Newt

North Dakota “free thinker” wearing
only thong, pasties, and whipped cream,
cited for indecent exposure in Walgreens.


Those of you who have been reading Morialekafa for some time may remember when I suggested we create a new word to describe the machinations of Karl Rove:

roviate v. to smear, slime, malign, denigrate, and attempt to destroy an opponent through the use of innuendo, rumor, slander, outright lies and any other despicable means available.

This is a word that has not caught on or been used much by others but I still think it is quite useful. I think we may well need another new word:

gingrich n. An utterly ridiculous statement or phrase uttered to make the speaker appear wise or intellectual.

Newt Gingrich is known for saying things that sometimes make sense and sometimes do not. Sometimes he seems to say something stupid mostly for the shock value. For example, when asked “what should we do about the homeless,” he answered, "Give the park police more ammo."

At other times he makes comments so outrageously wrong as to be just downright silly:

“The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.”

Often he says things that are so obvious as to be not worth saying:

"National security really matters because if you lose the country everything else is gone."

Sometimes you can only wonder if he is actually serious:

“If the Soviet empire still existed, I'd be terrified. The fact is, we can afford a fairly ignorant presidency now.”

He is not adverse to coming out with bald-faced falsehoods and ridiculous inanities:

“All free people stand on Reagan's shoulders. His principled policies proved that free markets create wealth, that the rule of law sustains freedom, and that all people everywhere deserve the right to dream, to pursue their dreams, and to govern themselves.”

At times his pronouncements involve dubious religious claims:

“The U.S. was founded by a group of political leaders who signed a document which says, “We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.” That means that all of your political rights come from God and you then loan some of your power to the State which is why the Constitution begins, “We, the People of the United States.”

At times he can be downright mean, as when speaking of his first wife:

“She isn’t young enough or pretty enough to be the President’s wife.”

More often than not his statements are transparently political with no basis in fact whatsoever:

"The President of the United States, the most radical president in American history, has now thrown down the gauntlet to the American people," Gingrich said. "He has said 'I run a machine, I own Washington and there is nothing you can do about it.' Thats where we are."

In order to understand the nature of a true “gingrich” it is necessary to understand Newt’s grandiose idea of himself. For example:

“I think I am a transformational figure. I think I am trying to effect a change so large that the people who would be hurt by the change, the liberal machine, have a natural reaction…I think because I’m so systematically purposeful about changing our world…I’m a much tougher partisan than they’ve (the Democrats) seen…much more intense, much more persistent, much more willing to take risks to get it done.”

Perhaps this makes it more clear and obvious:

“I’m not a natural leader. I’m too intellectual; I’m too abstract; and I think too much.”

He also is reported to have said to one of his three wives, “It doesn’t matter what I do, it only matters what I say.”

Gingrich prides himself on being intellectual, and many in his party regard him as the party intellectual. This is a persona he works very hard at portraying, and he does it in part by relying on what I am calling “gingriches.” Consider the following two most recent examples:

I think he (Obama) worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true,” Gingrich continues. “In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve . . . He was authentically dishonest.” It would be most interesting to see Gingrich try to defend this rather outrageous claim.

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich told the conservative web site National Review Online, responding to a column in Forbes by noted conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza.

Neither of these statements make any sense whatsoever, but they do give the impression that Gingrich knows something his less intellectual followers do not. Most of those who listen to Gingrich probably have no idea who Saul Alinsky was or what he did. Like Obama, Alinsky was a community organizer for the poor in Chicago and elsewhere. He was not dishonest, authentically or otherwise, but was, in fact perfectly honest about what he was doing. He, like Obama, was accused of being a socialist, but, like Obama, he was neither a socialist nor a communist. This does not keep Gingrich from trying to make an insidious comparison that is entirely false. Alinsky was regarded as an organizational genius, was very successful in organizing and helping the poor, and thus gained the hatred of Republicans who despised him (nothing makes Republicans hate you more than if you are trying to help the poor). There is no such thing as “the Alinsky tradition,” a concept made up entirely by Gingrich to give the impression to his followers that he is an intellectual with a profound knowledge of history. This is a classic “gingrich.”

The statement about “Kenyan anti-colonial behavior” is a better case in point as it has nothing whatsoever to do with anything other than his pretending to be a knowledgeable intellectual (although in this case it allows him to make a subtle suggestion that Obama may be a Kenyan). Gingrich apparently took his cue from Dinesh D’Souza, one of the most extreme ultra-rightists writing (how he gets published at all is a mystery to me) who thinks Obama received his “anti-colonial” world view from his father who was an anti-colonial. First of all, given the terrible atrocities the British inflicted on the Kenyans one would have to be an absolute sadist not to have been an anti-colonial. Indeed, most of the thinking world is now anti-colonial and there is nothing about this that sets Obama apart from most anyone else, and certainly nothing that makes him “incomprehensible.” But again, Gingrich knows his audience most probably knows nothing about the history of colonialism or about Kenya, and thus he can pretend to know something about history that his supporters do not, and impress them with his “sophisticated intellectualism.”

Newt Gingrich is not only the world’s greatest hypocrite, he is also one of the biggest frauds in existence (far worse even than Giuliani, that takes some real effort). As a professional phony he will do and say anything to further his own agenda. While he may know something of history it doesn't matter because he commonly distorts it shamefully. Why he appears so regularly on TV and is regarded as some kind of pundit I cannot explain, but then, I cannot explain Sarah Palin either.

LKBIQ:
I tried to resist his overtures, but he plied me with symphonies, quartettes, chamber music, and cantatas.
S.J. Perelman

TILT:
An adult dragonfly can propel itself in six directions: up, down, forward, backward, and side to side.