(Note: I will attempt to regenerate this from yesterday…love and kisses to Blogger for crashing and blowing up this post…)
I have to admit that I was a bit surprised by the news that disgraced former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich finally decided to go “all in” for the Repug 2012 presidential nomination, but based on
this, he has (I mean, I thought he was doing so well in his role as pundit/consultant/right-wing media personality…a move like this will only dredge up a whole bunch of stuff that will remind voters how truly awful Gingrich was when he held public office).
And as part of that effort, I hereby offer the following:
As noted
here…Gingrich dismantled the committee system that had evolved in the decades following the revolt against Speaker Joe Cannon in 1911. He reduced committee staffs, diminished the authority of committee chairs, and reached around ranking Republican committee members to promote his loyalists, ignoring the established seniority system. The chairs he put in place were required to take loyalty oaths, making them an extension of the leadership office. Gingrich also reserved a large number of desirable committee appointments for freshman he helped elect in 1994. The result was a shift from a “committee-based process” to a “partisan leadership-based process.” Power that had been diffused among committee chairs was and remains concentrated in the leadership.
Continuing…
Here, he waited for the voters to come to him in 2008 asking him to run (they didn’t, as it turned out…the post tells us more on the fundraising tactics of Gingrich that are now boilerplate for the Repugs as a party).
Here, he said we need “a different set of rules” to fight terrorism, uttered the mindless tautology “Real Change Requires Real Change” and advocated for funding science and R&D even though he proposed funding cuts in those areas during his ruinous term as House Speaker.
Here, he “quoted poetry, studies, historians, Greeks, (and) the moderns” over dinner with Paul Wolfowitz while Rummy aide Steve Herbits tried to get Newt and Wolfie to come up with a way to convince Dubya in’04 that “deadlines have their virtues” when it comes to our troops in Iraq here (from “State of Denial” By Bob Woodward…made even more ridiculous when you realize that he bailed on serving our country here).
Here, he called for a “space-based, air traffic control system” along with other stuff like redirecting oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, cutting the census budget, establishing national “right to work” legislation and making English the official language…and speaking of language, Gingrich referred to Spanish as “the language of living in the ghetto” here.
He was promoted as an “idea factory” by Matt Bai of the New York Times here and here (notice the story doesn’t say good ideas).
Here, he said he thought he was “closer to Benjamin Franklin than George Washington” (not lacking in the ego department, of course).
Here, he blamed the 2009 Virginia Tech shootings on “liberalism” (what a creep).
Here, he wanted to “cut the corporate tax rate from about 35 to 12 percent, eliminate the estate and gains taxes (of course), and implement a two-year, 50-percent payroll tax reduction.”
He said we should “repeal health care” here.
He said Obama “cares more about protecting the rights of terrorists than Americans” here (uh huh, and that’s why he was the president who got bin Laden instead of Dubya or Bill Clinton).
He originally proposed only two months of welfare for women and children who qualified for assistance here (so much for the Beltway mythology that he and Bill Clinton crafted some kind of solution on this way back when…basically, “The Big Dog” had to drag Newt kicking and screaming, as per usual).
Oh, and while Flush Limbore screamed about the so-called “Slaughter solution” for passing health care reform under a “deem and pass” measure through a self-executing rule, it should be noted that, while Gingrich was House speaker, Republicans “soon lost their aversion to self-executing rules (when they took power in that body in 1995) and proceeded to set new records under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). There were 38 and 52 self-executing rules in the 104th and 105th Congresses (1995-1998), making up 25 percent and 35 percent of all rules, respectively (here).
Here, he described the 2010 election as an ideological battle between “paychecks and food stamps,” totally forgetting of course that, at this point, one in eight Americans receive food stamps (and if that isn’t a depressing economic indicator, I don’t know what is).
He said “the world” was happy with the GOP election result in 2010, when in reality, quite the opposite is true here.
As noted here, James Cole, the deputy U.S. AG who received a recess appointment by President Obama (who I recently posted about here) was the guy who unraveled the hidden, interlocking network of non-profits used by Gingrich (popularly referred to as "Newt, Inc.") to finance a jet-setting political lifestyle that, once revealed, forced him from office and brought down a $300,000 fine on his head.
Gingrich said Obama has “diminish(ed) churches and charities,” even though the Murdoch Street Journal, of all places, said here that “President Barack Obama's willingness to keep Bush-era policies on government-backed religious charities opposed by many liberals is helping to woo traditionally Republican evangelical leaders who can influence key blocs of voters.”
He wants to abolish the EPA, as noted here.
He said the U.S. should “go to war with Libya” because NATO “won’t bring much to the fight” here (not surprising I guess for someone who was able to escape military service as noted above).
He called for a ban in response to the imaginary threat of Shia law here.
Gingrich is being bankrolled by Sheldon Adelson, “a casino mogul with legal woes,” as noted here (Adelson is actually a lot more than that; among other things he was the “sugar daddy” behind Freedom’s Watch, a group of Iraq war cheerleaders that also included Ed Snider of Comcast and the Philadelphia 76ers/Flyers).
As an exclamation point of sorts (and perhaps as a bit of a mea culpa for
its fawning coverage), the New York Times also took the proverbial stroll down memory sewer with the recently-declared-for-president nominee
here.It really tells you something about how pitiful the executive field is for the “loyal opposition” and the party currently in charge of the U.S. House that someone with Gingrich’s toxic history is actually taken seriously, but that is where we are. And I’m sure we can look forward to at least another year of bombastic propaganda and self-serving faux moralism from this (among other things) serial philanderer (and
here and
here are updates from yesterday).
God, I hope he wins the nomination!Update 5/14/11: Keep
digging that hole, Newt.
Update 5/15/11:
WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!Update 1 5/17/11:
WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Update 2 5/17/11: Just say
"oops" and get out, Newt.
