriches

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you remember that huge no-interest revolving charge account Tiffany gave Newt Gingrich? Well, even with Tiffany's explanation and The Newt's dismissals, the story just doesn't make any sense. It's still not clear how it worked and why the Gingriches needed it (other than to buy lots of really, really expensive jewelry, though they surely have enough money of their own not to need credit there), nor why they seem to have had the account in place, owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to Tiffany, over two years, more than the usual 12-month period for Tiffany's "interest-free borrowing."

Regardless, there's actually much more to the story -- the smoking gun, if you will -- and it makes the Gingriches look even worse. Not just avarious and conspicuously consumptive but unethical and corrupt:

At the same time Tiffany & Co. was extending Callista (Bisek) Gingrich a virtual interest-free loan of tens of thousands of dollars, the diamond and silverware firm was spending big bucks to influence mining policy in Congress and in agencies over which the House Agriculture Committee -- where she worked -- had jurisdiction, official records show.

Filings by Tiffany's lobbyist, Cassidy & Co., and other government records show that the firm's spending on "mining law and mine permitting-related issues" in Congress, as well as the Forest Service, the Interior Department, and Interior's Bureau of Land Management shot up sharply between during the period when Callista Gingrich was chief clerk at the House Agriculture Committee.

Tiffany's annual lobbying expenditures rose from about $100,000 to $360,000 between 2005 and 2009, according to records assembled by the Center for Responsive Politics,  a nonpartisan government watchdog organization.

In other words, it looks like Tiffany may have been paying off Callista Gingrich, a major player on Capitol Hill (particularly in terms of Tiffany's lobbying interests), with what was essentially an interest-free loan for her and Newt.

Newt is denying any wrongdoing, which must mean he thinks there's nothing wrong with a company paying off (or giving gifts to) a Congressional staffer who just happens to be working for the committee the company just happens to be lobbying.

He says it wasn't preferential treatment. But it's pretty obvious it was blatant corruption. (And, yes, he really does seem to hold American democracy in such contempt.)

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Dead candidacy walking

By Carl 

Do you hear the deafening silence generated about the current crop of Republican Presidential candidates?

Indeed, the only buzz about anybody from the right lately has been from two people who are most distinctly UNcandidates: Donald Trump and Sarah Palin.

Newt Gingrich could have generated the kind of buzz that a nominee engenders. He really does have a pretty substantial resume for a candidate, on face: Speaker of the House, author, professor, engineered the Contract With America which was one of the biggest political gambles in history and one on which he placed a winning bet (none of this speaks to the value and/or quality of that resume, you will note.)

Which makes the curious collapse of this shnook's current candidacy all the more mystifying.

The latest? A charge of graft has been levelled at Callista Gingrich, some of which has landed on Newt himself.

Here's the curious bit: how clumsily his staff have tried to spin this: 

Update: I just spoke to Newt Gingrich’s press secretary, Rick Tyler. He said that the deal the Gingriches got was the same one that Tiffany’s offers to anybody else: interest free financing for 12 months. And that all debt with Tiffany’s was paid off within a 12-month period. If there was hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt outstanding for a second consecutive year, which there was, then that was new debt, associated with new jewelry purchases.

Now, as others have said in other places with respect to this story, no one is telling Newt how to spend his money. He wants to buy a half million in jewelry for his trophy wife, that's fine. So is paying for plastic surgery (if you look closely at her). Nothing wrong with that. It's the American way.

What IS wrong is this:

At the same time Tiffany & Co. was extending Callista (Bisek) Gingrich a virtual interest-free loan of tens of thousands of dollars, the diamond and silverware firm was spending big bucks to influence mining policy in Congress and in agencies over which the House Agriculture Committee -- where she worked -- had jurisdiction, official records show.

Filings by Tiffany's lobbyist, Cassidy & Co., and other government records show that the firm's spending on "mining law and mine permitting-related issues" in Congress, as well as the Forest Service, the Interior Department, and Interior's Bureau of Land Management shot up sharply between during the period when Callista Gingrich was chief clerk at the House Agriculture Committee. 

Spy Talk's figures are grossly understated, but you get the drift. There's more than the hint of quid pro quo here. Tiffany does yeoman business in silver. Callista Gingrich's golddigging appetite is for Tiffany jewelry. Newt swaps his wife's work for a couple of diamond necklaces, with no-interest financing.

Now perhaps it's true. I have a credit rating that would qualify me for one of those loans, and I do get such courtesies from other places I shop, like Apple. I don't think I've blown $500,000 on any of those, though.

Now, this story could easily have gone away quietly. You point out that it's not her job any longer, this thing ended in 2006, that under a Gingrich presidency she'll be under much more scrutiny, and that she will never ever do it again. Or words to that effect. People had problems with Hillary being an advocate and a feminist and while she never got around to baking cookies (she did publish her recipe, tho), you go the hint that she wouldn't cause a whole lot of trouble for Bill.

Which proved more true than vice versa.

The kicker, in my opinion, the deathblow in the great videogame that is the Presidential primary process, was Newt saying this on Sunday: 

The way Mr. Gingrich sees it, as he said on "Face the Nation" on Sunday, he's "a guy running for president who pays all of his bills," who lives within his budget and who is in fact "very frugal."

The way some voters out in the rest of America might see it, he's a guy who paid more for jewelry than some people pay for their houses. 

Precisely. No one begrudges Trump his wealth, for example, even if it is built on debt and on the forgiveness of Americans whose taxes subsidized his bankruptcies. He owned or owns airlines, casinos, cologne brands, real estate of untold value, golf courses... well, you get the idea.

Hell, Trump Tower is next door to Tiffany!

Trump would never try to imagine himself frugal or buffalo someone into thinking he was (he might be cheap, but that's a negotiating ploy). 

Add to this faux pas of Gingrich all the anger he engendered from opposing Paul Ryan's plan (and the echoes down the corridor that rejection will have in the campaign next year, whether he is a candidate or not) and any number of paper cuts he's self-inflicted (including his questionable marital fidelity), and you're looking at a man who is dying from the tiny little nicks and dings that become magnified in a campaign run. 

Dead. Candidate. Walking. 

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Gingrich says he's not a "Washington figure" and apparently thinks you're stupid enough to believe him

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Newt, off to an embarrassingly horrible start with his 2012 presidential bid, is trying a new tack:

I'm not a Washington figure, despite the years I've been here. I'm essentially an American whose ties are across the country and is interested in how you change Washington, not how you make Washington happy.

Sorry, not gonna work:

Gingrich was first elected to Congress in 1978, where he remained until 1999, when he resigned both the Speakership and his seat in Congress. In the time since, he's set up a network of organizations (colloquially known as "Newt Inc.") based in Washington. He's made his home in the D.C. suburbs. 

Besides, how is he less "Washington" than, say, Romney or Pawlenty, neither of whom has ever held federal office? (He isn't. Instead, he is, and is perceived to be, extremely Washington, as "Washington" a Republican as there is.)

Right now, Gingrich is just throwing shit at the wall to see what, if anything, sticks. Truly and utterly pathetic.

Newt Gingrich vs. reality

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As The Newt tries more and more to distance himself from his anti-Ryan remarks, he's just making himself look worse and worse -- more and more desperate, more and more pathetic, more and more like a loser who won't be in the race much longer.

He's already lashed out at the media, the standard Republican refrain, but now he's actually denying that he said anything controversial:

Newt Gingrich said today that he wasn't referring to Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) Medicare plan when he uttered the words "right-wing social engineering" last Sunday -- a comment that has earned the former House speaker a barrage of criticism that ultimately let him to call Ryan and apologize.

In a live interview with Rush Limbaugh Thursday afternoon, Gingrich said he hadn't actually criticized Ryan's plan in his Sunday appearance on "Meet the Press," and that he wasn't referring to the Wisconsin congressman when he said those words.

"It was not a reference to Paul Ryan. There was no reference to Paul Ryan in that answer," Gingrich told Limbaugh, who was in the process of gently grilling him about why he used those words in the NBC interview.

Limbaugh asked Gingrich why, then, did he call Ryan to apologize for the remark, if it wasn't made in reference to Ryan.

"It was interpreted in a way which was causing trouble which he doesn't need or deserve," Gingrich said. "My answer wasn't about the budget, and I promptly went back to say publicly that I would have voted for the Ryan budget."

Oh, but The Newt was clearly referring to Ryan's anti-Medicare plan. It's right there in the transcript, or you can just watch it. 

In other words, he's lying to us -- to you. And he must think you're incredibly stupid if he thinks this nonsense will work, that you'll actually take him at his word despite all the evidence against him.

So he's a man of ideas, huh? Really, he's just an egomaniacal buffoon who will say anything, no matter how utterly ridiculous, to save his political ass. Sometimes he's right, like when he calls Ryan's plan "radical" and "right-wing social engineering." But most of the time he's just spewing shit.

Mitch Daniels: Feel the excitement!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Republicans, and specifically those in the party establishment, are understandably concerned. So far the GOP has thrown up a pretty pathetic field of potential presidential nominees.

You've got Romney, who's still trying to prove he's actually a conservative; Pawlenty, who's dull and uninspiring; Santorum, who's best-known for this; (Ron) Paul, who's such a crazy libertarian extremist he scares the god-fearin' crap out of 'em; and Gingrich, who stuck his foot so far in his mouth criticizing Republican wunderkind Paul Ryan's anti-Medicare plan he's been spending the past few days trying to extract it from his ass. Not to mention various forgettables, like Roemer, Cain, and Johnson.

So what are "depressed" Republicans to do? Why, pray for a savior, of course! And look to Indiana:

Top Republicans are increasingly convinced that President Barack Obama will be easily reelected if stronger GOP contenders do not emerge, and some are virtually begging Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to add some excitement to the slow-starting nomination race.

It's a sign of the GOP's straits that the party is depending on the bland, wonkish Daniels for an adrenaline boost.

Mitch Daniels? Excitement? Adrenaline?

Really?

Such is the state of things these days that, yes, Daniels is the GOP's knight in shining armor. Which, let's be honest, isn't much of an endorsement, given the competition. Actually, it's a sign of just how bad things really are.

I've written about Daniels a few times already -- see here, here, and here -- and won't repeat myself here. Suffice it to say that he's not without some serious flaws that desperate establishment Republicans are apparently overlooking. He isn't much of social conservative (he even called a truce on social issues in Indiana) and, while he's certainly got some conservative cred on economic/budget policy, he's shown far too much flexibility in the past, including backing a tax increase -- that just won't fly with the GOP's Tea Party grassroots base, not to mention with the Grover Norquists among the party's anti-tax elite. (And let's not get into his, er, marriage problems.)

So, sure, maybe Daniels can come in and fire things up a bit. But likely not. And I just don't see him pulling it off over the long haul.

But don't despair, Republicans! There's always Michele Bachmann!

(photo)

When Newt fucks up...

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Newt is a real piece o' work. Getting slammed by many of his fellow Republicans for criticizing Paul Ryan's anti-Medicare plan, which has become a cornerstone of Republican orthodoxy, the various stages of Gingrich's response to the criticism has provided us with an open glimpse into the mind of a shameless political opportunist who fucked up badly and is trying desperately to right the ship.

Apologizing to Ryan, and to Republicans generally, on his knees begging for forgiveness, was the partisan price he had to pay.

But a simple mea culpa isn't good enough. Now he's taken to lashing out at the most obvious target, a target the GOP loves to abuse, namely, the media. (Stewart and Colbert both tackled this last night, hilariously. The funniest part may be that Gingrich, claiming it was all a mistake, says that quoting (accurately) what he said, say, in an ad, would be "a falsehood" -- see clip below. Of course, Democrats would be stupid not to quote Gingrich, and it looks like they'll do just that.)

It's not just that he now says he never should have answered the question, it's that he's blaming the media for what happened, that, for the shitstorm of his own making. He accuses Meet the Press host David Gregory, hardly a gotcha sort of guy, of setting him up, as if he'd never ever ever been on that show or anywhere else on TV, as if he was just some innocent victim who had no idea how Washington works. Meanwhile, his press secretary, Rick Tyler, accuses the media more broadly:

The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment's cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won't be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.

It's hard to cram that much incomprehensible bullshit into a single paragraph, but there you go. (Honestly, do you have any idea what any of that means? The "literati" and their "minions"? And the violent metaphors? An "onslaught"? The guy's apparently insane.)

And so Gingrich goes from being Republican heretic to hero in the span of just a few days. But will anyone buy it? I suspect not. His campaign may not be over yet, but he's gotten off to a terrible start and this whole ridiculous episode -- which, remember, started with him actually saying something that made sense and that many of us could applaud -- will stay with him as long as he stays in the race. Even if Ryan and others in the party accept him back, the base won't be so ready to forgive. 

Newt Gingrich makes Allen West look good

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It really does take a lot to make right-wing Tea Party Rep. Allen West (R-FL) look good, but The Newt did just that by calling for the return of so-called "poll tests" and thereby allowing West, a black man, to point out, rightly, that such tests were used to deny the vote to blacks during the Jim Crow era:

THINK PROGRESS: Over the weekend, presidential contender Newt Gingrich came out and said he'd like to see some sort of poll test, throwing out the idea that maybe voters ought to have a certain standard knowledge of American history in order to be able to vote. What are your thoughts on that?

WEST: That's going back to some times that my parents had to contend with... I think that we need to do a better job educating our young men and women in school, but we don't need to have a litmus test, no.

West may be an anti-Muslim bigot, but he's certainly not a self-hating racist. Give him that at least.

And as for Gingrich, well, his utterly appalling proposal speaks for itself. He's supposedly an historian. And apparently he'd like to return to an ugly time in American history to make sure that "undesirables" (to him and the GOP) can't vote.

Gingrich vs. Ryan ends with a KO for Ryan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Gingrich slammed Ryan, calling his anti-Medicare plan "radical."

Ryan retaliated, suggesting that Gingrich is just like "the left."

Other right-wing Republicans, like Nikki Haley and Rick Santorum, sided with Ryan and piled on Gingrich.

And Gingrich, tail between his legs, humbled and humiliated, apologized to Ryan.

This is how it works in the GOP.

**********

I can't say I ever admire Gingrich, but I understood, or thought I understood, why he took the risk of criticizing Ryan's plan (and, for all intents and purposes, the Republican plan). It was opportunistic, a transparent (or so I thought) attempt to situate himself between the party's right-wing mainstream and grassroots on one side and the somewhat more moderate (and rather more pragmatic) establishment on the other, recognizing that Ryan's plan is deeply unpopular, including among many Republicans, and a likely vote-loser in 2012.

But it was also a shot at the leading Republican wunderkind of the day as well as at what has become a key element of conservative orthodoxy, and for that The Newt got crushed.

Elephant Dung #32: After Gingrich slam, Ryan retaliates

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.) 

Earlier today, I blogged about The Newt's criticism of Republican wunderkind Paul Ryan's anti-Medicare plan as "radical," a not-terribly-surprising establishment pushback against an increasingly unpopular right-wing effort.

Well, you knew that wasn't the end of it, and Ryan snarkily pushed back today, retaliating on right-wing talk radio:

With allies like that, who needs the left? 

Ah, so you see, if you're not with him -- Ryan, that is -- you're against him. And if you dare criticize his Medicare-destoying aims, you're really not much of a Republican, and certainly not acceptable to the sort of right-wing Tea Party orthodoxy that Ryan represents. Welcome to the Bolshevism of the Republican Party. If you dissent in any way, you're attacked and purged.

Ryan probably won't run for president, but The Newt is already in the race and, sensing the tide turning against Ryan, is astute enough to distance himself from his plan, a vote-loser in 2012. Or, at least, that's what I think The Newt is up to. He can stress his conservative bona fides on other issues, specifically on the "culture wars," where he can be adequately nativist/jingoist. But as he is trying to have it both ways by appealing both to the more sensible establishment and to the insane Tea Party wing, he isn't about to take up an issue that is backing Republicans into a corner. As risky as it may have been to come out publicly against Ryan, it was something The Newt had to do.

But we certainly haven't heard the last of this, not with Ryan still such a prominent figure (and media darling), and not with the Tea Party holding so much sway at the grassroots level of the GOP. And it certainly should be fun to watch Republicans go after each other like this over an issue that not long ago seemed to be energizing the party and giving them something to fight for in the budget battles with the Democrats. 

That was never going to last, not once people started paying attention to the actual details of the Ryan plan, and now, with Gingrich contra Ryan (and Ryan pushing back, and Santorum attacking Gingrich), we're seeing one of the major splits in the Republican Party begin to deepen. And it's only going to get a whole lot uglier.