Thursday, February 16, 2012

Bring on the Sugar Daddies


Rick Santorum has Foster Friess. And, as unappealing as Santorum is, he even has a back-up donor in the wings—a Dr. John Templeton—who has already forked over $250,000 to Santorum’s PAC.

What is this man thinking?
Newt Gingrich, as utterly improbable and inexplicable as it is, has a Jewish billionaire underwriting his campaign. Inexplicable doesn’t begin to describe Adelson’s choice. And I say that as a Jew. If Newt continued to repeat Saul Alinksy’s name to the raw-meat chewing mob, I don’t know what I would have done. How could Adelson fund such overt Jew-baiting? Of course, Sheldon Adelson, is smart enough to have his own back-up—a back-up candidate, this is. Adelson has already made overtures to Mitt Romney—when Newt finally does hoist himself on his petard, Adelson will be ready to jump on Mitt’s bandwagon. (Romney doesn’t really need a sugar daddy. He has enough of his own money to burn. But, a wise man never looks a gift horse in the mouth.)

I’m not sure I quite understand why Adelson would back Romney either—a member of the enigmatic Mormon religion. (Aren’t Mormons the faith that posthumously baptized Anne Frank and a host of other Holocaust victims in absentia? They didn’t want the Jews lost to history to be lost to Christ. Their actions are a little tone deaf in modern America’s world of multicultural sensitivity, but well intended, nonetheless.) Adelson must be thinking, what do I care what Romney thinks of the dead? Just as long as he takes care of the living—those living in Israel, that is. Because Romney sure isn’t interested in the poor souls living in the US.

Well, as usual, I’m losing my way. There’s so much ground to cover…. Obama’s campaign has signaled that it is ready to hold its metaphoric nose and open the deposit chute to its own PAC. So now we will be deafened by the ka-chink of money on both sides. Those campaign jets don't fly themselves, ya know.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Newt Gingrich and Captain Renault

I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
                 --Captain Renault on ordering Rick’s American Cafe shut down in Casablanca


Watching Newt express horror at having his own character assassinated reminds me of Captain Renault expressing shock at finding gambling going on in Rick’s establishment. Remember this is Newt--whose impassioned denouncements of Jim Wright, Tip O’Neill, President Bush (41) and anyone else whose name would resonate on C-Span were delivered in the well of the deserted House after hours. Never fail to exploit a good photo opp--even if you have to jerry rig it yourself. (Apparently Tip O’Neill also understood the power of imagery, and he ordered the C-Span cameras to pan around the chamber so viewers would understand that Newt was grandstanding to an empty House.)

Newt, the self proclaimed ‘transformational figure', has indeed, been one of the driving forces that poisoned and crippled the Congress. It was Newt who introduced a vocabulary list that the Republicans memorized and recited like obedient school children. From his mid-90‘s GOPAC memo, Language: A Key Mechanism of Control, here’s a small sample of the words Republicans were instructed to use against Democrats:

destructive... destroy... sick... pathetic... lie... liberal...sensationalists... hypocrisy... permissive attitudes... self-serving... greed... ideological... insecure... corrupt… excuses… shame... bizarre... cynicism... cheat... steal... abuse of power... patronage…

Since the GOPAC days, many of those words could be applied to Newt. He’s been compared to Greek tragic heroes, but I think that’s giving him too much credit. It’s quite possible to be the poster child for helium-filled hubris and have no redeeming qualities at all. Newt ain’t no Agamemnon. Phineas T. Bluster? Now, that's got potential.
But back to my original premise: the man who perfected the politics of character assassination blubbers like a baby when his own tactics are used on him. So perhaps Newt’s life is a cautionary tale after all: if you live by the sword you will die by the sword, and the petard on which you are hoisted may be your very own.