Newt Gingrich
Newton Leroy Gingrich’s latest I’ll-say-anything-for-a-headline proclamation is really pretty weird. What he says is that in order to understand President Obama’s political activities you have to know that Obama is really acting according to Kenyan, not American, political practices.
Actually, I think that’s pretty dumb. I’ve read a lot on the subject, and I’ve been there myself, but I couldn’t tell you how Kenyan political practices are different from those of any number of other little countries that are trying to figure out just how their new democracy thing should work, and I really don’t think Gingrich could pass a test on it himself. I’m pretty sure that the real purpose of that press release was actually a somewhat slimy one. That is, his intention was to reinforce that preposterous Tea Party nonsensical claim that our president isn’t an American at all.
Their claim is that, in spite of the fact that the official records, the newspapers that record such things and those people, still alive, who were involved in any of those activities at the time say he is an American (and they all say the same thing), they’re all lying. This is, of course, pathological. There is definitely no truth to the Tea Party goons’ claim that Barack Obama wasn’t really born in Hawaii, a fully accredited state of the United States, but in some foreign country.
In spite of all the really unarguable amount of evidence that he was born exactly where and when he says he was, there are a lot of people who are going around claiming that Obama is a foreigner and thus his presidency is illegal under the Constitution and that the 2008 election that he won by such a smashing vote doesn’t count. My personal opinion is that most of them don’t really believe what they’re saying, because it’s just too ridiculous, but they hate Obama so much that they’ll say anything they think they can get away with.
And when I see Gingrich trying to lend credence to what he knows isn’t true, it makes me wonder who Gingrich is getting his political advice from these days, because I used to know one of his advisors pretty well.
You see, there was a time when I really thought that if politicians would get in the habit of reading science fiction for fun instead of sticking to, say, the shoot-’em-up Westerns preferred by Dwight Eisenhower, we’d have better government. But then along came Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and shot that speculation down in flames.
Gingrich liked science fiction. He took it seriously enough that he had a major sf writer, my good friend (and political foe) Jerry Pournelle, flying back and forth to Washington to advise him.
I don’t know exactly what the advice Jerry gave Gingrich was, but there was a lot of it — enough so that it used up a lot of Jerry’s time. Which had the result that Jerry was seriously late in delivering his part of a book
The advice couldn’t have been too bad, because Gingrich was flying high in those days. Some people were getting the feeling, in fact, that one day not too far in the future we might be looking ar a President Gingrich. Then, however, some of Gingrich’s political adversaries began digging up some of the, well, the nastier parts of Gingrich’s personal history and getting them published in the papers. And he retired from those heights in disgrace.
Well, if you dig deep enough in almost anyone’s past you’ll probably find something that he really wishes hadn’t come up. The Republicans proved that when, after spending $40 million of taxpayers’ money in the search, they finally unearthed Monica Lewinsky and thus stripped President Clinton of the power to act effectively for the last part of his presidential term.
But we’re a forgiving people, we Americans. Clinton is now most Americans’ best-loved living ex-president. Even Richard Nixon, the American president who avoided prison only because his successor gave him a full pardon, managed to raise his head after lying low for a while.
And, as we’ve seen, Gingrich is getting plenty of newspaper space and TV time for his political rebirth.
Apart from his (ick) politics, Gingrich didn’t seem to be a bad guy. He visited an occasional sf con and was pleasant to talk to on any nonpolitical subject. Indeed, if I was on my way by rocket to Mars and had to pick one other male as co-pilot of our rocket ship — and that other male had to be someone prominent in government — Gingrich might have been a possible contender.
At one con — I’m sorry to say I don’t remember which one (maybe one of you guys could tell me?) — both Gingrich and I happened to be present and the chairman got the idea of the two of us having a debate on some political subject.
So we did it. I don’t remember all that was said, but one of the subjects we agreed to disagree on was the heroic-sized U.S. defense budget. I said we could better use all that money for some peaceful pursuit, almost any peaceful pursuit. Newt said was I so ignorant that I didn’t know the world was full of enemies of America and we had to be ready to fight them whenever they might attack us? I said that throughout American history up to that point we had fought maybe eight or ten real wars, from the Revolution to WWII, and we hadn’t really been prepared — though our enemies were — for any one of them, but all the same we’d won them all. Newt said, aha, Fred, but you’re forgetting we had the might of the British Navy to protect us while we tooled up, and I said, right you are, Newt, but in at least two of those wars, the Revolution and the War of 1812, that mighty British Navy was on the other side and the side it was shooting at was us, and we licked them anyway.
So I marked that one a win for me. I don’t know how Gingrich scored it.
Robert Nowall says:
I could probably get in a slugging match about, oh, three-fourths of the above essay, but I don’t wanna. Never cared much for Gingrich when he was in or after, but he’s hardly the only one with political beliefs similar to mine who I didn’t care for. Don’t know any of ‘em personally.
Though the comment about Jerry Pournelle being late delivering a book in order to advise the government does make me wonder. I suppose if I were in that situation, I’d have to ask myself, what would Heinlein do?
September 16, 2010, 8:49 amRyk E. Spoor says:
Well, one can debate whether we *won* 1812, but we certainly didn’t end up in total ignominous defeat. And Vietnam we backed out of but certainly weren’t beaten by force of arms. So your point basically stands: we don’t have to constantly plan to be able to deal with enemies as long as we remain healthy.
For a LARGE conflict you do need a prior group of well trained people, even if it’s going to only be a percentage of our full-war forces, and you need to keep your technology up to date. There’s no way to do that in the modern world without having a pretty darn large military budget. As large as we currently have? I dunno. (I have some vested interest in NOT cutting it at least in the R&D area, as the small company I work for does most of its work in the R&D area for military and other government agencies).
The asininity of the “Obama not an American” bit is inarguable, and alas all too many people actually do believe it — or WANT to believe it so badly that they’re willing to overlook the facts. Smart people are possibly MORE capable of fooling themselves if they want to, precisely because they ARE smart and thus capable of devising much more self-convincing mental gyrations.
September 16, 2010, 9:54 amJonquil says:
Recent (2009) polls have one out of three Americans picking Carter, for his superb humanitarian work. Carter, like Hoover, is a much better ex-President than President.
September 16, 2010, 10:06 amDavid B. Williams says:
There’s a simple solution – change the Constitution. Two hundred years ago, there may have been valid doubt about foreigners serving as President. But these days, does anyone think Henry Kissinger or Arnold Schwarzenegger would, if President, betray American interests for the benefit of Germany or Austria? It is to laugh. I say, if someone foreign-born can win a party nomination and then 50 percent of the vote in a national election, let them serve. They’d probably be better than some of the jenyuwine American-born Presidents we’ve had.
September 16, 2010, 10:41 amJohn H says:
The Tea Party movement looks suspiciously like the LaRouche movement in colonial garb, and Newt is such an opportunist he didn’t bother to think how that might look for him once the TP novelty wears off…
September 16, 2010, 11:35 amRick Pikul says:
Since when does:
Attempting to invade and annex territory, but ending up getting an entire state[1] annexed by the people you attacked.
Getting your capital sacked.
Then managing to pull off enough in the endgame to be able to get the _defender_ to agree to give you a status quo antebellum peace treaty.
Count as a win?
(N.B. The issue regarding the impressing of sailors had been rendered mood before the War of 1812 even started, the trade issues were on a point where the US _still_ hasn’t gotten its way.)
[1] Maine
September 16, 2010, 12:16 pmStefan Jones says:
I don’t think Gingrich is so much mis-advised as desperate.
He’s thrown in is lot with the looniest segment of mainstream conservatism, and is going to get dragged into irrelevance when it steers into the ditch.
Well. He’s not alone. Any Republican who meekly suggests that maybe leaping on the Tea Party band wagon maybe not in the best long-term interests of the party gets his balls kicked in, and labeled a RINO.
September 16, 2010, 1:42 pmCraig says:
That’s not a bad idea there, David B. Williams. But if we were diving into constitutional reform, I’d focus first on eliminating corporate citizenship and try to make it harder for corporations to buy politicians. Not sure how to do that second part effectively, but one can dream.
September 16, 2010, 5:23 pmRAB says:
I thought the “anti-colonial” part of the formulation was much funnier than the “Kenyan” part. As others have already pointed out…what were the Founding Fathers but ardent anti-colonials? What was the creation of the United States if not a stand against colonialism? This nation is an emancipated colony that has never held a colony itself. A U.S. President who was not staunchly “anti-colonial” would be deeply troubling. I don’t know what parallel universe America Gingrich believes in, but it’s clearly not the U.S. of this continuum.
(Mind you, Coming of the Quantum Cats is one of my all time favorite books…so if he’s got inside info, it’d be good of him to share.)
September 16, 2010, 6:33 pmDr. Psycho says:
I’ve often contemplated the different course history might have taken if…
“Mr. President, I’m sorry, but there’s been some mixup, the studio says they can’t get a print of ‘Patton’ for us to show tonight.”
“Well, shit, that pisses me off pretty bad. So, what have you got?”
“Well, Sir, did you ever see ’2001′?”
As for what Gingrich thinks he’s up to, yes, “desperation” does come to mind as an explanation for his throwing in with the clowns who are currently TP’ing the Republican party. My hope is they will succeed in destroying it, allowing the Democrats to assume the role of responsible conservative party, leaving all the actual left-of-center people to move on to the Greens, Working Families, or whatever.
Regarding Birtherism, I doubt it’s anything more complicated than looking for a way of saying, “He’s not one of us…you know what I mean” without being exposed as a plain old racist.
September 16, 2010, 11:16 pmNate Whilk says:
\"That is, his intention was to reinforce that preposterous Tea Party nonsensical claim that our president isn’t an American at all.\"
\"There is definitely no truth to the Tea Party goons’ claim that Barack Obama wasn’t really born in Hawaii, a fully accredited state of the United States, but in some foreign country.\"
Since you capitalize \"Tea Party\", I presume that you have cites to prove the Tea Party as a whole advances these views. Could you please give them? Thanks.
September 17, 2010, 12:40 amRobert Nowall says:
Belatedly I remembered I do know one guy in high government circles: Doug Elmendorf, current head of the Congressional Budget Office, and once a boon companion of mine from fifth through eighth grades. I suppose we’re still friends, if he even remembers me.
September 17, 2010, 7:32 amKat says:
What a generalization about the Tea Party movement. ‘Tis only a fringe that believe that the President is not a citizen; they are known as ‘Birthers’. Just like the 9-11 ‘Truthers’, if they don’t like an inconvenient fact, then they try to make over the world in their image.
The Tea Party Movement stands for Limited Government, Lower Taxes and a return to the Constitution. Not sure how any of that can be construed as a ‘bad’ thing.
September 17, 2010, 8:13 amwolfwalker says:
“…that preposterous Tea Party nonsensical claim that our president isn’t an American at all. ”
That’s not a Tea Party claim. The nuts who claim that the current White House occupant wasn’t born in the United States are known as “Birthers,” and most Tea Partiers want nothing to do with them. If you want to press that argument further, remember that just as many liberals believe the lunatic “9/11 Truther” claim that George W. Bush and the US military planned and executed the 9/11 atrocities.
Don’t believe what the mainstream media tells you about the Tea Party. Go to a few of their rallies yourself, and see who they really are and what they really care about. I did. That’s one of many reasons I automatically dismiss everything reported by the mainstream media as a boldfaced lie, unless and until I verify it with sources I trust.
“I said that throughout American history up to that point we had fought maybe eight or ten real wars, from the Revolution to WWII, and we hadn’t really been prepared — though our enemies were — for any one of them, but all the same we’d won them all.”
In WW2, you could take a guy off the street, put an M1 in his hand, ram him through six weeks of basic training, and have an effective soldier come out the other end. Today, you can’t do that anymore. The technology has gotten too advanced.
September 17, 2010, 12:02 pmjsallison says:
The Taxed Enough Already (aka TEA) parties are not a Pachyderm party phenomenon although the Pach’s seem most inclined to acknowledge their existence. They’re making both mainstream fonts of privileged corruption nervous and bully on them for doing so. The donks seem to be doubling down on stupid while the pachs run in circles screaming lalalalala… a bit of a role reversal, don’tcha know?
September 17, 2010, 7:28 pmG says:
@wolfwalker—”That’s not a Tea Party claim. The nuts who claim that the current White House occupant wasn’t born in the United States are known as “Birthers,” and most Tea Partiers want nothing to do with them. If you want to press that argument further, remember that just as many liberals believe the lunatic “9/11 Truther” claim that George W. Bush and the US military planned and executed the 9/11 atrocities.”—
I’m now a liberal (by US standards), was once a Reagan conservative and can tell you- I have never, ever, ever heard anyone say what you are saying. No one ever believed that the US “committed 9/11″. Even if al-Jezeera said it, they didn’t believe it. The Big Lie only operates on those who think if someone like you writes it, it must be true.
September 18, 2010, 6:07 amHorrorshow says:
The tea party is trying to force the Republican Party even further to the right. Pathetic dimwits like Glenn Beck have created an atmosphere in which loons and cranks think it is okay to voice their nutty ideas out loud. A lot of those people identify themselves as tea party members (aka teabaggers).
September 18, 2010, 12:59 pmPat says:
RAB, surely every State after the original 13 is composed of many colonies in foreign territories? I would also suggest that the Founding Fathers wanted to be an independent colony but still wanted to be a colony or they would have all returned to their countries of origin.
September 18, 2010, 2:16 pmwolfwalker says:
G: ‘I have never, ever, ever heard anyone say what you are saying. No one ever believed that the US “committed 9/11″.’
I suspect that’s an artifact of the circles you move in. “9/11 Truthism” is a very real phenomenon. I’ve interacted with a few Truthers myself. There are numerous websites devoted to it, with the chief one being “911truth.org”. A number of public figures have either implicitly or explicitly accepted some version of Trutherism, from Oprah Winfrey’s phenomenally stupid assertion that “fire can’t melt steel” to nutcase ex-governor Jesse Ventura who claims that the Twin Towers were brought down by controlled demolitions. There’s an online movie called “Loose Change,” produced by a band of truthers, which goes into their claims at great length. Wikipedia documents several opinion polls which found that more than a third of respondents believe that federal officials either were actively involved in the 9/11 atrocities, or knew about it in advance and deliberately failed to stop it. The nonsense became so widespread that Popular Mechanics magazine ran an extensive article debunking the most common Truther claims.
Now, it may be the case that all these people are repeating a claim they don’t actually believe. But I doubt it. What they’ve done and continue to do seems like very long lengths to go to to maintain a hoax.
September 18, 2010, 10:01 pmAGK says:
The Tea Party, whatever the origins, is being hijacked by many publicity- and money-hounds. The tax rate doesn\’t sound like much of a basis for a political party and there are no leaders so it\’s really hard to figure out what the Tea Party stands for (the party platform). I heard an interview on the radio of two Tea Party leaders (self-proclaimed), and they really didn\’t agree on much of anything. The Value Voters people seem to claim the Tea Party as their own, as do individuals like Newt and Sarah. Add to that the libertarian and fringe influences, and I predict that the \"Tea Party\" will self-destruct in a couple months when Christine, Sarah, Armey, and Sharon get in a big argument. A party has to take a position on many issues, not just on taxes. For now, the \"Tea Party\" is trying to avoid those non-tax issues, but as soon as they have to start voting on real bills (immigration, privacy, health, foreign affairs, domestic priorities, etc.), the friction will tear the party apart. It was fun while it lasted.
September 18, 2010, 10:57 pmJames Davis Nicoll says:
In WW2, you could take a guy off the street, put an M1 in his hand, ram him through six weeks of basic training, and have an effective soldier come out the other end. Today, you can’t do that anymore. The technology has gotten too advanced.
That’s a matter of some debate, although if Marshall’s and later stats can be believed (which is not necessarily the consensus) US soldiers became much more willing to shoot at enemy soldiers by the time of the Vietnam conflict.
September 19, 2010, 12:54 pmJack Deighton says:
In 1812 we Brits were also much more concerned with a little local (European) difficulty known as Napoleon Bonaparte.
As a result the War of 1812 is all but forgotten here.
From a distance I find it strange that Republicans in general seem to have problems accepting the legitimacy of Democratic Presidents but Democrats don’t give Republicans anything like such a hard time. (Nixon excepted; but he quite certainly broke the law.)
Of course, maybe Republicans aren’t really true democrats in the small d sense.
September 19, 2010, 2:01 pmBob Calder says:
One thing we know about the Tea Party itself is that it is funded by the brothers Koch who also paid Mike Milloy and friends to manufacture doubt about global warming. The persons that identify as Tea Party at demonstrations are a very diverse lot. You could argue they are held together by only one principal, a call for lower taxes. But this is disingenuous since this is not what they most often talk about, nor is it what they demonstrate for. The signs accuse the President of being a socialist and being guilty of robbing citizens of liberty. Indeed, the characteristic I see most often is a strange affection for writing from the 1700s which they claim proves the US was founded by Christians.
September 19, 2010, 6:39 pmjdb says:
Newt’s bizarre conspiracy theory about Obama’s ‘anticolonial’ mindset is timed with the release of a book which expounds on that very theory, ‘The Roots of Obama’s Rage’. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this.
It seems like the veil has been ripped away from the GOP and they are exploiting the real common denominators that bind together their supporters – xenophobia and racism.
September 19, 2010, 7:05 pmGary D says:
April Survey of tea party members: Only 42% of tea partiers believe that Obama was born in the U.S. It is a fairly recent development that they are trying to disavow that claim.
Tea Partiers are old, more conservative than Republicans and get their information from Fox News and the hate radio mongers.
Newt is an opportunist.
The New York Times / CBS News Poll was conducted from April 5-12, 2010. The total number of respondents was 1,580. The number of tea party respondents was 881.
September 20, 2010, 2:58 amRobert Nowall says:
You see why I didn’t want to get into a slugging match about it?
September 20, 2010, 9:40 amjasonmitchell says:
re Tea party vs. “birthers”
of course many people conflate the “birther” nutjobs with the tea party members/leadership. – THEY ARE THE SAME NUTJOBS (I know there is more than one “tea party”) Mark Williams, Tea Party Express organizer and OCDB* vice chairman Mark Williams, has said (On Fox News, on the web, other places)that Obama lacks a valid birth certificate and has compared “Obama’s death panels” to Nazi experiments.
OCDB = a PAC Our Country Deserves Better, funded by prominabt Republicans. OCDB formed by Republicans. OCDB PAC “was formed in August [2008] by California political consultant Sal Russo and former California Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian.” [Associated Press, 10/16/08] As their OCDB biographies note, Russo is a veteran Republican consultant, and Kaloogian served as a Republican in the California Assembly.
OCDB’s mission is to oppose Obama and “Democratic Congress.” On its “About Us” page, OCDB states that “we must stand up to Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress.” The PAC also solicits contributions by stating, “Help us fight the Democratic Congress!”
September 20, 2010, 2:31 pmGreg Nichols says:
Newt always seemed to me the kind of guy that wants a lot of attention and feels hurt if people don’t recognize him in a crowded room. I’ve never seem him as an evil fella and I know that he got along fairly well with both sides of the political spectrum when he was in office. But he says some things that make me scratch my head. Here’s a great Newt quote:
“I’m not a natural leader. I’m too intellectual; I’m too abstract; I think too much.” -Newt Gingrich
September 21, 2010, 3:02 pmwolfwalker says:
Folks, y’all really need to adjust your thinking here. Right now you’re like classic physicists trying to grok relativity, and it just ain’t working for you.
There is no formally organized Tea Party.
There is no Tea Party platform.
There is no coherent Tea Party philosophy.
There is no shadowy master manipulator behind the Tea Party.
There is no hidden source of funding behind the Tea Party.
Stop looking for any of these things. They don’t exist. The phenomenon known as the “Tea Party” is entirely unlike the conventional party-based politics you’ve all been dealing with all your lives. It’s a true grassroots movement, made up entirely of Americans — plain, ordinary, simple, straightforward, mainstream Americans — who have looked at what’s happening with the federal government and say “ENOUGH! This isn’t the America we signed up for, and it isn’t the America we grew up in, and it isn’t the America we want to leave to our kids.” Tea Partiers are motivated by a simple belief that the federal government is too big and too powerful, spends too much money and is accumulating WAY too much debt. They hate the conventional Republican Party as much as they hate the Democratic Party. Most of them have no interest in social or cultural issues. They just want to stop the overspending, stop the expansion of federal-government power, and return to something that at least vaguely resembles the federalist republic designed by the Founders and embodied in the Constitution.
That’s really all there is to it.
(PS: if anyone wants to argue with the above, well, before you do, I’ve got a question. I’ve been to a Tea Party rally or two. I know who they are and what they want. I’ve seen it first-hand. Have you?)
September 21, 2010, 10:12 pms2 says:
“. It’s a true grassroots movement”
HAHAHAHAHA!
Good one. Tell that to the Koch brothers. Or look into the funding of the Tea Party Express.
September 22, 2010, 6:48 pmellid says:
Sorry, but there have been way too many “Where’s the birth certificate?” and Obama-as-witch-doctor signs at tea party rallies to give much credibility to the claim that birthers aren’t welcome at tea parties. The *leadership* may wish to disavow the birthers, but the rank and file doesn’t seem to have much problem with thinking the President is a foreigner with a funny name and a funny religion.
As for demographics…40% are over 55, 79% are white, 61% are male, 44% are born-again Christians. That sure looks like a bunch of angry old fundamentalists to me.
September 23, 2010, 6:19 amellid says:
@Wolfwalker:
Sorry, but the “grassroots” behind the tea party groups is financed not by genuine patriots but by right-wing Republicans. Not only are the Kochs heavily involved, but Dick Armey and his Freedomworks think tank/lobbying group have poured money into tea party groups, most notably during the healthcare town halls last summer. This movement is about as “grassroots” as a candidate’s phone tree.
And even if the huge amounts of money right-wing billionaires are pouring into the tea party and its candidates doesn’t count, I’d sure like to know why a supposedly grass-roots group dedicated to low taxes, fiscal responsibility and defending the Constitution didn’t say word one when President Bush (or Bush I, or Reagan) sent the deficit skyrocketing, or protest the PATRIOT act that allowed surveillance of ordinary citizens, or decry the restriction of reproductive rights, or thank President Obama for the tax breaks and tax cuts dropped tax rates for 98% of the country last year.
Bueller? Bueller?
September 23, 2010, 6:29 amwolfwalker says:
“Sorry, but there have been way too many “Where’s the birth certificate?” and Obama-as-witch-doctor signs at tea party rallies to give much credibility to the claim that birthers aren’t welcome at tea parties.”
The “witch doctor” thing I saw _once_, and that on a newscast. I saw no such signs at the Tea Party rallies I’ve been to, and the bloggers I know who call themselves Tea Partiers blasted the “witch doctor” sign as stupid, racist, and counterproductive. Almost anyone is welcome at a Tea Party rally as long as they oppose the current White House resident and his policies, but some are more welcome than others. Racists are emphatically not welcome. Birthers and people comparing the CWHR to Hitler are ignored. More important IMO, establishment politicians and political machinists are not welcome either. At one rally I attended, the biggest cheers were for citizen activists. When a speaker tried to get applause with traditional Republican buzzwords, the silence was deafening. The one thing Tea Partiers don’t want is more business as usual — because business as usual is how we got into the current crisis.
“Sorry, but the “grassroots” behind the tea party groups is financed not by genuine patriots but by right-wing Republicans.”
ROFL! And of course, it never occurred to you that “genuine patriots” and “right-wing” might be synonymous…
In any case, grassroots it is. Go to a few Tea Party rallies and look around. Yeah, you’ll see some professionally made signs. But not many. You’ll see a lot more homemade signs, makeshift signs, signs carried by individuals who put their own money and time into making those signs. Signs that are badly made. Signs that are really badly designed. Signs with spelling mistakes. Signs, in short, made and carried by people who don’t usually do such things. No evidence of big money anywhere.
“I’d sure like to know why a supposedly grass-roots group dedicated to low taxes, fiscal responsibility and defending the Constitution didn’t say word one when President Bush (or Bush I, or Reagan) sent the deficit skyrocketing…”
Uhhh … maybe because it didn’t exist yet? The impetus behind the Tea Parties has been building for at least thirty years, but it took the current White House resident and his policies to really mobilize it.
Sheesh, people. Why are you so determined to find a Dark Deep Evil Conspiracy(tm) behind the Tea Party? Why can’t you accept that Tea Partiers are exactly what I said they are? All this nonsense about the Tea Party being an astroturf campaign by the Republican power structure is a pack of lies spread by establishment politicians and their mouthpieces because they’re scared witless of what the Tea Party represents. Tea Partiers hate the modern Republican Party only slightly less than the modern Democrat Party, because in their eyes both parties are composed mainly of criminals: Democrats are traitors and Republicans are frauds. Longshot candidates like O’Donnell are cruising to Tea-Party-powered primary wins precisely because their opponents are viewed as tools of the Republican power structure.
September 23, 2010, 7:41 pmthe blog team says:
Curious how these “genuine patriots” don’t believe in respecting the office of the President of the United States, preferring circumlocutions to naming him or using his correct title — as if they actually do believe President Barack Obama is a witch doctor and using his name will give him power over them. (Maybe that’s that witch O’Donnell’s influence!) “Current White House resident”? That could mean Bo the dog.
September 24, 2010, 4:42 pmwolfwalker says:
Exactly wrong. I have enormous respect for the Office of President of the United States. I just have none for the current White House resident.
September 24, 2010, 8:04 pmthe blog team says:
Respecting the office means — no matter what you may think of him or his policies — acting respectfully to the man who holds it. That means, among other things, referring politely to Pres. Barack Obama.
“Current White House resident” is derisive birther terminology. You are disproving your own statements, wolfwalker, and showing that you tea partiers are indeed sympathetic to the crackpots who claim not to believe Barack Obama is the legal, duly elected president of the United States.
September 24, 2010, 8:26 pmJim Flanagan says:
It is interesting to see the mental gyrations these haters go thru to rationalize their actions. They opposed the President from the day he was nominated, obviously not for anything he had done. They claim they oppose him for his policies but the last administration started much of what they opposed (budgets out of wack, hugh deficits, giveaways of our recources, federal intrusions into daily life). Yet, not a rally or complaint could be heard.
Jim
September 24, 2010, 10:01 pmLawrence says:
I am fascinated by the idea that genre fiction could shape or inform a political leader’s decision making. What other political leaders claim to be fans of science fiction?
September 25, 2010, 1:36 pmRob Thornton says:
I live in Crystal City, Virginia. For now, it is a prime nexus for the military-industrial complex. It is also the site of many many hotels. When Glenn Beck held that rally, some of the Beck crowd were there and I helped a few of them find the Metro stop.
In the process, we had a conversation and I made it clear that I didn’t want to discuss politics. This opened the floodgates and we made polite chitchat about the Beck rally. As we parted, I looked at them and said “All I really want to tell you is this: before you accuse Obama of having a socialist-led government, know what a socialist actually is.”
The mother looked at me and said:”So tell me, what is a socialist?”
September 27, 2010, 2:59 pmjasonmitchell says:
tea party “platform”
“we don’t like Barak Obama, liberals, health care reform, or taxes”
they seem to be against a bunch of things – but I haven’t seen anything they are “for” that is any different then any of the planks of the republican platform
the funding is coming from the same places that republicans get thier money
FOX news is sympathetic to the tea party, and Fox news talking heads cristisze many of the sae things that teabaggers critisize
the only aknoweged “leaders” of the tea party- Sarah Palin and her ilk – are/were republicans
if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck – it just might be a duck!
September 27, 2010, 3:31 pmjasonmitchell says:
next we’ll hear how the swift boat veterans for truth had no political adjenda and wasn’t funded by prominant Republican Party Donors.
It is my belief that many of the participants in Tea Party rallies DON’T KNOW who supplies the talking points/ $$. Also there is more than 1 group calling themselves some flavor of tea party – they are not monolithic in ther views – but they all seem to be anti-Obama, anti-Democrat and not “Pro” anything that hasn’t been conservative/republican talking points of the past.
September 27, 2010, 4:06 pmGriff says:
@wolfwalker;
“In WW2, you could take a guy off the street, put an M1 in his hand, ram him through six weeks of basic training, and have an effective soldier come out the other end. Today, you can’t do that anymore. The technology has gotten too advanced.”
My dad got about 3 months of training before going to north Africa in 1942-43. I got 16 wks, half of it wasted, before going to Vietnam in 68-69. From talking to AfPak grunts at the local VA, the technology isn’t that hard. The IED’s and snipers are hard. The technology of the infantry hasn’t changed as much as we might think. You an still get vaporized by your own air support, and the equipment still breaks right when you need it.
On Teabaggers,
September 30, 2010, 4:23 pmI have known these people all my life. they are not new, just now acceptable to a failed political party grasping at anything to stay in power. And they probably will.
Yes, I have been (by accident) at one of their rallies downtown. A couple of my wife’s co-workers are involved in the “movement”. Actually they love big government, if it involves dropping bombs on brown people or jailing “illegals”. Down here in NM they want troops on the border. To protect all those great roofing, field work, and motel cleaning jobs their kids want. And make sure the zygotes and embryos are safe, for God sakes!
Small gov? Don’t think so. If you took the xenophobes, religious nuts, creationists,etc., out of the movement, it would be a few corporate hacks with signs about socialism.
Griff