Newt Gingrich

The Hastert Rule

January 3, 2013

. It is such a given so little reflected upon by its participants and observers, that political life leads to cynicism, that even when reflection periodically takes place, much is lost in the glare. Consider in this regard the already commonplace observation that in clambering back atop the “fiscal cliff” on Tuesday, the GOP-controlled House [...]

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Compromising with Reality

November 8, 2012

. I spent less than the usual time on social media yesterday – I took a kind of day-after breather – but I devoted most of what time I did spend to venting. You can see it in my twitter feed down on the right. It was not my larger self on display, but “moderation [...]

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The American Socialist Century

August 27, 2012

.   The Manchester Union-Leader, long an emblematic journalistic voice of the Republican Party, New England strain – before the advent of Tea Parties and general no-nothingism – isn’t quite that anymore. Do not say it is not trying to adapt, however.   President Obama and Mitt Romney, and the courses they propose for this [...]

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Bile as Argument

January 23, 2012

. Several days ago, a late reader of my post “Christopher Hitchens, Glenn Greenwald, and the War of Ideas” sent me an insulting private email. Since this is a blog with a public commenting apparatus, I am always struck when people choose to insult me privately rather than offer counter-arguments and insult in the public [...]

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Everything Old is Newt Again

December 2, 2011

. I’ve taken some time off for real life this week – that oddly embodied and sensate earthly manifestation so much more vivid than Cyberlife. It’s been a trip. I kinda liked it, so – I don’t know – worldly. Still, I have received communiqués from that way station between the two worlds – political [...]

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Occupy Distraction

November 21, 2011

Some quick thoughts on continuing Occupy Wall Street developments. A few recent dispersals of protestors, especially the much viewed UC Davis pepper spraying over the weekend, have called attention to unhappy trends in policing over the past decade. James Fallows, Alexis Madrigal, and Ta-Nahisi Coates, all at the Atlantic, had good thoughts about it all. [...]

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The GOP’s Media-Manufactured Messiahs

August 18, 2011

  They might have learned something from the original breakfast flake of modern times Ross Perot. But the news media do not learn. They speculate, they trumpet, they pander, they shill – “It’s news! How can we not cover news?!” And who made it news? You’d think certainly they would have learned from Rudy and [...]

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Kenya, Conservatives and Colonialism

April 15, 2011

It really sticks in my craw. But that’s all right. I have a large craw. I suck it down and then I spit it out. I spit it out. According to the The Times of London (behind paywall) last week, Government efforts to cover up one of the worst episodes in British colonial history have [...]

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The Next GOP Assault on Working Americans: State Bankruptcy

January 24, 2011

In fact, it has been going on for over thirty years. It has taken the form of nearly stagnant wages, while the accumulation of wealth among the richest Americans has reached proportions beyond all previous measure. It grew in the increased turn to a contingent labor force, steadily shorn of worker protections, benefits, and even [...]

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Nation, Culture, and Identity

October 19, 2010

The truth is that none of the ideas against which Adam Levick argued last week in response to my “The Churchill Doctrine” and “Incoherence on Race and Culture“ are positions that I hold. How can that be? Adam is the estimable managing editor of CiF Watch, a blog finely dedicated to exposing the rampant, ugly [...]

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Forbes and D’Souza’s Basement Journalism

September 28, 2010

The Newt Gingrich comments about President Obama to National Review online, about which I’ve been blogging the past week, and based on the Forbes article by Dinesh D’Souza,  have drawn renewed attention to the empty intellectual shell of contemporary American conservatism. Beyond the obvious media hacks and charlatans like Limbaugh and Beck, and their political [...]

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Incoherence on Race and Culture

September 27, 2010

Christelle Nadia at The Republic of Dissent begs to differ (dissent, as it were) with my post The Churchill Doctrine. Before I differ with her differing, let’s examine, first, how she does her differing. She begins by characterizing the post – or what she quotes of it; this point is unclear – as “self-indulgent fluff.” [...]

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The Churchill Doctrine

September 23, 2010

No, it’s not his but you never heard of it. It’s mine. I’m naming it for him. I think he’d be pleased. If not, I’m sure he’ll let me know. Thinking back to Newt Gingrich’s recent plunge through the previously known floor of debased political rhetoric (he’s an explorer, that one, of perpetually undiscovered depths [...]

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Conservatives: Not “Collectivist,” Corporate

June 22, 2010

You can make an argument for anything. You really can. Birthers. 9/11 Truthers. The world is run by the Tri-Lateral Commission or the World Wide Jewish Conspiracy. The mob killed Kennedy. Castro killed Kennedy. The CIA killed Kennedy. Every other democracy in the world is, literally, dangerously inferior to that of the United States and [...]

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