So, Newt, how's the wife?

What's interesting is that he's not even really trying to hide the lies anymore:

"The House Republican tax-cut plan would create twice as many new jobs at half the cost of the liberal big-spending bill."

On the contrary, it will cost three times as much and not generate anywhere near the number of jobs. Funny how he doesn't see fit to include that information.

The rest of is a load of hooey, of course. Not one actual concrete detail that even remotely makes sense, not to mention completely ignoring his former fervent support of everything he now decries. One wonders why he doesn't get whiplash....

The public is coming pretty close to viewing these Reagan-worshipping, supply-side deadenders that same way they treat crazy people yelling on street corners--let them rant, give them a wide berth, and try to ignore them. They'll always have their 25-30% but remain irrelevant.

Flat Earthers.

Ethel-To-Tilly,

"So, Newt, how's the wife?"

Which one ?

They'll always have their 25-30% but remain irrelevant.

Yeah, but they've scrambled too many brains on this one.

GOP Mandrake: Bush was, uh, and then -- Bush is bad.
Wingnut having spent the last 8 years believing the exact opposite: Uh...[brain zaps out]

Sure, they'll still get the easy reactionaries, ones who were never fully vested in the notion, cynics who know everything they say is a sham (like Newt himself), but Bush will still have others who are attached to his lost cause.

He's been saying that since Sunday. He's going to keep doing that too, so that Jindal or whoever can basically try to tie Obama to Bush.

Gosh I wonder if this will hurt his chances of heading up HHS.

Newt is not the only one trying to link Obama and Bush as big government spenders. I'm rather enjoying it. Bush's legacy takes a hit. The 28 percenters who think Bush was the bees' knees get to clench their fists a little bit more. Lefties get to chuckle at the comparison. And trolls get to bath in their tears.

Geithner's plan doesn't seem much different than Paulson's. Word from Tom Ricks is that we'll be in Iraq until 2015. Bush-Obama might be shockingly accurate.

The Bush-Obama big government, big bureaucracy, politician-empowering, high-tax, high-inflation and high-interest-rate system

Would that be the one the GOP Congress rubber-stamped the entire time it was in charge, Newt? Thought so.

Jackass.

i love it that we get to keep talking about what newt sez,
you know like it means something...

it's kinds like the kids falling in love with "i love lucy" or "the beatles" all over again.

(the last by the way, was a musical ensemble of the sixties and seventies; and the former, a weekly theatrical performance broadcast into the homes of americans during the fifties -- for those of you are recently manufactured cyborgs with limited memory banks)

that newt (and his ilk... hmmm, william krystol, et al.) just keeps gettin' the press.

t'is true... this site oughta be changed to "The Village Monthly"

Geithner's plan doesn't seem much different than Paulson's. Word from Tom Ricks is that we'll be in Iraq until 2015. Bush-Obama might be shockingly accurate. - grinning cat

That's a pretty binary analysis, isn't it? Why not just add that they're both male and have two daughters and call it proof positive?

Actually, Das Noot's strategy makes perfect political sense. If you connect Bush to Obama, you might draw some of the Bush-hating GOPers back into the fold---and by tying Obama to Bush, you get some of the Bush-hating Indies who might have gone GOPer on their ballots a few months ago (but didn't) to swing back Right the next go-around. Besides, tying the two together gives the Hillaryzoid PUMAs a reason to abandon Dem candidates next year.

Yes---the PUMAs are still out there....

What needs to happen now is to tie Das Noot---and Limbaugh, and Bill-O, and Hannity, and all the rest---right back to the very worst images of Bush/Cheney: The enabling of a global economic meltdown; the destruction of America's credibility; the domestic criminality; the war crimes. Force them into the fringe-lunatic mold that they've earned; make them out to be worse than Hitlerism and Stalinism combined....

See, I told you! This is Gingrich's new mantra. He has always believed that you can change reality with a magic phrase that is planted in the brain through constant repetition, whether the idea makes any sense at all or not. 15 years ago when he was leading a Southern conservative takeover of Congress, the phrase he used was "corrupt liberal welfare state." CLWS. It got to be cliche. You'd hear it 10 times or more every speech becuase it gets you three words in close proximity -- corrupt, liberal, and welfare -- that gets people thinking negatively about liberals and liberlism without even knowing why. I wouldn't be at all surprised if conservatives started talking seriously how Republicans need take no responsibility for the Bush years and that his legacy belongs entirely to Democrats. Remember, Republicans think politics is a war to be won not a problem to be solved so don't expect them to be too concerned about hypocrisy, double standards, intellectual consistency or integrity. It does not matter how you play the game only that you win. What better proof do you need that Gingrich himself.

Looks like the conservatives, who just loved bush and couldn't get enough of him, want a divorce. What a bunch of LIARS.

We need to know more about these Mugabe-Gingrich policy proposals. What kind of Milosevic-Gingrich direction do they want to take this country in?

It sounds to me like his message is that he is trying to tie the current financial crisis to Obama, as if it is somehow his fault.

All Obama has been saying is that the Republican way does not work (check your 401(k) if you have any doubt). And he is trying to clean up their mess.

I don't care how big the government is, as long as it works.

"He has always believed that you can change reality with a magic phrase that is planted in the brain through constant repetition"

It's actually not a bad strategy, if reality doesn't starkly contradict what you're trying to do. Then it makes you look like a loon.

Mike

>"make the United States more like Western Europe."

Wow, imagine that! Why would we want to make the USA more like the region with the highest standard of living in the world?

Especially when Podunk Flats Mississippi is soooo much better.

As for those Reaganautic supply siders, we can, now, Laffer at them.

*Geithner's plan doesn't seem much different than Paulson's.* - Grinning Cat

True, but this is a crisis resolution plan, not business as usual. Choices are few.

Bush's foreign policy was nearly non-existent until 9/11. In a crisis, the old plan gets shelved (although Bush's war plan wasn't much different than, say, Napoleon's).

"make the US more like Western Europe"

Somewhere, in a three car garage west of Philly, tears flow. Drexel Hill will be awash.

bert: hilarious reference.

I wonder whatever happened to our old buddy who thought that Dubya had given us the greatest economy the world had ever seen.

Why they ever let a brilliant mind like this go is a mystery to me.

'Cuz it was revealed that Newt has a problem keeping it in his pants, at precisely the same time Republicans were impeaching Bill Clinton for his inability to keep it in his pants. For once, the blatant hypocrisy was too much even for the Republican party, and they were forced to dump Newt.

Were it not for that minor problem, I have no doubt Newt would have stayed in place as the GOP's fearless leader right through to the Dem wave of '06.

it seems like this site spends most of its time (75% of posts) complaining about, or attacking republicans.

i could care less for either party, they both got us into this mess. but does anyone here have any other ideas besides republicans suck / democrats are great? anything?

its convenient to fall back on inheritance of the problem, and simply blame others. but leaders lead. own the problem, dems.

The first job of the conservative movement is simply to tell the truth about how bad these Bush-Obama proposals are

Yeah I saw him take this out for a test run on This Week. I don't even think George Will was buying it.

Bush-Obama? Man! You step away from your computer for 30 minutes and you miss an entire administration! And to attack the Deciderer! Has Gingrich always been a member of the Blame America First, Brie Eating Surrender Monkey crowd? Or is he a recent convert?

The Republican Party has always believed that you can change reality with a magic phrase that is planted in the brain through constant repetition, whether the idea makes any sense at all or not.

Fixed.

"Soft on Communism"
"Tax and spend"
"No one could have predicted..."
"Smoking gun / mushroom cloud"

Yep.

David Bailey: Actually, I think the Repubs would happily have looked the other way at Newt's serial adultery, which they all knew about, if he hadn't led them over a cliff in 1998 by promising that they could win lots more Congressional seats by harping endlessly on Clinton's zipper problems, and making impeachment and Lewinsky the keystone of their policy arguments. When they lost a lot of seats and ended up with egg on his fact, Comrade Newt was escorted to the gangplank.

i could care less for either party, they both got us into this mess. but does anyone here have any other ideas besides republicans suck / democrats are great? anything?

rachel, let me be the first to say: fuck off.

Obviously you either aren't reading carefully enough or you're just spewing BS. Both the bloggers and the commenters on this blog put forth policy decisions and discuss them in detail every single day, while roundly criticizing policies and politics of both the Democratic congress and the Democratic president.

Solutions abound, but we have plenty of time left over to place blame where blame is due.

"its convenient to fall back on inheritance of the problem, and simply blame others. but leaders lead. own the problem, dems."

No, YOU and the Republican Party own the problem. We own the SOLUTION. Deal with it.

it seems like this site spends most of its time (75% of posts) complaining about, or attacking republicans.

i could care less for either party, they both got us into this mess. -- rachel, @ 14:56

Given your preferences and your understanding of politics (and who's guilty of what), you might feel more comfortable on a site which discusses "soft crafts" (knitting, crochet, etc).

The former house Newt instructed his GOP associates to use clever word associations to frame democrat's ideas in less than favorable ways; handed out an instructional pamphlet IIRC. Perhaps he has version 2.0 ready to distribute soon.

God Bless Republicans! The way forward is to demonize the false failed Republican Bush and conflate him with Obama.

Palin/Pawlenty in 2012! Strong Leadership that America Needs!

Am I cynical enough to think that this conflation Newt rolls out might actually work--in Republican strongholds if nowhere else?

"its convenient to fall back on inheritance of the problem, and simply blame others. but leaders lead. own the problem, dems." - rachel

If you read the article a little more closely, you see that Newt is the one blaming others and offering no real solutions. But thanks for playing.

"Given your preferences and your understanding of politics (and who's guilty of what), you might feel more comfortable on a site which discusses "soft crafts" (knitting, crochet, etc)."

Knitting requires using sharp objects. Rachel should probably stay away from those things.

it seems like this site spends most of its time (75% of posts) complaining about, or attacking republicans.

Hey, everybody needs a hobby. Kicking a hobnailed boot into the ribs of a fat, blubbery, whimpering Republican just happens to be mine.

I was thinking that Republicans should make Hopscotch their national pasttime. Got a problem? Hop over eight years and blame it on Clinton. If that won't stick, hop over 12 more and blame it on the hapless Jimmy Carter. And when in doubt hop back to "Start" and blame it on the new guy.

it seems like this site spends most of its time (75% of posts) complaining about, or attacking republicans.

Damn, we much be slacking...given the current GOP clown show -- to say nothing of the past eight years of mendacity, incompetence, corruption and all-around fail -- Republicans deserve a lot more.

I also don't see a lot of "democrats are great" here. Many commenters here have criticized Obama, and the Democratic Congress before him, from the left.

Though admittedly, Republicans do suck.

Thank you for your concern, though.

everybody needs a hobby. Kicking a hobnailed boot into the ribs of a fat, blubbery, diapered, westuit-clad, men's room cruising, page-texting whimpering Republican just happens to be mine.

Fixed for accuracy.

Sorry if someone else made this point.

This just goes to prove that Republican'ts can NOT be both a majority and conservatives.

Thus let us leave them where they are happy, in opposition and a minority party.

... Bush-Obama ...

I suppose that's the natural successor to the Hoover-FDR line they've been trying to push since comparisons of the current crisis to the Great Depression started.

setting aside the rest of the inane statement for second:

high interest rates? huh?

Oo-oo, a Gingrich post.

Speaking of this excellent insight, above: See, I told you! This is Gingrich's new mantra. He has always believed that you can change reality with a magic phrase that is planted in the brain through constant repetition, whether the idea makes any sense at all or not.

Yes. I was particularly struck by one phrase Gingrich floated on This Week, in the Roundtable: "I am concerned," he said with notable delectation, "about the confusion I see in the Obama administration." Look for the delectation when Gingrich shanks an opponent. It's one of his tells.

By the way, uttered just like that. No facts. No anecdote illustrating the putative confusion. George S. just sat there. Will was in hog heaven. Everyone else stared into space.

Just the statement, which I suppose his cohort of nihilists will build on in their building effort to delegitimate a Democratic leadership. Notice that confusion is a useful antonym for complementary efforts to lionize a bankrupt GOP: order, principle, resoluteness, stalwart, determined, strong.

Sigh.

A point our greatest economist, Pat Buchanan, has made. If borrow-and-spend stimulated the economy, the massive deficits of the King of Spenders, George Bush, would have put us in an economy so hot we'd have our first negative unemployment rate. Obama must have taken it to heart when Cheney said that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."

Just more discredited Bush/Reaganomics from Obama.

If borrow-and-spend stimulated the economy, the massive deficits of the King of Spenders, George Bush, would have put us in an economy so hot we'd have our first negative unemployment rate.

What you spend money on matters. Neither cutting taxes for the rich nor spending money blowing things up and killing people is particularly stimulative, so neither the ways in which Bush increased spending nor the ways in which Bush decreased revenues to acheive his massive deficits were things that would stimulate the economy.

Surprisingly enough, the details of policy matter, not just the size of the deficit created by the policy.

Yes, in fact, the Washing Post is really, really not "far left," as any perusal of its stories and editorial page over the past eight years would quite clearly indicate.

A point our greatest economist, Pat Buchanan, has made.

I have to admit, I didn't figure til now that Luther is a parody troll. Well played.

Nothing Changes. If Republicans had real ideas about what to do they could just detail them. This would then be peer reviewed and simulated, but they really never had any details so they just use marketing. This they can do, but America is sobering up from being drunk for 25 years and we all hope our drinking buddies (Newt, Bush, Cheney etc.) just go away.

John D'oh touched on my reaction:

Bush-Obama big government, big bureaucracy, politician-empowering, high-tax, high-inflation and high-interest-rate system

high-tax????
Bush?
Obama is cutting taxes off of Bush in this stimulus package and if Obama's taxes are high, Bush's were huge, and Reagan's were astronomical.

High inflation?
Is he reading the same newspapers Sarah Palin and I read?

High interest rates?
To quote Jon Stewart: "Whaaaaaaaaa?"

Even barring the subjective nature of the word "high", I suspect Newt IS.

All talk I once uttered warning of underestimating Newt I recant with the rosiest complexion coated with albumin.