[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Four score and two marriages ago... (click to view)
Date: January 21, 2012
As I write this, Jon King on CNN has just announced that New Gingrich has swept South Carolina, and swept the Evangelical vote as well. The fact that this victory comes in the immediate aftermath of the revelation that Newt had actively pursued an "open marriage" with his second wife and current mistress-spouse makes me think that social conservatism is basically finished in America. The larger agenda of the so-called "Christian Right" has been effectively whittled down to only two identifiable policy positions — opposition to gay marriage and abortion — which can now be tacked to the campaign of just about any immoral hack in order to receive a pass. No higher standards need apply.

Gingrich's success in this most Bible Belty of southern states only seems surprising or shocking or hypocritical if one assumes Evangelicals actually take their faith as seriously as they loudly claim to, which of course all statistical evidence suggests they do not. Polls have argued Born-Agains divorce just as much, if not more, than the national average, and have crafted bafflingly inane scriptural logic to excuse this, a sin that Jesus was extraordinarily explicit in condemning. They've also largely made peace with sex before marriage, recreational sex, sodomy (the heterosexual kind, at least), contraception, and a fair bit of promiscuity and adultery, too. In short, Evangelicals neither hold nor practice sexual standards that are that different than the godless American mainstream, just as they have long since ceased to care one way or another about other old-timey sins such as gambling, immodest dress, swearing, and pornography (fun fact! Did you know Gingrich is considered a founding father of online porn?).

The Republicans' stalwart opposition to gay marriage and abortion that pundits so eagerly attribute to Evangelical influence is really best understood as a sort of vestigial so-con tail on what is basically a libertarian-plutocrat party for libertarian-plutocrats who may or may not also happen to be Christians. With homosexuality becoming increasingly tolerated in Evangelical circles (for the obvious reason that it's arbitrary and hypocritical to demonize same-sex relations in their own epoch of anything-goes bedroom morality) it's hard to think that gay marriage bashing is really an issue with any long-term legs. As I discussed in my review of the seminal book No Right Turn, it's almost impossible for a conservative Christian in modern America to not have at least one gay friend, relative, or co-worker, all of which makes it that much harder to be particularly animated by the threatening "otherness" of homosexuality.

Abortion, similarly, has always been much more of a science and ethics question than a strictly religious one, and as our ability to observe and study in-womb development becomes more vivid and revealing, will likely continue to be. The issue already transcends the standard left-right dynamic (even atheist Christopher Hitchens was pro-life on scientific grounds), and its strength as an issue of polarization has just as much to do with unrepresentatively radical pro-choicers exerting control over the Democratic Party as the Christian Right's hegemony over the GOP.

The end result of all this is more politicians like Newt Gingrich. But more politicians like Romney and Obama too, who also would have failed religious litmus tests in earlier eras where genuine so-cons held actual sway. If the 2008 election was seen as some critical evaluation of how far Americans had come on the question of race, 2012 certainly deserves equal historic status for finally settling the age-old of whether or not flawed personal lives can be disqualifiers. The Democrats already  made their position known some time ago, and now so too have the Republicans — their most religious, conservative faction and all. Case, evidently, closed.

Acceptance or indifference does not, however, automatically imply a lack of controversy. Whether or not we regard Gingrich's many marriages — and the adulterous ways they ended — as particularly offensive or scandalous on some base, moral level, they do nevertheless imply a certain level of recklessness and arrogance that may be troubling in a purely secular sense. This is actually the great contradiction of liberalized politics: how does one pass judgement on serious personal misconduct without looking like a prude? The massive applause Gingrich received during Thursday's debate for dressing-down Jon King's "despicable" questions about the Speaker's personal life revealed many Republicans are clearly swinging too far in the direction of self-righteous ambivalence, even if that entails nominating a true joke of a candidate in the process. They're so over sex scandals they'll make their flag-bearer a man who's had so many he makes half the country's skin crawl.

Whether we like it or not, elections are still about more than just ideas, and politicians are more than empty vessels who spout them. Personal trustworthiness, reliability, competence, maturity, and focus remain qualities as desired as fiscal responsibility or international knowledge, but also remain traits that are hard to measure through anything but a person's decidedly human characteristics — including how they've handled themselves in trying private moments. In other words, it's Newt's cruel and egomaniacal conduct in handling his affairs that's actually more worrying and revealing than the affairs themselves, and the single largest reason even a secular, liberal media can keep hammering him over it. And why they will eventually hammer him straight out of the race in the unlikely event he somehow bamboozles his way through the rest of the primaries.

Perhaps someday we'll learn to transcend even this, and declare absolutely everything about politicians' personalities off limits for judgement, just as we have for race, gender, religion, and (now) personal misbehaviour. But I'd be curious to know what kind of America that would be.

[Gunnair]

Although I agree with most here, one aspect that seems to have come up with Newt is the concept of forgiveness, which of course is a primary tennat of Christianity (hate the sin not the sinner and some such) That being said, I wonder of the forgiveness is genuine (well no I don't, I think it's not) or is it an example of conveniance as Newt with all of his personal baggage is the only candidate left that the social conservatives still like. Would Newt be enjoying the maudlin forgiveness of the Bible belt if another candidate (with more acceptable personal morals) was running? That argues for Santorum who is very socially conservative so where the love for Newt comes from I'm not sure.

In the end, it's a real head scratcher for me why social conservatives would go for Newt and not Santorum. Oh right... forgiveness.

[xerxes]

I think the reason the primary voters are going for Gingrich over Santorum, despite Santorum's more consistent morality, is because Republicans only watch FOX news and nothing else, they have got it into their heads that Newt is a genius and a visionary who will humiliate Obama in a debate. Whereas Obama is an affirmative-action president who can't function without a teleprompter.

[Bruce_E_T]

Gunnair wrote:

In the end, it's a real head scratcher for me why social conservatives would go for Newt and not Santorum. Oh right... forgiveness.

I do not think that forgiveness is the primary mover here.

The American voters, in general, must realize they bare "in a situation" and that a bland. classical conservative may safe in maintaining the status quo but will be unable to generate any effective change. The leader of the day needs to show some spark and a streak of creativity and emotion.

I personally believe that in politics personal life and religion should be off the table. A concept that is applied much better in Canada than in the US. Republican or even religious right voters may be able to brush aside the "past" issues here if they are seeing a better future.

Going back to Obama's election. Change and emotion. I can see the same sort of dynamic in Newt so he may be the political type that matches the needs of the hour.

Caretakers need not apply.

[Psudo]

Forgiveness would reasonably apply if there were some reason to expect Newt's behavior to be different in the future than it was in the past (in religious terms, if he repented). I think he is probably too old to have another affair/wife-trade-up, but apart from that there's no real reason to expect his behavior in the future to be substantially different than in the past. Maybe if he thought he'd done something wrong and had spent five years living a new kind of life, but he doesn't and didn't.

I don't think it's much of an election concern, since Obama would clobber him in the general election.

[Gunnair]

I should have made more clear, that the forgiveness factor is not an idea of mine, but one that I'd heard bandied about in the news as well as in some interviews of his supporters.

Curious stuff. I wonder if those same people would forgive Obama for a similar trespass?

[sandorski]

Gunnair wrote:

I should have made more clear, that the forgiveness factor is not an idea of mine, but one that I'd heard bandied about in the news as well as in some interviews of his supporters.

Curious stuff. I wonder if those same people would forgive Obama for a similar trespass?

People like to shoehorn their Religious Belief into all kinds of situations it has no bearing on. It is how they see the "Divine".

[Trenacker]

Xerxes makes a point.

My sense is not that evangelical voters don't care about the social issues you've mentioned, JJ, but that they have a tortured series of justifications for putting some of those aside as they choose their candidate for president.

First, Gingrich appeals as somebody who knows the system, but has apparently spent a lot of time outside it. Regardless of the truth of this perception, it quells the anti-establishment elements who represented much of the hitting power of the Tea Party back in 2010.

Second, evangelicals care very much about issues such as pornography, "public decency" (defined as the primacy of Biblical morality in the public space), and promiscuity, but tend to be far more forgiving when a member of their own community transgresses against their values, both as a matter of mental dissonance and because many have learned that to speak openly about such values brings ridicule that they have a hard time deflecting. Generally speaking, the evangelicals whom I've encountered have a kind of love/hate relationship with "modern media," and believe that it wrecks substantial social havoc in spite of actually enjoying it as much as everyone else. The problem is that they feel guilty afterward and then don't know quite what to do with those sentiments. They feel that there would be social benefit from channeling that media in other directions, but don't see a winning strategy. The important takeaways here are:(A) it seems to be the "thought that counts," meaning that evangelicals forgive their own for immorality of all kinds because they believe there are still shared values in play despite the transgression, and (B) there is a tendency to avoid very explicit attacks on the increasing liberalism from society, not only because conservatives like some of it, but also because they realize that taking the offense has been a very losing strategy. The impact of media is still a major element in the ongoing Culture Wars, and a huge source of the allegations that Christianity in the U.S. is "under attack."

The religious right is still very much committed to the argument that private morality is a reflection of the values that a politician will bring to public office. This was the major theme in their attack on Bill Clinton. The problem is that the religious right also tends to be very thin-skinned: sustaining constant ridicule both for their faith as well as their conservative politics, they tend to want to punish the media for what they regard as its prominent role in aiding and abetting their detractors. This means that Gingrich's canned conspiracy theories play very well. It also distracts from the message the media actually brings to bear.

Another of the pieces of evidence we have confirming the religious right's sentiments on private morality is that personal faith in God is also so important. Conservative protestants may vote for a Catholic, a Mormon, or even a Jew, but significant numbers in all of these communities are very comfortable suggesting that Muslims ought to be denied public office or that their religion ought to "keep out of the way" when it could be emotionally inconvenient. This is partly because most Americans don't seem to actually believe that Muslims share a familiar faith, even though they have largely reconciled differences between Christianity and Judaism. Not even Mormons are feared and disliked to the same extent as Muslims. Lowe's recent decision to pull ads from TLC to appease shoppers reflects the power of this demographic in the United States. That, and the consistent professions of faith by political leaders at every turn, testifies to the fact that most Americans are very uncomfortable endorsing any politician who does not appear to have a certain degree of Godliness. I suspect that this has to do with widespread feeling that the challenges of public office require not only humility, but also measures of moral fortitude and willpower that most folks have the easiest time understanding through a spiritual lens.

[JJ]

Very insightful, Trenacker.

[BartSimpson]

Newt's momentum is founded in that he's the only one of the GOP pack to come out and fight back against his attackers in the media. That strikes a serious chord with a lot of the conservative base who see liberal media bias on a daily basis.

Newt's shutdown of King and CNN showed the man has a spine. Yes, he is not an exemplary husband, but then I'm not sure what of our Presidents ever was.

So in November it may come down to the purportedly reformed philanderer up against the purportedly recovered (and self-admitted) coke head.

[BartSimpson]

Rush Limbaugh weighed in on Newt this morning and while I am no big Rush fan, he makes some very good comments.

Quote:

RUSH: Folks, the Republican establishment is in a full-blown panic. And I -- and I'm not doing an I-told-you-so. This is a giant I-told-you-so. This is a reminder that I will illustrate. I told you this in almost the exact words you heard on television from Republican consultants and establishment people. I told you this was their fear back on November 10th of last year. They are in an out roar, a panic. They are secretly trying to get Mitch Daniels to get back in the race. There are entreaties being made to Bobby Jindal to get in the race. They are panicked. They are scared to death they're going to lose the House and not win the Senate, and I told you on November 10th that's their primary concern. That's why they were apoplectic at Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle getting Tea Party nominations.

It's about the Senate. It's about being in charge of the money. It's not about cutting spending. The Republican establishment is not signed on to the cutting spending business. People ask me, "What do you mean, who is this Republican establishment?" Two things. They don't like conservatives and they're not really all that concerned about spending. They want to be in charge of it. That's who they are. And they are not gonna be in charge of it if they don't hold the House and if they don't pick up the Senate. And that's what they really want. They're not and never have been convinced that Obama can be beat.

Now, Newt has thrown this thing into a tizzy. They don't know what to do. They wanted this wrapped up. They don't understand why it happened. They're blaming all the wrong people. They're blaming their own voters. They're blaming the media. They're blaming stupidity on the part of the voters. They haven't the slightest idea why this happened in South Carolina. It's not too much democracy going on in their minds; they just don't understand it. They don't understand the base of their own party. They resent the base of their own party. They don't understand the passion. I was telling Snerdley this morning, 'cause he came in here, gave me his theory, which I promptly shot down. His theory is that we all owe ABC this, 'cause if it weren't for ABC and John King asking the questions, Newt woulda never been -- and to a certain extent, that's true. But why?

Why did those questions tee Newt up, and why did Newt know what to do with them? Very simple. I've been doing this show for 23 years, and one of my themes from the beginning, from 1988, has been that the American conservative middle class are the ones playing by the rules. They are the ones that obey the law to the best of their ability. They raise their kids. They try to shield their kids from cultural rot and depravity. They try to keep them off drugs. They try to get them into college. They follow as best they can all the rules and they're laughed at and made fun of and they are impugned everywhere they look. They go to the movies, they're mocked and made fun of. They turn on the radio, listen to music, they're laughed at, mocked, and made fun of. They turn on television, watch an average television show, they are laughed at, mocked and made fun of. They open the newspaper, same thing. They've had it. They've been dealing with this for over 20 years, and nobody's fought back for 'em. Not one person ever has fought back for 'em.

The last time somebody actually spoke up in this large a forum, a presidential forum, would have to be Reagan; and Reagan did it not so much by what he said (although he had his moments). He did it by winning. He did it by skunking these people! Since then, the Republican leadership has not seemed focused so much on winning and they sit there and they take it. Whenever their own voters are insulted -- when their own voters are laughed at and impugned and called racists, sexist, bigot homophobes -- the Republicans don't defend them nor themselves because they're scared to death the independents are gonna be upset, or the media is gonna be upset.

So the base of the Republican Party, the voters, have been bottling up for 25 years, a resentment -- an anger, if you will -- that their own party won't fight for them, won't fight for itself, won't fight for what's right. So when Newt gets teed up with these questions from Juan Williams and John King and whoever else and simply says what they've been thinking for 25 years, they say, "Finally!" What they want right now is fight-back, what they want is push-back, what they want is kick-back, what they want is smack-down! What they want is for these people who have been laughing at them and mocking them and impugning them, put in their place.

They're tired of the cultural rot taking place in the country. They're tired of the incessant growth of government and spending. They're tired of it, and they're frustrated as they can be that members of their own party who get elected can't seem to articulate their own passions. Politics is about passion, and the Republican Party doesn't seem to have it! There's always fear of somebody. Fear of the media, fear of Democrats. Well, Newt doesn't act like he's got any fear. So how many wives does he got? "I don't care!" What did he do for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac? "I don't care." What are his national disapproval ratings?

"I don't care! Finally somebody's telling the bad guys who they are, what to do and that we're not gonna take it anymore -- or that we don't want to take it anymore." Now, you can sit there and you can say that that's cockeyed, that elections aren't won that way. Uhhhh, they aren't? Who just won? Who's already leading in the polls in Florida? George Will had a fascinating statistic over the weekend. Mitt Romney -- Mr. Electability, according to the Republican establishment; Mr. The Only Guy That Can Give Us the Senate -- is 9-and-16 in his election career. He's won nine and lost 16. He's nine out of 25. That, they tell us, is Mr. Electability -- and they're sitting around, the base is, and they're saying, "We don't care about this traditional stuff that you care about that's kept you in second place all these years."

It really isn't complicated. But the resentment for the base that the Republican establishment has is obvious, and of course the Republican establishment knows that. They know that the Tea Party is not embraced, that the Republican establishment's trying to marginalize the Tea Party. So really, at least for me, is not hard to understand. Now, there's an abject sense of panic that has set in over, "Oh, no! You mean this race is gonna go on? Oh, no!" Yeah. The race is gonna go on. See, they thought that this would be over before it started. Remember what I told you: They're gonna split the conservative vote and elect the moderate. They were gonna stand traditional theory on its head.

The traditional theory is: In the primaries, you play to your base, you win the nomination; then when you win the nomination and go to the general, that's when you go push moderates like McCain does -- and you lose. They decided, "We're gonna lose from the get-go. We're gonna nominate a moderate. We're gonna take conservatives in our party that we can't stand and we're gonna have as many of them up there as possible splitting vote," in this case splitting the polls, because there weren't any votes until January. But they were hoping the polls would end this race before a vote had been cast. So they welcomed Perry getting in and Ron Paul and Herman Cain and all these people, because it allowed them the opportunity to ridicule them.

I'm talking about our own establishment. Forget the media and Democrats. I'm not even talking about them yet. (We'll get to them in due course.) So the more conservatives the better. The more you can criticize 'em, impugn 'em, but the more important thing is you split the support. Romney versus all the others; Romney by default wins. They were hoping to create psychological attitude that said, "You know what? There's no way. 'Cause if all these guys stay in, Mitt's it. The conservative vote's gonna split itself when the votes finally start being counted and blah, blah, blah." Now look at what happened when you actually start voting! This is why they wanted to make sure the vote didn't count. They wanted it over before this.

Now, if you happened to watch cable TV on Saturday night -- if you have as boring a life as I do and you were watching cable TV on Saturday night (laughing) -- what did you hear? You heard the same pundits. I don't care what network you went to. You heard the same pundits lamenting the same things, worried about the same things (primarily their predictions being wrong), talking about how, "This can't go on. The longer this goes on the worse it is for the Republican Party," and I'm sitting there saying, "What's so bad about this?" There was total shock. Why was there shock? The polling data before South Carolina told us what was gonna happen.

The shock was that Newt won the women vote, he won the independent vote, he won every congressional strict in South Carolina. That was the shock. Everything that they told us Newt couldn't do, he did. Everything they told us a conservative couldn't do, he did. Every bit of conventional wisdom was stood on its head. Every bit of "electability" conventional wisdom from the so-called experts was stood on its head Saturday night, and so pundits and the analysts and the consultants are trying to analyze it and figure it out -- and the best they can come up with is, "We've gotta put a stop to this! If this goes go on, it's gonna kill the Republican Party. Oh, no."

I'm watching this and I say, "Wait a minute. Do you people understand yet you can't control this? You gave it your best shot; you can't control this. In fact, you may be affecting this in ways it wouldn't be happening just by the way you're handling yourselves." I'm talking about media. My question is -- and, look, I'm getting my shared of panicked e-mails, too. Oh, and I'll tell you something else I'm getting. I'm getting e-mails with my own words (not attributed to me) sent to me. That's one of the reasons I'm gonna go back to November 10th and remind you when all this was first predicted. "Rush, there's panic out there! Newt? We're gonna lose the Senate if it's Newt."

"Oh, yeah, really? Yeah? Where did you hear that?"

Now, ladies and gentlemen, for me, a protracted primary that goes on to the convention? Bring it on! The fact that conservatism is gonna be debated? Romney, if he has a prayer here, is gonna have to figure conservatism out. He's gonna have to able to articulate it like he believes it, loves it, and understands it. The one thing Mitt Romney has trouble doing is connecting with his audience. That's why the jokes of him being a Ken doll. He just doesn't connect. The campaign places look great, the flags and the banners and the popcorn and the peanuts are all good, but the, "I believe in an America founded by the founders, and I want America to believe in America that America believes in America and founders believe in America..."

What, what, what? Platitudes aren't gonna get it, and I don't know that... Romney obviously has decided to go after Newt on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. It worked in Iowa with the super PAC ads, but I don't know. I think Romney's problem is really not so much Newt as it is what it's always been: The base just doesn't think he's conservative! That's all it is, and of course that ticks off the establishment. Let me ask you... Oh, you know, we did Operation Chaos. Oh, do you know what? I didn't know this. Nobody tells me anything. Have you seen the George Clooney movie Ides of March? Well, it was up for Academy Awards. (George Clooney, the actor.) It's about Operation Chaos.

The subplot, the first 40 minutes of that movie is about Operation Chaos and how ticked off the Democrats are. Nobody told me. It ends up being a subplot to the movie. Don't worry, I'm not gonna spoil it if you haven't seen it, but Clooney is an incumbent Ohio governor running for reelection and his opponent is gonna register a bunch of Republicans and independents in the primary to come in and vote for anybody but the incumbent. They even have Chris Matthews, a clip of Chris Matthews on MSNBC saying, "Yeah, Rush Limbaugh calls it 'Operation Chaos'" and explain it. It's clear that whoever ran this movie put it together is ticked off at Operation Chaos, so the first 40 minutes of the movie are about that.

It turns out that's not what the whole thing is about. I'm watching this, but my question is: "Did a long, protracted fight hurt Obama in 2008?" Did it hurt him? Did it hurt him? Now, you might say, "Yeah, he started making these bitter-clinger comments. If he hadn't had the media behind him..." If, if, if... The fact of the matter is that thing went down to the superdelegates toss-up and Obama wins and Hillary lost. So it's another bit of conventional wisdom. "We've gotta stop this campaign. Oh, my God. How? We can't have this. Can't have Newt out there. Why, Newt's gonna turn everybody off before it's all over! Newt's just gonna destroy the party. Newt's gonna destroy the party! We've got to stop this."

(interruption) What argument about the general election? I just got through saying... (interruption) Well, what do you think my point is in asking if it hurt Obama? That was a long primary. Did he win? He won! Operation Chaos, we kept it going. We were trying to have Obama exposed; we figured Hillary was the only person in the campaign with the gonads to do it. The press weren't vetting Obama. The whole point about Operation Chaos was to have the truth about Obama come out -- and to have a greater chance of that, we wanted to have the campaign go on. The campaign went on and on and on, a long campaign, and it didn't hurt Obama, did it?

So why is it that a long primary campaign is gonna hurt the Republican nominee? If the result of a long campaign is that this party finally figures out that the only way they have to win this is conservatism, it's a win-win. Let it play out! Don't panic! If Newt is a flawed candidate, it is a long campaign that's gonna show. Everybody is saying, "Newt can't win in the general. He's too flawed." Fine, then don't worry about it! He'll implode sometime in the primary. If he's gonna implode, he's gonna implode! The longer it goes on, the longer he has to implode. I'm just taking their theory and throwing it back at 'em. Why panic here, folks? Everything's okay!

[Trenacker]

Newt is the grand Republican philosopher king -- the man who will prove that his partisans are intelligent merely by association. He is loved primarily for that reason, and sustains that love by feeding his supporters' desire to be proven correct about liberal media bias and hyper-partisanship on the part of the Democratic Party. Put simply, conservatives, and especially conservatives of strong faith, are tired of being constantly told that they are gullible, backwards, hypocritical fools. Oh, and bigots, too. Don't forget bigots. Newt fires back loudly and angrily when such charges are levied, and that's just about enough. This goodwill gives undecided conservatives all the excuse they need to overlook his personal foibles and latch on to the idea that he is going to be their technocrat par excellence. Rush is essentially making that very argument.

Rush's argument, of course, has a great many flaws. First, people played this game before: they played it with Bachmann, with Perry, and in Delaware in 2010. Those individuals proved unelectable in spite of their supposed appeal to the "authentic" wing of the Republican Party. The truth is, the tent is splitting: moderate Republicans no longer want to share the air with the social conservatives to whom Limbaugh is really talking.
The American conservative middle class tends to become animated over "culture wars" issues that lead it to legislate against its neighbors and get bent out of shape about issues that don't amount to a whole hill of beans. Thsy Republican "base" is no longer sufficient to win general elections, only primaries. Besides that, the conservative middle class is happy to endorse big government so long as it is provided to them by their own.

Newt's success should be considered in the context of all those conservatives who complained loudly at being told they could not compare Obama to an ape, arguing that Bush had been subject to similar treatment at the hands of his critics, as well as those who insisted on opposition to Obama's agenda simply on grounds that Democrats had supposedly barred all meaningful legislative progress during the Bush years. Those perceived wounds ran deep, and politics is to a large extent about settling scores.

To be entirely fair to Newt, it wasn't as if JFK had any better a reputation as a good husband, as Bart implies. Then again, while I mightn't have said it seemed to have spoken to Kennedy's character as a politician, it does seem to me that it says a lot with respect to Newt's. I also find it sad (but not strange) that the Right is angry at Obama for being a "pointy-headed intellectual," but doesn't seem to realize that Gingrich is precisely the same.

[Thanos]

Gingrich isn't an intellectual. He's exactly what Paul Krugman called him, "a stupid person's idea of what a smart person sounds like". Gingrich knows shit about anything and it doesn't take much looking into it, like this guy did, to find out what a pandering self-obsessed bloviator he is.

The real Gingrich can be boiled down to this: his own party was so appalled with his ethical behaviour as Speaker that they forced him to step down. And replaced him with Tom frakkin' DeLay. Because DeLay, fer chrissakes, was actually cleaner than Gingrich. That's Gingrich, and the GOP too, in a nutshell right there.

[Trenacker]

Gingrich has the same liabilities that conservatives like to suggest are common to all academics. I don't disagree that he's exactly what Krugman suggested -- "a stupid person's idea of what a smart person sounds like."

[Psudo]

Trenacker wrote:

to speak openly about such values brings ridicule that they have a hard time deflecting.

Clearly this happens.

Trenacker wrote:

Not even Mormons are feared and disliked to the same extent as Muslims.

=[ Nice to know we're the standard of cultural alienation. =[