In northern New York State, they are staging a 21st century version of an American classic, old-time hardball without the Iowa corn.
"People will come," said the prophetic Voice in the 1989 movie. "They'll turn up not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive as innocent as children, longing for the past. They'll pass over their money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack."
In a trance of hope, they are handing over more than $3 million and cheering in the bleachers--new true believers like Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty and Glenn Beck, along with ghosts of old-timey all-stars like Dick Armey, Fred Thompson, Steve Forbes and Rick Santorum, wearing retro uniforms and waving rhetorical pompoms.
A fist fight breaks out, and Newt Gingrich dons his umpire's uniform to be shouted down by Michelle Malkin and a chorus from the cheap seats.
Of course, cynics are baffled. They see all this as only a contest for a GOP House seat vacated by the President's appointee as Secretary of the Army.
"The battle for upstate New York," Frank Rich observes, "confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama."
But Rich and his ilk fail to see the deeper meaning--that the routing of Dede Scozafavva and her gay-loving, baby-killing cohorts from the Republican ranks is a struggle for the soul of America, that rallying behind Clueless Doug Hoffman will bring back the pride and glory of the past.
Scoffers don't understand that New York's 23rd Congressional District has become, in the words of Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham in the movie, "the most special place in all the world. Once a place touches you like this, the wind nevers blows so cold again. You feel for it, like it was your child."
These days, Americans need their fields of dreams so badly that many are paying to be buried in them or have their ashes scattered there. Whatever has been lost in their lifetimes can be found again in the hereafter.
Showing posts with label Newt Gingrich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Newt Gingrich. Show all posts
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Not-Boring Republicans
Say what you will about the post-Bush decline of the GOP, its current shenanigans make Democrats look like the Partridge family. Compared to Obama's solemnity, last night's Washington fundraiser was a hoot.
After rounds of will-she, won't-she speculation, Sarah Palin turned up, not as the keynote speaker but to stroll the stage of the ballroom as the body-language answer to Newt Gingrich's hour-long flood of words.
If the faithful, who donated $14.5 million to the cause, were bored by the former Speaker's logorrhea, they had the option of slipping out to watch Palin on Fox News, telling Sean Hannity how right she was about branding Obama as a wealth spreader.
With her usual eloquence, the might-have-been vice president summed it up, "Kind of a 'We told ya so.'"
In the Washington Post, Dana Milbank reports that in the ballroom, "The master of ceremonies, actor Jon Voight, tried to fire up the minority party with the standard bromides directed at the majority: 'We are becoming a weak nation...Free the nation from this Obama oppression...Bring an end to this false prophet Obama.' The applause was polite but didn't entirely replace the sound of cutlery on china."
Voight may be an apt spokesperson. As a celebrity, he rates a "Is he still alive?" response, and his own daughter, Angelina Jolie, who works for humanitarian change in the world, hasn't been willing to listen to a word he says for years.
Just like the Republican Party and the rest of America.
After rounds of will-she, won't-she speculation, Sarah Palin turned up, not as the keynote speaker but to stroll the stage of the ballroom as the body-language answer to Newt Gingrich's hour-long flood of words.
If the faithful, who donated $14.5 million to the cause, were bored by the former Speaker's logorrhea, they had the option of slipping out to watch Palin on Fox News, telling Sean Hannity how right she was about branding Obama as a wealth spreader.
With her usual eloquence, the might-have-been vice president summed it up, "Kind of a 'We told ya so.'"
In the Washington Post, Dana Milbank reports that in the ballroom, "The master of ceremonies, actor Jon Voight, tried to fire up the minority party with the standard bromides directed at the majority: 'We are becoming a weak nation...Free the nation from this Obama oppression...Bring an end to this false prophet Obama.' The applause was polite but didn't entirely replace the sound of cutlery on china."
Voight may be an apt spokesperson. As a celebrity, he rates a "Is he still alive?" response, and his own daughter, Angelina Jolie, who works for humanitarian change in the world, hasn't been willing to listen to a word he says for years.
Just like the Republican Party and the rest of America.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Empathy Police, Keystone Kops
Charges of racism against Sonia Sotomayor are being reduced to exceeding the speed limit for empathy as Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions instructs former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia on the finer points of demographic discrimination.
In the scramble to discredit the President's Supreme Court nominee, what remains of the Republican Party is being decimated even more by open conflict between elected officials and "mouths" such as Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.
After the former Speaker walked back his twittering about racism, Sessions voiced approval of the retraction to focus on the issue of empathy:
“I firmly believe that many judges on the Supreme Court feel too empowered to impose their personal views while they interpret statutes or constitutions and that’s where we ought to focus the debate. Will she be restrained? Will she simply follow the law and be a neutral umpire or will she be a judge that’s not committed to faithful interpretation of the law, will not subordinate herself to the law?"
This line of attack, a view of robotic judges hewing to the letter of the law and ignoring its impact on human beings, comes with ill grace from those with a heritage of using it to maintain a "separate but equal" society in the South for almost a century--an America where today's president would not have been allowed to vote and where the mixed marriage of his parents was criminal under a "faithful interpretation of the law."
In trying to make "empathy" a dirty word, Republicans may want to look at Dick Cheney, the Radical Right's hero, who is diverging from the party line on gay marriage, presumably because he has some of that undesirable feeling for his own daughter.
If GOP Senators want to vote against Judge Sotomayor's confirmation, they will have to come up with a better rationalization than that.
In the scramble to discredit the President's Supreme Court nominee, what remains of the Republican Party is being decimated even more by open conflict between elected officials and "mouths" such as Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.
After the former Speaker walked back his twittering about racism, Sessions voiced approval of the retraction to focus on the issue of empathy:
“I firmly believe that many judges on the Supreme Court feel too empowered to impose their personal views while they interpret statutes or constitutions and that’s where we ought to focus the debate. Will she be restrained? Will she simply follow the law and be a neutral umpire or will she be a judge that’s not committed to faithful interpretation of the law, will not subordinate herself to the law?"
This line of attack, a view of robotic judges hewing to the letter of the law and ignoring its impact on human beings, comes with ill grace from those with a heritage of using it to maintain a "separate but equal" society in the South for almost a century--an America where today's president would not have been allowed to vote and where the mixed marriage of his parents was criminal under a "faithful interpretation of the law."
In trying to make "empathy" a dirty word, Republicans may want to look at Dick Cheney, the Radical Right's hero, who is diverging from the party line on gay marriage, presumably because he has some of that undesirable feeling for his own daughter.
If GOP Senators want to vote against Judge Sotomayor's confirmation, they will have to come up with a better rationalization than that.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Sound-Bite Coming of Age
Grownups are just children who owe money, said a character in the 1992 movie "Peter's Friends" and now, with the economic crisis, they owe even more and, thanks to 24/7 cable TV, seem less mature than ever.
"Republicans, Let's Play Grown-Up," Peggy Noonan urges in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that "idiots" in her party rise above temper tantrums in opposing Sonia Sotomayor:
"Don't grill and grandstand, summon and inform. Show the respect that expresses equality and the equality that is an expression of respect. Ask and listen, get the logic, explain where you think it wrong. Fill the airwaves with thoughtful exchanges."
As a grown-up White House tries to deal with overheated attacks on Obama's nominee as "racist," thoughtful exchanges are in short supply.
In his weekly address, the President observes, "There are, of course, some in Washington who are attempting to draw old battle lines and playing the usual political games, pulling a few comments out of context to paint a distorted picture of Judge Sotomayor’s record. But I am confident that these efforts will fail; because Judge Sotomayor’s seventeen-year record on the bench--hundreds of judicial decisions that every American can read for him or herself--speak far louder than any attack; her record makes clear that she is fair, unbiased, and dedicated to the rule of law."
But how many Americans will read any of those hundreds of decisions? How many more will make up their minds based on Keith Olbermann's rage about G. Gordon Liddy's radio rant comparing La Raza to the KKK and hoping that "key conferences" of the Supreme Court don't take place "when she's menstruating or something"?
Noonan says, "Comment-thread conservatives, like their mirror-image warriors on the left ("Worst person in the woooorrrlllddd!") are perpetually agitated, permanently enraged. They don't need to be revved, they're already revved. Newt Gingrich twitters that Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Does anyone believe that? He should rest his dancing thumbs, stop trying to position himself as the choice and voice of the base in 2012, and think."
Sounds good, but don't hold your breath from now until 2012 waiting for them all to grow up.
"Republicans, Let's Play Grown-Up," Peggy Noonan urges in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that "idiots" in her party rise above temper tantrums in opposing Sonia Sotomayor:
"Don't grill and grandstand, summon and inform. Show the respect that expresses equality and the equality that is an expression of respect. Ask and listen, get the logic, explain where you think it wrong. Fill the airwaves with thoughtful exchanges."
As a grown-up White House tries to deal with overheated attacks on Obama's nominee as "racist," thoughtful exchanges are in short supply.
In his weekly address, the President observes, "There are, of course, some in Washington who are attempting to draw old battle lines and playing the usual political games, pulling a few comments out of context to paint a distorted picture of Judge Sotomayor’s record. But I am confident that these efforts will fail; because Judge Sotomayor’s seventeen-year record on the bench--hundreds of judicial decisions that every American can read for him or herself--speak far louder than any attack; her record makes clear that she is fair, unbiased, and dedicated to the rule of law."
But how many Americans will read any of those hundreds of decisions? How many more will make up their minds based on Keith Olbermann's rage about G. Gordon Liddy's radio rant comparing La Raza to the KKK and hoping that "key conferences" of the Supreme Court don't take place "when she's menstruating or something"?
Noonan says, "Comment-thread conservatives, like their mirror-image warriors on the left ("Worst person in the woooorrrlllddd!") are perpetually agitated, permanently enraged. They don't need to be revved, they're already revved. Newt Gingrich twitters that Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Does anyone believe that? He should rest his dancing thumbs, stop trying to position himself as the choice and voice of the base in 2012, and think."
Sounds good, but don't hold your breath from now until 2012 waiting for them all to grow up.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Court's "Miss Congeniality" Contest
Heartbreaking news for Antonin Scalia (irony alert): His reputation as the warmest, fuzziest Justice may be endangered by Barack Obama's new choice.
"Sotomayor’s Sharp Tongue Raises Issue of Temperament" is a New York Times headline, reporting the Supreme Court nominee's "occasionally combative manner--some lawyers have described her as 'difficult' and 'nasty'--raises questions about her judicial temperament and willingness to listen."
The message is that Judge Sotomayor is no pussycat. Shades of Lupe Velez, who starred in those "Mexican Spitfire" movies before World War II! Back then, audiences were highly entertained by the antics of an explosive, volatile Latina, who paraded her emotions to comic effect. But those days are long gone, along with the old stereotype of black men as lazy, shiftless Stepin Fetchits...aren't they?
Further down in the Times story, the verdict on Sotomayor is downgraded to "brilliant" and "assertive" with the observation by a male judge, a former dean of the Yale Law School, “Some lawyers just don’t like to be questioned by a woman. It was sexist, plain and simple.”
Be that as it may, the debate over Obama's nominee promises to be as enlightening as an "American Idol" competition, with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich leading the way by suggesting that Judge Sotomayor is a "racist ."
Even if Scalia hasn't, the standup comics have clearly met their match.
"Sotomayor’s Sharp Tongue Raises Issue of Temperament" is a New York Times headline, reporting the Supreme Court nominee's "occasionally combative manner--some lawyers have described her as 'difficult' and 'nasty'--raises questions about her judicial temperament and willingness to listen."
The message is that Judge Sotomayor is no pussycat. Shades of Lupe Velez, who starred in those "Mexican Spitfire" movies before World War II! Back then, audiences were highly entertained by the antics of an explosive, volatile Latina, who paraded her emotions to comic effect. But those days are long gone, along with the old stereotype of black men as lazy, shiftless Stepin Fetchits...aren't they?
Further down in the Times story, the verdict on Sotomayor is downgraded to "brilliant" and "assertive" with the observation by a male judge, a former dean of the Yale Law School, “Some lawyers just don’t like to be questioned by a woman. It was sexist, plain and simple.”
Be that as it may, the debate over Obama's nominee promises to be as enlightening as an "American Idol" competition, with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich leading the way by suggesting that Judge Sotomayor is a "racist ."
Even if Scalia hasn't, the standup comics have clearly met their match.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Health Care on the Back Burner?
Some Democrats are still gun-shy about health care reform, dating back to the Clintons' fiasco in the early 1990s, according to House Majority Whip James Clyburn who, in a C-Span interview Sunday, said he doesn't anticipate comprehensive healthcare legislation in 2009.
Despite President Obama's campaign promises of universal coverage, Clyburn pointed to recent expansion of S-CHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) and proposed additional spending on community health centers as going "a long way to building a foundation upon which to build a universal access healthcare program.
"I would much rather see it done that way, incrementally, than to go out and just bite something you can't chew. We've been down that road. I still remember 1994."
Clyburn's reticence is an echo of what now seems like ancient history--the early incompetence of the Clinton White House, the health insurers' "Harry and Louis" TV commercials and the debacle that gave Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America control of Congress in the midterm elections.
If health care reform is to survive in the economic stimulus debate, Tom Daschle and the Obama Administration will have to depend on the Senate where Ted Kennedy and others seem more determined to keep Americans from suffering and dying "incrementally."
Despite President Obama's campaign promises of universal coverage, Clyburn pointed to recent expansion of S-CHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) and proposed additional spending on community health centers as going "a long way to building a foundation upon which to build a universal access healthcare program.
"I would much rather see it done that way, incrementally, than to go out and just bite something you can't chew. We've been down that road. I still remember 1994."
Clyburn's reticence is an echo of what now seems like ancient history--the early incompetence of the Clinton White House, the health insurers' "Harry and Louis" TV commercials and the debacle that gave Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America control of Congress in the midterm elections.
If health care reform is to survive in the economic stimulus debate, Tom Daschle and the Obama Administration will have to depend on the Senate where Ted Kennedy and others seem more determined to keep Americans from suffering and dying "incrementally."
Friday, October 24, 2008
A Home Run for Health Care?
Under the oddest byline ever, an unlikely trio tells New York Times OpEd readers today how to fix American health care--by applying the expertise of baseball's number crunchers to medical treatment.
A skeptical reader starts with a bit of resistance based on the track record of the authors: Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A's, who finished third out of four teams in their division this year; Newt Gingrich, author of "Contract With America," the failure of which led to an exit from Congress in disgrace; and John Kerry, who couldn't counter the swiftboating that resulted in George W. Bush's reelection in 2004.
How these losers got together, the OpEd editors explaineth not, but the essence of their argument is that computer analysis of treatment will revolutionize the American health care system, which now "behaves like a hidebound, tradition-based ball club that chases after aging sluggers and plays by the old rules: we pay too much and get too little in return.
"To deliver better health care, we should learn from the successful teams that have adopted baseball’s new evidence-based methods. The best way to start improving quality and lowering costs is to study the stats."
Nobody would begrudge more information in any field, including medical treatment, but we may be forgiven for skepticism about the formulations of Gingrich and Beane, two self-promoting reformers without results, and for wondering how staid old John Kerry fell in with this crew.
Meanwhile, health insurers have done enough damage in hampering doctors from using their best judgment and experience by nagging them with cost-benefit analysis, where outcomes are more serious than winning or losing ball games.
A skeptical reader starts with a bit of resistance based on the track record of the authors: Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A's, who finished third out of four teams in their division this year; Newt Gingrich, author of "Contract With America," the failure of which led to an exit from Congress in disgrace; and John Kerry, who couldn't counter the swiftboating that resulted in George W. Bush's reelection in 2004.
How these losers got together, the OpEd editors explaineth not, but the essence of their argument is that computer analysis of treatment will revolutionize the American health care system, which now "behaves like a hidebound, tradition-based ball club that chases after aging sluggers and plays by the old rules: we pay too much and get too little in return.
"To deliver better health care, we should learn from the successful teams that have adopted baseball’s new evidence-based methods. The best way to start improving quality and lowering costs is to study the stats."
Nobody would begrudge more information in any field, including medical treatment, but we may be forgiven for skepticism about the formulations of Gingrich and Beane, two self-promoting reformers without results, and for wondering how staid old John Kerry fell in with this crew.
Meanwhile, health insurers have done enough damage in hampering doctors from using their best judgment and experience by nagging them with cost-benefit analysis, where outcomes are more serious than winning or losing ball games.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Money Pit and Cat in the Well
After pulling an all-nighter, the low-approval gang in Washington this morning will give us their new, improved version of the $700 billion gamble nobody understands but practically all are sure is needed to keep the sky from falling.
The 1980s Tom Hanks movie, "The Money Pit," comes to mind as Congress and the Administration enthuse over the financial structure we're buying with a $250 million down payment that may or may not stand up until their successors move in next January.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi congratulates the negotiators for "the great work they have done" to "insulate Main Street and everyday Americans from the crisis on Wall Street” while Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gets up off his knees to celebrate "a deal which will work and be effective in the marketplace.”
But as the happy couple prepare for the Housewarming, the grumpy former tenant Newt Gingrich stands outside bitching that "it’s probably impossible, without the president getting a new secretary of the treasury, to get to a good deal...We’re taking an immediate tummy ache, and we’re in danger of turning it into cancer.”
So much for the mixed metaphors, but perhaps the most apt commentary might be that of a voice from the past, the 1960s Senate Leader Everett Dirksen, who may or may not have said, "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money."
Dirksen had all kinds of folksy anecdotes to warn about wild-eyed government spending, including the one about the schoolboy asked to figure out how long it would take for a cat that had fallen into a well 100 feet deep to get out if it climbed up one foot and then fell back two feet.
After reams of calculations, the answer was, "If you give me another 30 minutes, I'm pretty sure I can land that cat in hell."
Dirksen is long gone, but he may have a good sense of direction about where Washington spending was heading.
The 1980s Tom Hanks movie, "The Money Pit," comes to mind as Congress and the Administration enthuse over the financial structure we're buying with a $250 million down payment that may or may not stand up until their successors move in next January.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi congratulates the negotiators for "the great work they have done" to "insulate Main Street and everyday Americans from the crisis on Wall Street” while Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gets up off his knees to celebrate "a deal which will work and be effective in the marketplace.”
But as the happy couple prepare for the Housewarming, the grumpy former tenant Newt Gingrich stands outside bitching that "it’s probably impossible, without the president getting a new secretary of the treasury, to get to a good deal...We’re taking an immediate tummy ache, and we’re in danger of turning it into cancer.”
So much for the mixed metaphors, but perhaps the most apt commentary might be that of a voice from the past, the 1960s Senate Leader Everett Dirksen, who may or may not have said, "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money."
Dirksen had all kinds of folksy anecdotes to warn about wild-eyed government spending, including the one about the schoolboy asked to figure out how long it would take for a cat that had fallen into a well 100 feet deep to get out if it climbed up one foot and then fell back two feet.
After reams of calculations, the answer was, "If you give me another 30 minutes, I'm pretty sure I can land that cat in hell."
Dirksen is long gone, but he may have a good sense of direction about where Washington spending was heading.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
The Two Bill Clintons
Soon after he moved into the White House, Bill Clinton was tagged by Maureen Dowd as the first president who was still social-climbing.
After more than two decades of Republican rule, interrupted only by an ineffectual Jimmy Carter, Democrats were exhilarated in 1993 at the prospect of restoring the momentum toward a Great Society that had come to a dead stop after LBJ was undone by Vietnam. Even the early fiasco over health care reform was a sign that the new man cared.
But there was always another Bill Clinton, a Gennifer Flowers-chasing, low-rent undercurrent to his character that emerged to give Newt Gingrich and his merry men an opening for impeachment that hobbled the last years of the second Clinton term.
Then, for almost seven years of his post-presidency, we saw only the good Bill Clinton again, going all over the world to raise awareness and money to help the wretched of the world.
Now, in his wife's campaign for the nomination, here comes the other guy, trash-talking about Barack Obama and squabbling with reporters like a precinct pol rather than a former President of the United States.
Armchair psychology suggests he may be trying to over-compensate Hillary Clinton for the Lewinsky humiliation, but his behavior is not helping her campaign, only highlighting the difference between what he is doing and the dignified reticence of George H. W. Bush during his son's run in 2000.
What's even worse is that all this may giving voters pause at the prospect of having the two Bill Clintons back in the White House.
After more than two decades of Republican rule, interrupted only by an ineffectual Jimmy Carter, Democrats were exhilarated in 1993 at the prospect of restoring the momentum toward a Great Society that had come to a dead stop after LBJ was undone by Vietnam. Even the early fiasco over health care reform was a sign that the new man cared.
But there was always another Bill Clinton, a Gennifer Flowers-chasing, low-rent undercurrent to his character that emerged to give Newt Gingrich and his merry men an opening for impeachment that hobbled the last years of the second Clinton term.
Then, for almost seven years of his post-presidency, we saw only the good Bill Clinton again, going all over the world to raise awareness and money to help the wretched of the world.
Now, in his wife's campaign for the nomination, here comes the other guy, trash-talking about Barack Obama and squabbling with reporters like a precinct pol rather than a former President of the United States.
Armchair psychology suggests he may be trying to over-compensate Hillary Clinton for the Lewinsky humiliation, but his behavior is not helping her campaign, only highlighting the difference between what he is doing and the dignified reticence of George H. W. Bush during his son's run in 2000.
What's even worse is that all this may giving voters pause at the prospect of having the two Bill Clintons back in the White House.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Newt Is Not Running
The reason is simple: The job isn't big enough.
Newt Gingrich’s decision not to pursue the presidency was announced today by a spokesman who explained the former Speaker will deal with “the challenges America faces and finding solutions to those challenges” as chairman of his tax-exempt organization instead.
It’s not that the White House isn’t a pleasant place to live with good perks, but Gingrich would have to give up his tax-free empire, his think tank, his Fox News contract as a commentator, the $40,000 speaking gigs and so much more he now enjoys without all the headaches of actually doing something.
In addition, if Newt had decided to go for it, there would have been pesky reporters asking about his shutting down the government in 1995, impeaching Bill Clinton for office sex while carrying on his own affair and, later, having to pay a $300,000 fine by the House ethics committee.
All that plus the travel, the hand-shaking, the debating with the likes of Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo would have been degrading to a visionary.
Actually, "the presidency is a minor post on the scale of change I'm describing," Gingrich explained to the Washington Post in July.
Instead he will follow the example of Benjamin Franklin. “He didn't think he was less than Washington or Jefferson,” Gingrich the historian explains. “He was deliberately eclectic and deliberately complex, and happy to be so.
“He was pretty interesting. If you had told him, 'If you could have been simple, you could have been president,' he would have said, 'That's pretty stupid.'"
No one will ever accuse Newt Gingrich of being simple.
Newt Gingrich’s decision not to pursue the presidency was announced today by a spokesman who explained the former Speaker will deal with “the challenges America faces and finding solutions to those challenges” as chairman of his tax-exempt organization instead.
It’s not that the White House isn’t a pleasant place to live with good perks, but Gingrich would have to give up his tax-free empire, his think tank, his Fox News contract as a commentator, the $40,000 speaking gigs and so much more he now enjoys without all the headaches of actually doing something.
In addition, if Newt had decided to go for it, there would have been pesky reporters asking about his shutting down the government in 1995, impeaching Bill Clinton for office sex while carrying on his own affair and, later, having to pay a $300,000 fine by the House ethics committee.
All that plus the travel, the hand-shaking, the debating with the likes of Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo would have been degrading to a visionary.
Actually, "the presidency is a minor post on the scale of change I'm describing," Gingrich explained to the Washington Post in July.
Instead he will follow the example of Benjamin Franklin. “He didn't think he was less than Washington or Jefferson,” Gingrich the historian explains. “He was deliberately eclectic and deliberately complex, and happy to be so.
“He was pretty interesting. If you had told him, 'If you could have been simple, you could have been president,' he would have said, 'That's pretty stupid.'"
No one will ever accuse Newt Gingrich of being simple.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Republicans' Pity Party
The Bush Administration keeps recalling the cliché about the kid who kills his parents and pleads for mercy because he’s an orphan.
Now Republicans are retiring in droves and bewailing the vicissitudes that have made their legislative lives unbearable.
Today’s Washington Post reports “moderate Republicans in Congress are facing a tough choice: Stand by President Bush or run for their political lives. Votes are due soon on Iraq, an expansion of a children's health insurance program and an array of spending bills. GOP leaders hope to use them to regain credibility with their base voters as a party for strong defense and fiscal discipline. But moderates, many of them facing the possibility of difficult reelection bids next year, are dreading the expected showdowns.”
It would be easier to sympathize with those Republican moderates if they hadn’t handed over the keys to their home to Newt Gingrich in 1994 and stood by while George W. Bush has been burning it down for the past six years.
Emblematic of their experience is the recent decision of Lincoln Chafee, a second-generation product of what used to be respectable Republicanism, to leave the party that sent him to the Senate but then turned its back on him over his positions on abortion and gay rights.
The Democrats who stand to gain by the Republican debacle might want to keep in mind that, despite the horror show of the Bush years, there is no ultimate profit for a party that abandons its core principles.
Now Republicans are retiring in droves and bewailing the vicissitudes that have made their legislative lives unbearable.
Today’s Washington Post reports “moderate Republicans in Congress are facing a tough choice: Stand by President Bush or run for their political lives. Votes are due soon on Iraq, an expansion of a children's health insurance program and an array of spending bills. GOP leaders hope to use them to regain credibility with their base voters as a party for strong defense and fiscal discipline. But moderates, many of them facing the possibility of difficult reelection bids next year, are dreading the expected showdowns.”
It would be easier to sympathize with those Republican moderates if they hadn’t handed over the keys to their home to Newt Gingrich in 1994 and stood by while George W. Bush has been burning it down for the past six years.
Emblematic of their experience is the recent decision of Lincoln Chafee, a second-generation product of what used to be respectable Republicanism, to leave the party that sent him to the Senate but then turned its back on him over his positions on abortion and gay rights.
The Democrats who stand to gain by the Republican debacle might want to keep in mind that, despite the horror show of the Bush years, there is no ultimate profit for a party that abandons its core principles.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Gingrich "Sickened" by Killings
The former Speaker of the House wants to stop the war.
"Why,” he asks, “are the August vacations for the president and the Congress more precious than the lives of young Americans who are being killed because of government incompetence and inaction."
Gingrich is talking about Newark, N.J., where three college students were killed by recent immigrants, some of whom may have been in the country illegally.
Gingrich said that the "war here at home" against illegal immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan."
So far this month, 41 “lives of young Americans” have been lost in Iraq while the President and Congress are on vacation. As always, Gingrich has it slightly wrong
"Why,” he asks, “are the August vacations for the president and the Congress more precious than the lives of young Americans who are being killed because of government incompetence and inaction."
Gingrich is talking about Newark, N.J., where three college students were killed by recent immigrants, some of whom may have been in the country illegally.
Gingrich said that the "war here at home" against illegal immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan."
So far this month, 41 “lives of young Americans” have been lost in Iraq while the President and Congress are on vacation. As always, Gingrich has it slightly wrong
Monday, August 13, 2007
Murdoch Retirement Plan for Rove
If Newt Gingrich got $4.5 million and Clarence Thomas $1 million, what will Rupert Murdoch pay for Karl Rove’s memoirs?
In announcing his departure exclusively to Murdoch’s soon-to-be Wall Street Journal, Rove disclosed “no specific job plans, save to write a book on the Bush years, which ‘the boss,’ as in Mr. Bush, ‘has encouraged me to do.’"
To keep his wholly owned franchise, the other boss, Rupert Murdoch, will undoubtedly be the overbidder, even if no other publishing house is holding its nose and competing.
Should the umpteen-million advance not be enough to keep Rove living in high style retirement, there will undoubtedly be a part-time job as a commentator for Fox News.
In announcing his departure exclusively to Murdoch’s soon-to-be Wall Street Journal, Rove disclosed “no specific job plans, save to write a book on the Bush years, which ‘the boss,’ as in Mr. Bush, ‘has encouraged me to do.’"
To keep his wholly owned franchise, the other boss, Rupert Murdoch, will undoubtedly be the overbidder, even if no other publishing house is holding its nose and competing.
Should the umpteen-million advance not be enough to keep Rove living in high style retirement, there will undoubtedly be a part-time job as a commentator for Fox News.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Non-Stop Newt Is Too Busy to Run
The Energizer Bunny of American politics has too much on his plate to campaign for the White House. "The presidency is a minor post on the scale of change I'm describing," he tells the Washington Post.
But a moment later, he sounds like Alfred P. Doolittle (in “My Fair Lady”): "I don't have to be president," he says. "I'd be willing to be president."
Gingrich is an assembly line thinker-—if you don’t like one theory, another will be right along. “He has a new idea every five seconds," says Tom DeLay, a former House colleague and no admirer. “He's trying to appeal to everyone and cover up who he really is--which is typical of Newt."
But then, DeLay is still facing money-laundering charges while the object of his scorn is, according to the Post, running “a multimillion-dollar enterprise that keeps three dozen camp followers gainfully employed and Gingrich earning what he terms ‘adequate’ income in the seven figures.”
If he gives in and decides to run, there will be some explaining to do, even to conservatives, about shutting down the government in 1995, impeaching Bill Clinton for office sex while carrying on an affair in his own and, later, having to pay a $300,000 fine by the House ethics committee. But if anyone can, the voluble former Speaker of the House is the man.
If not, Gingrich will settle for being Benjamin Franklin: “He didn't think he was less than Washington or Jefferson. He was deliberately eclectic and deliberately complex, and happy to be so. He was pretty interesting. If you had told him, 'If you could have been simple, you could have been president,' he would have said, 'That's pretty stupid.'"
But a moment later, he sounds like Alfred P. Doolittle (in “My Fair Lady”): "I don't have to be president," he says. "I'd be willing to be president."
Gingrich is an assembly line thinker-—if you don’t like one theory, another will be right along. “He has a new idea every five seconds," says Tom DeLay, a former House colleague and no admirer. “He's trying to appeal to everyone and cover up who he really is--which is typical of Newt."
But then, DeLay is still facing money-laundering charges while the object of his scorn is, according to the Post, running “a multimillion-dollar enterprise that keeps three dozen camp followers gainfully employed and Gingrich earning what he terms ‘adequate’ income in the seven figures.”
If he gives in and decides to run, there will be some explaining to do, even to conservatives, about shutting down the government in 1995, impeaching Bill Clinton for office sex while carrying on an affair in his own and, later, having to pay a $300,000 fine by the House ethics committee. But if anyone can, the voluble former Speaker of the House is the man.
If not, Gingrich will settle for being Benjamin Franklin: “He didn't think he was less than Washington or Jefferson. He was deliberately eclectic and deliberately complex, and happy to be so. He was pretty interesting. If you had told him, 'If you could have been simple, you could have been president,' he would have said, 'That's pretty stupid.'"
Monday, June 25, 2007
Book-Contract Baksheesh
On the eve of another Rupert Murdoch mongoose act, this time swallowing the Wall Street Journal, he gets a review from the New York Times that required legwork by no less than four reporters and, in the end, reflects both shock and awe at the Australian who is eating the media world.
America’s “paper of record” narrates Murdoch’s unique skills at getting politicians to act as enablers in his addictive expansion of an information empire.
In addition to the time-honored methods, Murdoch has perfected new variations for buying them, not least of which is bribery by book advance.
As Congress was preparing to redraw the media ownership rules, Murdoch’s book publishing arm, HarperCollins, gave House Speaker Newt Gingrich a $4.5 million contract. In the Senate, Trent Lott got a $250,000 advance for a memoir.
Other Senators came at bargain prices. Arlen Specter, received $24,506 for “Passion for Truth,” Kay Bailey Hutchison $141,666 for “American Heroines.” Chuck Hagel has a book deal for next year.
Unless things have changed drastically since my time as a publisher, books by politicians, unless they involve scandal, are not best-sellers. Trent Lott’s quarter-of-a-million-dollar tome sold 12,000 copies.
But Murdoch got his money’s worth, as he no doubt will from the $1 million advance to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Book publishing is an odd business that has never been just about money.
America’s “paper of record” narrates Murdoch’s unique skills at getting politicians to act as enablers in his addictive expansion of an information empire.
In addition to the time-honored methods, Murdoch has perfected new variations for buying them, not least of which is bribery by book advance.
As Congress was preparing to redraw the media ownership rules, Murdoch’s book publishing arm, HarperCollins, gave House Speaker Newt Gingrich a $4.5 million contract. In the Senate, Trent Lott got a $250,000 advance for a memoir.
Other Senators came at bargain prices. Arlen Specter, received $24,506 for “Passion for Truth,” Kay Bailey Hutchison $141,666 for “American Heroines.” Chuck Hagel has a book deal for next year.
Unless things have changed drastically since my time as a publisher, books by politicians, unless they involve scandal, are not best-sellers. Trent Lott’s quarter-of-a-million-dollar tome sold 12,000 copies.
But Murdoch got his money’s worth, as he no doubt will from the $1 million advance to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Book publishing is an odd business that has never been just about money.
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