I haven’t paid close attention to the news in recent months and I just assumed that some new Fox reality show was all the rage. So imagine my surprise at discovering that not only is Newt Gingrich running for president, he is also winning. While I find the prospect of a Gingrich presidency frightening at best, I would enjoy the intellectual gymnastics that right wing bloggers such as Glenn Reynolds (who has spent the last three years shrieking JIMMY CARTER!) and William Jacobson would be required to perform in order to justify the four year train wreck of a Gingrich administration.
America’s Most Repellent . . .
Posted in Conservatism, Politics.
19 Responses to America’s Most Repellent . . .
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He…is not some pseudo-intellectual, self-important establishment nancy-boy of a “commentator” out to shore up self-delusions of self-importance.
You’re right. While Gingrich is undeniably pseudo-intellectual, self-important, part of the establishment, and full of delusions, he’s no “nancy-boy.”
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Yellow Dog says:
“You care not one whit about the actual Nation. Your “conservatism” is little but a set of self-serving abstractions.”
Thanks, Newt.
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MattSwartz says:
Honestly, I find Newt’s intellect quite impressive. C-SPAN showed him on the stump in New Hampshire, and he was giving incredibly detailed answers to all sorts of technical questions about military hardware, cold-war history, and you-name-it.
There’s a chance that he was getting questions he’d prepared in advance, but even so, it was honestly impressive. If I was picking one of the candidates to represent the US in a quiz show, I’d pick him.
Too bad for him that running the country is about character and horse sense, not just raw computing power.
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Nathan C. says:
I had always subconsciously thought of Clark as a perfumed prince, but it is only now, with the help of harumpf, that I have found *le mot juste* to describe him and his nancy-boy natterings.
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Hunsdon says:
Perfumed prince? I’m sorry, that phrase just leapt out at me. So far as I can tell, the phrase “perfumed prince” was a coinage of David Hackworth, once famed as “America’s most decorated living soldier.” David Hackworth used the phrase to refer to the go-along, get-along generals (and, to be fair, lower ranking officers) who sold their souls for their stars.
David Hackworth was famously dubious about the more enthusiastic adventures proposed by our neoliberal and neoconservative “invade the world” masters. Then again, he’d been down in “the mud and the blood and the beer” and seen the cost of reckless interventions.
The inversion of language here is stunning.
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Wile E. Quixote says:
harumpf wrote:
Of course you find it frightening. He is an actual, pragmatic conservative that might actually bring the real issues out in the open. He, unlike you, is not some pseudo-intellectual, self-important establishment nancy-boy of a “commentator” out to shore up self-delusions of self-importance.
And Newt Gingrich is a pseudo-intellectual, self-important, establishment nancy-boy of a career politician who is out to shore up his self-delusions of self-importance and rake in lots of cash so he can pay off his credit line at Tiffany’s.
You care not one whit about the actual Nation.
Is it the “Nation” you care about or “Das Reich?”
Your “conservatism” is little but a set of self-serving abstractions.
As opposed to the principled “conservatism” of Newt Gingrich, which allows you to take 1.6 million from Fannie Mae for being a “historian”, appear in an advertisement with Nancy Pelosi decrying the threat of global warming and then flip-flop on the issue, cheat on two wives, get married three times, never earn an honest dollar from an honest day’s work in the private sector, never serve your country in uniform while supporting foreign wars, make grandiose promises about a “Contract with America” but never actually deliver on any of them and end up being fired by your own political party for your incompetence.
A real and actual Conservatism is the last thing you want. You might have to earn an honest living then.
If America had a real and actual Conservatism Newt Gingrich would be an untenured gypsy faculty member teaching freshman history at a small community college.
Underneath all of your self-serving abstractions about what a great man Newt Gingrich is, the “Nation” and “Conservatism”, you’re just another Republican nancy-boy who’s totally gay for Gingrich. You don’t want a president, you want a daddy and you’re hoping that he’ll change his mind on gay marriage and dump Callista so you can be Mrs. Gingrich number 4 and buy you pretty things from Tiffany’s. -
tbraton says:
“Honestly, I find Newt’s intellect quite impressive. C-SPAN showed him on the stump in New Hampshire, and he was giving incredibly detailed answers to all sorts of technical questions about military hardware, cold-war history, and you-name-it.”
I was especially impressed by Gingric’s brilliant historical analogy when he compared his campaign’s failure to meet the filing requirements of Virginia’s primary to “Pearl Harbor.” Sheer brilliance. That man certainly knows his history and can make connections not apparent to ordinary men.
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Chris Mallory says:
Four years of Newt would be as bad as the 12 years past of Busbama. Newt isn’t a conservative. He is a statist. I do find it funny to say that under Newt a person would have to find “an honest living”, Newt hasn’t done an honest day’s work in his life.
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CD File says:
I was especially impressed by his correcting Paul on history by repeating what he said. Perhaps he caught himself in a potential embarrassing mistake of educating someone else who was also actually there and looking like the self serving academic that he is.
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maxsnafu says:
It appears that everyone has forgotten the brilliant Newt Gingrich (and his co-conspirator Dick Armey) in 1996 refused to bring up for a vote the Dole-Canady bill which outlawed quotas, preferences and set-asides in federal contracting. His “reasoning”? Newt said the GOP was on the cusp of a “big breakthrough” with Blacks and he didn’t want to abort it. (How’d that work out for ya, Newt?) Newt and Armey thought it preferable to screw their White voter base with reverse discrimination in perpetuity rather than endanger the mythical big breakthrough.
Give him credit though. Permanent anti-White discrimination is now unofficial GOP policy. Not content with favoring Blacks over Whites though Newt has now expanded his anti-White outlook to favoring amnesty for illegals.
All of that said, I hope Newt gets the GOP nomination because he is the candidate most likely to permanently destroy the odious Republican party.
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Algabal says:
How incredibly bizarre that someone would ever choose Newt Gingrich, of all people, as an exemplar of clean, hard-working, middle class values. You are truly a strange little man, harumpf.
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Ben, Okla. City says:
“Newt Gingrich is a stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.” -Paul Krugman
I’d say Krugman nailed that one. Just try objectively looking at the kinds of stupid things Gingrich says. They might sound intelligent when you first hear it, but go back and look at it written down. He makes nonsensical and ahistorical assertions in a very bold and confident manner, so I can understand the fact that he can fool people. But what he’s saying all too often is just ridiculous.
If the “real Conservatives” want this so bad, then maybe its best that we let it happen and repeat the 1964 Goldwater experience. Then we can really get to the recriminations in very short order.
Moderates and Independents will not vote for this man. It’ll be Obama re-elected with a healthy margin of victory.
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the stupid science says:
““Newt Gingrich is a stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.” -Paul Krugman”
Krugman’s setting himself up for some very easy shots with that one. Apt ones, too.
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sal magundi says:
“Krugman’s setting himself up for some very easy shots with that one.”
no he isn’t.
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Harumpf
Always glad to see someone step in the ring and try to defend the nonsense that is Gingrich, Inc. However, ‘a real and actual Conservatism’ is the last thing Gingrich wants. Newt is pretty much a borderline progressive with a Napoleon complex. His supporters have no clue what policies they agree with Newt on, only that ‘he really gives it to the media’ or that ‘he’s a real fighter’ or that he talks about the creeping threat of Shariah Law. Thank God we have Newt to save us from the dreaded 1% of our country who are Mooslims!
It is hard to imagine less coherent reasons to vote for someone. But I’m open to suggestions.
Peace be with you.
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Mens Sauna says:
Paul Krugman is a flesh-and-blood rebuttal of the maxim “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”.
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Sands says:
harumpf,
Are you making Freddie Mac ‘historical consultant’ kind of money to write stuff like that?
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SnowCrash7 says:
There was a time when I was an admirer of Newt. I subscribed to his newsletter, watched his televised course called ‘Renewing American Civilization’. I liked the fact that he was an idea man, even though Bob Dole once quipped that Newt’s ideas could fill a filing cabinet. But his good ideas would only fill a pamphlet
He was always a statist with his deep admiration of the presidencies of FDR and Lincoln. I considered that an idiosyncracy.
However it was years later when he defended the offshoring of American jobs and manufacturing capability. He loved the ‘free trade agreements’ even though they essentially ravaged the American middle class. He also supports the importation of more and more cheap foreign labor via the H1-B visa and giving tax breaks to companies who offshore jobs. Add in his wanting us to be entwined in eternal Mideast wars on behalf of the Israelis and you do NOT have a conservative. You have a corporate meat puppet necon, little different than Romney, Perry and the like. Pass
Of course you find it frightening. He is an actual, pragmatic conservative that might actually bring the real issues out in the open. He, unlike you, is not some pseudo-intellectual, self-important establishment nancy-boy of a “commentator” out to shore up self-delusions of self-importance.
We have got, in part, to the situation we are in because of the snotty self-regard of folks like those at AC. Can;t have the benighted middle class out there in the interior of the country living their lives in complete oblivion to the likes of perfumed princes like you, eh?
You care not one whit about the actual Nation. Your “conservatism” is little but a set of self-serving abstractions.
A real and actual Conservatism is the last thing you want. You might have to earn an honest living then.