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Newt Gingrich is obviously in a position where he thinks he has to throw the kitchen sink at Mitt Romney. He also obviously thinks he has to get Tea Party zealots to forget his many years in Washington and make him their insurgent champion.
But it’s getting a little out of hand, as reflected in this report from Nevada by Benjy Sarlin:
After using the Occupy Wall Street playbook to attack Mitt Romney last month, Newt Gingrich is cribbing from the Tea Party’s anti-Obama files, identifying his rival as yet another co-conspirator in a vast leftist plot to destroy capitalism itself. Not a great sign for those Republican strategists who hope Romney’s Florida victory will quickly unite the party.
Addressing fired up supporters in a cowboy-themed Vegas bar on Friday, Gingrich offered a new depiction of Romney as a tool of George Soros who doesn’t respect the Founding Fathers and is little different from Obama himself.
Gingrich mentioned Soros, who gave an interview in Switzerland last week saying he expected Romney and Obama to pursue similar policies, more than a half dozen times in his speech. The billionaire financier received boos and jeers at almost every mention — one supporter shouted out “The Devil!”
I really wish Hunter Thompson, the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, could have lived to write about this scene. Or since this was a cowboy bar, maybe Sacha Baron Cohen could have shown up as Borat and warmed up the crowd with a few verses of “Throw the Jew Down the Well.” [EMPHATIC NOTE TO THE HUMOR-IMPAIRED: No, I am not accusing Gingrich or his fans of anti-semitism; just of being receptive to some lethal intentions towards one particular Jew named Soros. If this reference is troublesome, we could substitute “Throw the Muslim Down the Well,” which would definitely work for a Gingrich crowd.]
Don’t know what Newt will try next, but don’t think he’s gotten around to associating Romney with ACORN just yet. Maybe next week.
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T2 on February 03, 2012 4:48 PM:
As we all had hoped many months ago, the GOP nominating process has been a treasure-trove of hilarity. From Bachmann to Perry to Cain to Gingrich, not to mention the uber-righteous Santorum, the senile uncle Ron Paul and the Extremely Wealthy and very stiff Mitt Romney. Never in the course of modern American politics has such a group of misfits, fools, and extremists been on display. And thanks to our wonderful Supreme Court, they all have enough money to continue to spit at each other for months. Could we ever have believed that a person, an admitted adulterer and a man who his own Partly ran out of town tarred and feathered, would be in a position to win the nomination. Shouldn't anyone named Newt be automatically disqualified? But there he is, getting his final stabs at revenge for the Republican Party that dumped him like a cheap (insert your choice of word). Newt's Revenge Tour 2012...what fun it is.
Trinity on February 03, 2012 5:08 PM:
Ok, all laughs aside...this is seriously disturbing.
Seriously.
SadOldVet on February 03, 2012 5:15 PM:
ACORN is even becoming old news to the reich-wing, some of whom are even aware that it has not been in existence for quite a while!
Perhaps Newt could link Mittens to the newest enemy on the hit list that is called Planned Parenthood! Nah, that would be true and no self-respecting repuknican would believe it.
Ed, I am appreciating your blogs overall. However, you frequently go after Newt with the intensity of a Mittens supporter and I find that disturbing! A long divisive repuknican campaign season is something I would like to see encouraged by those who know that we (the working people) are especially f*cked if middle class Mitt is elected.
KenS on February 03, 2012 5:19 PM:
What will Newt try next? Well, there is the matter of Romney's Mexican heritage. Have we seen his birth certificate?
Decatur Dem on February 03, 2012 5:25 PM:
As long as we're discussing the Newt partisans' "lethal intentions towards one particular Jew", don't forget the sustained drumbeat that Herr Gingrich has maintained against one Saul Alinsky, dead these forty years. Almost nobody in the electorate had ever heard of Alinsky before Newt brought him into the discussion, but he has a usefully Russian Jewish name, and is an eminently qualified member of The Other. Spooky, huh?
DAY on February 03, 2012 5:44 PM:
Coming soon to your TeeVee. A Newt Superpac called "Hebes and Jigs for Mitt."
Dick Tuck would be proud.
rrk1 on February 03, 2012 6:59 PM:
Not being humor-impaired, I can appreciate Ed's characterization of Gingrich's desperation in trying to link Mitt-the-shit to the Jew Soros. Any devil will do for Newt. Newt only knows how to attack, and he should be encouraged to attack all his opponents early and often. Sure, Romney is a stick, worse than Kerry in 2004, but I'm not rooting for him to be Obama's opponent. Neither should any of us in the reality based world, certainly not this blog. All those blue collar Reagan Democrats captured by the Rethugs need a hero. Guess who? It's a thrill to see the unstable Rethug coalition come undone, and Newt is great at making it happen.
Since we really have to have Obama for another four years, distasteful as that is to many of us, let's hope the Rethugs tear each other limb-from-limb on a daily basis. And Newt knows better how to do that than few others alive. He's the fire-breathing dragon of the right, and we should be thankful he's there. All those angry old white folks in the hinterlands of the homeland adore him, and are likely to stay home when ol' stick Mitt gets the nod from the plutocrats. The Rethug traveling circus is really entertaining.
Doug on February 03, 2012 7:55 PM:
"Since we really have to have Obama for another four years, distasteful as that is to many of us,..." rrk 1 @ 6:59 PM.
It's known as Basic Politics 101. Study it sometime, obviously it couldn't hurt. Perhaps the following might be of some help:
When one elects a centrist* Democrat with liberal leanings, one gets a centrist Democrat with liberal leanings. One does NOT get a fire-breathing, (verbal)bomb-throwing radical.
When one elects a centrist Democratic politician with liberal leanings to the Presidency and doesn't elect enough centrist liberal-leaning Democratic politicians to the House and Senate, one gets a centrist Democratic President who has to trim his plans to what WILL get through Congress. It may come as a shock, I know, but the President of the United States is NOT omnipotent, although some HAVE had delusions of grandeur.
I've noticed that others who also find the thought of another four years of President Obama as "distasteful" don't seem to have any idea of what is actually involved in politics. Perhaps it's because they came of age during the reign of George II, but they ALL seem to think that "If George did it, why won't Obama?" Maybe because it really, really isn't a good idea to base your operation of a national government on bribery, fraud, corruption and threats; because what GWB & Co were doing wasn't politics so much as it was organized crime.
If one is NOT going to go the route used by Bush & Co, then one will have legislation watered down, be forced to accept less than one might want and, even, suffer defeats and not get anything at all of what one may want. Frankly, I don't see how Mr. Obama puts up with it.
I mean, didn't we elect a left-wing dictator? Oh, we didn't? Sorry.
Not!
*Centrist in regards to the Democratic Party as a whole
Ernie Lederman on February 03, 2012 8:57 PM:
Hunter Thompson once remarked (in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) that Las Vegas was not a good town for psychedelic drugs because reality itself is too twisted. I think that if Thompson were around today, he’d say that politics is too twisted. How could the good doctor parody that which is a better parody of itself than anything he could come up with? The man would have himself shot out of that cannon without waiting to die and become ashes.
bob h on February 04, 2012 6:45 AM:
I think there is a solid case for Gingrich hanging in there. By Summer, Republicans may have concluded they have nominated the second coming of George Romney, a man whose loose mouth has turned him into a national joke as per last week. This would be reinforced by national polls showing no chance of losing, and a drag on Congressional races. They could be seriously entertaining of throwing him overboard.
beejeez on February 04, 2012 1:13 PM:
Yes, a lifetime Republican who made a billion helping businesses lay off workers is a socialist threat to America.