Antique Map of Africa 1652. Some nice political geography detail around the edge. Pictured are the kings (Rex – Latin for king) of various African nations at the time.
So why did Gingrich suddenly surge past Romney is South Carolina after details of the interview with his ex-wife became known. Steve Kornacki nailed it, The power of conservative victimhood
The question hanging in the air when the candidates took the stage was whether and how the interview that Gingrich’s second wife, Marianne, just gave to ABC News would be addressed. The interview had hijacked Thursday’s political conversation, with ABC teasing salacious details — like Marianne Gingrich repeating on-camera for the first time her claim that Newt had asked her for an open marriage after revealing his affair with Callista — throughout the day and promising to run the full version on “Nightline” after the debate. Would moderator John King bring it up? Would one of Gingrich’s rivals? Or an audience member? Or maybe the former speaker himself? Or maybe somehow it wouldn’t come up at all.
The suspense evaporated when King used the first question of the night to ask Gingrich if he’d like to respond to his ex-wife’s words.
“No,” Gingrich replied. “But I will.”
The live audience applauded loudly. It was obvious right away they had his back. Clearly, Gingrich was ready for King’s question, but he did his best to feign shock and outrage.
“I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for office, and I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that,” he thundered.
At this there was a standing ovation. “Is that all you want to say, sir?” King asked. It was not. Gingrich went on to say that raising the subject was “as close to despicable as anything I can imagine” and to pronounce himself “frankly astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate.” When King protested that the interview had originated at another network and that it had become a major subject on the campaign trail, Gingrich cut him off and roared: “I am tired of the elite media protecting Obama by attacking Republicans.” The crowd was roaring now. It was the strongest reaction they’d have all night.
This is the way conservative deflection has always worked. Those who have tried debating a conservative in person, in a comments section on the net or in a net forum know that with every fact you present there is a deflection. The conservative mind has very difficult time looking in the mirror. Gingrich is all the more interesting as an example because we know that Gingrich has as many faces as any situation requires; per his second ex-wife, “He believes that what he says in public and how he lives don’t have to be connected. If you believe that, then yeah, you can run for president.” The conservative mind thus battered with the facts and the raging hypocrisies of one of its intellectual leaders blows a circuit. All problems magically disappear with the patent pending all purpose cleaner known as the vast liberal media conspiracy to destroy conservatives. As Steve notes none of this grab bag of battered logic has to add up: Conservatives really think Democrats are afraid to face Gingrich or Herman Cain in a general election. The pundits and blogs would pummel newt with his hypocrisy that by extension that of his supporters. That might well be the least of Newt’s baggage. He was the most disgraced House Speaker in U.S. history and that’s saying something. He is a one man gang of organized crime. Unless we find that Newt is made of balsam wood, is hollow inside and find strings that lead back to the evil liberal media elite, he is going to have to explain a lot in the general election or let the barrage of negative ads go unanswered. These conservatives who suddenly see Newt as a victim are in many cases the same ones who just a few days ago were jumping all over him for talking like a 99%er in his attacks on Romney and Bain. One of those critics was the four times married, draft dodging drug addict Rush Limbaugh, who just as suddenly decides to deflect Gingrich’s sleazy personal life back on the librul media, Limbaugh On Gingrich Cheating On His Ex-Wife: ‘Newt’s A Victim’
LIMBAUGH: I got a great note from a friend of mine. “So Newt wanted an open marriage. BFD. At least he asked his wife for permission instead of cheating on her. That’s a mark of character, in my book. Newt’s a victim. We all are. Ours is the horniest generation.” […] That’s from a good friend of mine, “Newt’s slogan ought to, ‘Hell, yes, I wanted it.’” (laughing) I’m sharing with you how some people are reacting to this.
It’s worth noting that Gingrich had been having an affair for several years before he asked “permission” to cheat on his wife.
Excuse me for a minute….i have to grab a hanky…OK I think I’ve recovered enough to carry on…oh the injustice. Sarah Palin is not exactly known for her insights into America or politics, but you swing enough times and eventually you make contact with the ball, Palin Says Interview With Ex-Wife Will Help Gingrich ‘Soar’
PALIN: I call them dumbarses. They, thinking that by trotting out this old Gingrich divorce interview that’s old news — and it does feature a disgruntled ex, claiming that it would destroy his campaign — all it does, Sean, is incentive conservatives and independents who are so sick of the politics of personal destruction, because it’s played so selectively by media, that their target, in this case Newt, he’s now going to soar even more. Because we know the game now, and we just won’t put up with it.
So, good call media! Way to go to covertly hype this, even Gingrich opponents, for being so brilliant they sure are dumb.
Listen here:
In fact, the interview is not “old” but Marianne Gingrich’s first TV interview since her divorce from the former Speaker in 1999, and it does make news about how Gingrich — who often defends “traditional” marriage on the campaign trail — treated his wife of 18 years.
But Palin, who calls herself a feminist, completely ignores the substance of Gingrich’s actions to portray him as a victim of just another tawdry lamestream media smear. “I have a degree” in journalism, she reminded Hannity.
I don’t know that modern conservatives invented the politics of destruction, we’d probably find that goes back to the glory days of the Roman Empire. Though it is certainly the case that the conservative movement has used the politics of personal destruction as a base for advancing its agenda for decades. Palin herself was the one who said Obama was “paling” around with terrorists in the 2008 election. She has never taken the high road on any substantive issue and her views on Gingrich and the issues involved simply continue that tradition. Something to ponder – as of today Republicans have had 23 debates. In not one debate have any of the candidates come up with a new idea or a policy prescription that has not been proved a failure.
“As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where – where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.”
— Palin – CBS interview with Katie Couric, September 25, 2008
“Believe it or not – this was in the 60s – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse…. Isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.”
— Palin -Speech in Calgary, Alberta, March 6, 2010
“When the American people elected President Obama they gave him responsibility to handle this disaster. He promised to “heal the earth, and watch the waters recede…” or something far-fetched like that.”
— Palin – On the oil spill, May 27, 2010
Pail hates the press because that keep accurately reporting what she says. She reads and simply cannot believe she is as bereft of thought and substance as her quotes make her out to be.
The issue is not the press. Conservatives know this thus the tiresome misdirection and playing victim. The issue is that for the umpteenth time conservatives are not and never will live up to the very rules they made part of politics and the culture wars. This is a great find from Towleroad from a pop psychiatrist (Keith Ablow – formerly employed with that awful lamestream media known as the WaPo, Newsweek and Baltimore Sun) who frequently does commentary on Rupert Murdoch’s anti-American propoganda channel Fox News – Fox Psychiatrist On Newt Gingrich: Infidelity A Sign Of Awesomeness
My theory is that Americans are on a flight from reality. Faced with painful facts—including the precarious state of the economy, the gathering storm represented by militant Muslims, in general, and Iran, in particular, the crumbling state of marriage in this country…..
The fact that we are doing this as a culture is the single most ominous psychological trend we have ever faced. I am not exaggerating.
Now as the TR blogger points out, a whole five days has passed since the urgent proclamation that the crumbling institution of marriage ( divorce rates have held steady at around 43% for about the last 15 years) is among the ” most ominous psychological” trends in America. Now Ablow joins Limbaugh, Palin and the conservative mob at the S.C. debates,
Conclusion: When three women want to sign on for life with a man who is now running for president, I worry more about whether we’ll be clamoring for a third Gingrich term, not whether we’ll want to let him go after one.
4) Two women—Mr. Gingrich’s first two wives—have sat down with him while he delivered to them incredibly painful truths: that he no longer loved them as he did before, that he had fallen in love with other women and that he needed to follow his heart, despite the great price he would pay financially and the risk he would be taking with his reputation.
Conclusion: I can only hope Mr. Gingrich will be as direct and unsparing with the Congress, the American people and our allies. If this nation must now move with conviction in the direction of its heart, Newt Gingrich is obviously no stranger to that journey.
… So, as far as I can tell, judging from the psychological data, we have only one real risk to America from his marital history if Newt Gingrich were to become president: We would need to worry that another nation, perhaps a little younger than ours, would be so taken by Mr. Gingrich that it would seduce him into marrying it and becoming its president. And I think that is exceedingly unlikely.
Does everyone else find that as emotionally moving and logically sound as I do. Rick Santorum seems to disagree with Dr. Alhypocrite, Rick Santorum on ‘Open Marriage’ Allegations Against Newt Gingrich: ‘These are Issues of Character’
Addressing a question today about Marianne Gingrich’s allegations that her former husband, Newt, wanted an “open marriage,” Rick Santorum said ”these are issues of character” but declined to push his rival for further explanation.
“Personal matters are personal matters, but they are matters that are — particularly when you are in public life as he was at the time and the people involved were also in a sense in public life — those issues are issues that people will look at,” Santorum responded.
This is a pivotal moment in politics. Conservatives blinked. Newt may have backtracked, but he said that the kind of capitalism Romney practiced was not good for the country. Conservatives pushed him past Romney in the S.C. polls. Newt is not simply an adulterer he is a sleazeball. Conservatives said that was alright and the wrong done is the medias’ for merely reporting the facts. Adultery and sleazy behavior are now off the table as political issues because conservatives made it so. Well not really, conservatives will pedal furiously and unashamedly backwards as soon as they can use adultery against a Democrat.
Newt Gingrich Secures All Important “Barrens Chat” Vote with Key Chuck Norris Endorsement
For my wife, Gena, and I, we sincerely believe former Speaker Newt Gingrich is the answer to most of those questions and deserves our endorsement and vote.
We agree with our friend and governor of the great state of Texas, Rick Perry, when he suspended his campaign and endorsed Gingrich, that Newt “has the heart of a conservative reformer.” We believe Newt’s experience, leadership, knowledge, wisdom, faith and even humility to learn from his failures (personal and public) can return America to her glory days. And he is the best man left on the battlefield who is able to outwit, outplay and outlast Obama and his campaign machine.
Think goodness for grammar check so Chuck or Carlos (his real name) could find all those adjectives. Chuck is having a I feel your pain moment. He has been married multiple times and has a child from an affair. In many ways a cheesy cardboard cut out of a man. Pretty typical of the weirdness one finds in the conservative movement.
All of these moving testimonials, it is becoming a very emotional day for me. There is one little implausible piece to The Fairy Tale of Newt, America can’t stand him
Unlike Mitt Romney, who occasionally beats President Obama in general election poll match ups, Newt Gingrich trails far behind President Obama in every survey. But just how bad are Gingrich’s unfavorable among the general public compared to Obama and Romney?
Not every poll releases their full results, so here are the most recent favorability results I could find for Obama, Romney, and Newt.
Those big green bars is the negatives area are Newts.
For those liberals who are still genuinely infatuated with Ron Paul a find by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Irony Of American History
I’d like to think that the Confederate Flag in the back was photo-shopped. At any rate, what’s amazing is the frame here–It’s not the firing on federal property that inaugurated the War, it’s Bull Run, or some such. It’s as if I punch you in the face and then accuse you of bullying me after I get the crap kicked out of me. Except worse.
At least he’s against the drug war…
Video of Ron with that symbol of treason is at the link.
Who is the greatest enemy of capitalism and a genuine free market economy that rewards work and innovative minds. Conservatives have been competing for that title for several decades. Romney has just become one of the most visible symbols – Mitt Romney Wouldn’t Know a Free Market If It Bit Him on the Ass
The lion’s share of the wealth Mitt Romney accumulated during his years at Bain Capital was extracted not only by laying off workers and raiding their pensions, but by using what conservatives call “big government” to redistribute wealth from taxpayers to Bain’s investors and partners.
Bain Capital was not in the business of creating jobs, or even saving companies over the long-term. Its model had a relatively low rate of success; a study by Deutche Bank found that 33 out of 68 major deals cut on Romney’s watch lost money for the firm’s investors. Its richest deals made up for the flops, however, and Bain’s partners were guaranteed hefty fees regardless of how the businesses they “restructured” ultimately performed.
Romney is another Bush 43 without the fake ranch. Bush ran three businesses into the ground and still came out ahead thinks to daddy’s friends. Romney ultimately came out ahead because the business deals were structured in a way for him to make a profit whether the rewards were earned or not.
The Long Goodbye 