Monday, January 30, 2012

The Wizard of Odd


(Photo Credit: Linda Davidson, Washington Post, 1/30/12. Newt Gingrich's campaign bus Sunday in Florida.)

He does look a little wizard-ish, doesn't he, all smiling and soft-eyed and puffed up even larger than he is in his natural state? And those hand-waving Floridians make perfect Munchkins, standing there in the bright sunshine as the balloon lifts gently away from Earth bus pulls away.

Oh, good lord, will it never end, this campaign from Hades? Apparently not.

Gingrich, who, he keeps telling us, is the Smartest Man in the Universe, dreams lofty dreams of Lincoln-Douglas style debates with the brainy fellow he seeks to replace.

Meanwhile, out by the bus, here's a toxic little snippet, from Stephanie McCrummen's report in WaPo, of what Gingrich's followers appear to want:
“Oh yeah, I can’t wait — I’m ready for Newt to debate Obama,” said [Claudio] Klestel, 49. “I’m an NFL fan and now that the season is over, this is what I’m going to watch . . . Newt putting Obama in his place.”
No dog whistles or secret decoder rings needed to figure out the basis of Gingrich's populist appeal, eh? Of course, the diabolical genius of the former Speaker of the House is that he has the audacity to promote himself as the Smartest Man Alive while tapping into the basest political emotions: racial resentment rooted in ignorance and economic insecurity. That's what he's doing every time he refers to Obama as a food stamp president, which writer Walter Mosely rightly describes as an example of Gingrich's "poetry of hate."

It is poetry, yes, but it is poetry that sickens the soul. One can only hope that the author of such despicable poetry will board his well-appointed bus for nowhere soon and leave us to ponder why we tolerated him in our midst for so long.

Happy Monday, darlings. Wake this dead dog when it's over, will you?

4 comments:

  1. GlassPen2:42 PM EST

    You're right, of course...every word of your post. There is some perverse satisfaction watching these guys shred each other...but at a very high cost to the concept of civil discourse, and the long term implications of everybody getting even more fractious and angry than they already are.

    Side note...South Carolinians must really dislike Mormons and Catholics if they picked Newtie Num-num.

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  2. I was really hoping for Santorum to win South Carolina... couldn't really pin on why him over Newt (didn't want Romney to win right away), but I realized it is because I want to be able to stop hearing Newt Gingrich's voice on the radio every single fricking day.

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  3. p.s. That and the word "froth" makes me giggle.

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  4. this Wizard stuff is so perfect, and the pic so funny and awful in its way, and the analysis so smart and clear -- wow. sigh. more sighs. lots of wows. keep it up, please.

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