Tag Archives: 2012 Elections

December 1, 2011 · 9:55 am

Newt Gingrich: The Return of the Megalomaniacal Opportunist

Very good perspective on Newt Gingrich and his lack of  character from Maureen Dowd in today’s New York Times.

It will be interesting to see if Newt does pull off his comeback against Romney for the GOP nomination.

Either one should be an easy target for President Obama, but Newt is especially easy to take on and hopefully take down.

The man is, as Maureen says, a megalomaniac, a liar, and a hypocrite.  The more you get to know Newt, the more you grow to hate him.  And to feel slimy for just reading about him…

My only concern is that, if by some fluke he does win the Presidency, he could be by far the biggest danger to both the country and the world.

Again, this guy is a megalomaniac.  And probably a sociopath….

Romney is a mundane opportunist who reverses himself on core issues. Gingrich is a megalomaniacal opportunist who brazenly indulges in the same sins that he rails about to tear down political rivals.

Republicans have a far greater talent for hypocrisy than easily cowed Democrats do — and no doubt appreciate that in a leader.

Gingrich led the putsch against Democratic Speaker Jim Wright in 1988, bludgeoning him for an ethically sketchy book deal. The following year, as he moved into the House Republican leadership, he himself got in trouble for an ethically sketchy book deal.

Gingrich was part of the House Republican mob trying to impeach Bill Clinton for hiding his affair with a young government staffer, even as Newt himself was hiding his affair with a young government staffer.

Gingrich has excoriated Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for dragging the country into a financial spiral and now demands that Freddie Mac be broken up. But it turns out that he was on contract with Freddie for six years and paid $1.6 million to $1.8 million (yacht trips and Tiffany’s bling for everyone!) to help the company strategize about how to soften up critical conservatives and stay alive.

At a Republican debate in New Hampshire last month before this lucrative deal became public, Gingrich suggested that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd should be put in jail. “All I’m saying is, everybody in the media who wants to go after the business community ought to start by going after the politicians who were at the heart of the sickness that is weakening this country,” he said.

Another transcendent moment in Gingrich hypocrisy. He risibly rationalized his deal, saying he was giving the mortgage company advice as a prestigious historian rather than a hired gun.

Gingrich boasts that he’s full of fresh ideas, but it always seems to essentially be the same old one: Let’s turn the clock back to the ’50s. Just as Newt, who dodged service in Vietnam, once cast the Clintons as hippie “McGovernicks,” now he limns the Occupy Wall Street protesters as hippies who need to take a bath and get a job.

Maybe the ideal man to fix Washington’s dysfunction is the one who made it dysfunctional. He broke it so he should own it. And Newt has the best reason to long for the presidency: He’d never be banished to the back of Air Force One again.

via My Man Newt – NYTimes.com.

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September 16, 2011 · 9:09 pm

Poll: Just 12% happy with Congress

I want to know what’s wrong with the 12% who are “happy” with Congress!  There aren’t that many rich people….

It will be interesting to see how this plays out by the time the elections roll around next year.  Either people are going to throw up their hands and stay home- thinking it doesn’t matter if they vote- which is what the GOP wants or people are going to throw the bums out…

Who knows which way it will break?

From CBS:

In the midst of a bleak economic landscape and after a bruising battle over the federal budget deficit, approval of Congress now matches its all-time low, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.

Just 12 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing – the same as the lowest percentage recorded in this poll, reached in October 2008, right before the November elections.

Dissatisfaction with Congress cuts across party lines. Republicans, Democrats, and independents all overwhelmingly disapprove of the job Congress is doing.

Though most Americans disapprove of both parties in Congress, they disapprove of Republicans more. Seventy-two percent of Americans disapprove of the job Republicans in Congress are doing, compared to 63 percent who disapprove of the Democrats in Congress.

Among Democrats, more approve than disapprove of the job Democrats in Congress are doing. That is reversed for Republicans – more of them disapprove than approve of the job members of their own party are doing in Congress. Independents disapprove of both parties in Congress.

In keeping with Congress’ dismal review, just 6 percent of registered voters think most members deserve re-election – the lowest percentage ever in CBS News Polls during the past 20 years, and a lower percentage than the 9 percent who thought so right before the 2010 midterms.

(Credit: CBS News/NYT Poll) Americans are usually more positive when assessing their own representative in Congress.

That’s true now, too – 33 percent say their representative deserves re election – but nearly six in 10 registered voters don’t think their own representative deserves re-election. That percentage is close to the highest found in CBS News Polls.

via Poll: Just 12% happy with Congress – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.

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June 8, 2011 · 9:54 pm

Dynasty 2012: The Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin Cat Fight

Sounds like they are going to try to play this like a dumber version of “Dynasty” with Palin and Bachmann trying to be dime store versions of Crystal and Alexis….

Linda Evans and Joan Collins, they ain’t…

And smart they ain’t either….

Still, “Dynasty’s” been gone for many years.  I guess it’s time for a pale imitation to emerge as the TV Remake:  “Dynasty 2012”.

Everything else is starting to look like the 1980’s (See Wall Street -the Movie), so why not redo this too?

Isn’t that how the entertainment world works?  Wait a few years then remake good, original ideas into a second rate remake?  Or is that GOP Politics I’m thinking of?

Since Reagan, it’s so hard to separate the two worlds.  But, god knows these two women are entertainers and not real politicians….

From Salon.com:

Poor Michele Bachmann! She’d been working the divisive culture warrior routine for years, to great success, when suddenly John McCain transforms a low-profile Alaska governor into the Queen of the Tea Parties. It’s enough to make anyone resentful. So it’s not too surprising that the Bachmann presidential campaign has begun its war with the Sarah Palin pseudo-campaign.

We live in a society that expects and sometimes demands that ambitious women battle each other for the limited number of slots available to them at the top of power structures, so the story of Bachmann “taking on” Palin would’ve been inevitable even if Bachmann strategist Ed Rollins hadn’t begun directly drawing contrasts between the two. (Yes, we also live in a society where Ed Rollins is working to get Michele Bachmann elected president and we just have to deal with that.)

The problem is, as Steve Kornacki explained, Bachmann’s campaign began gearing up when it looked like there was no chance of Palin entering the race. But Palin’s riding a bus across the country now for some reason, so Bachmann’s people need to make sure she remains a pseudo-candidate.

First, Rollins accused Palin of being unserious on talk radio yesterday, and he pointed out that Palin quit her job, while Bachmann is still an elected official. In an interview with Politico’s Ben Smith, Rollins laid out the Bachmann campaign’s official anti-Palin message: Bachmann is smarter than Palin but just as adorable:

Bachmann will “be so much more substantive,” Rollins said. “People are going to say, ‘I gotta make a choice and go with the intelligent woman who’s every bit as attractive.'” (See also: Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann size each other up)

“I’m not afraid of Palin,” he said, adding the strategy would have been the same for Mike Huckabee. (See also: Ed Rollins hops on Michele Bachmann bandwagon)

via Oh no, Bachmann and Palin are fighting – 2012 Elections – Salon.com.

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