With Newt Gingrich winning the South Carolina primaries yesterday, the path to the GOP nomination has become quite muddied. It looks like this one is going to go on for awhile and Mitt's inevitability is now seriously in question.
As I watched former Speaker Gingrich's acceptance speech, I chuckled. The right always seems to have a great propensity for characterizing their opponents weaknesses in such a way that they end up explaining their insanity much more clearly. Remember when Charles Krauthammer coined the phrase "Bush Derangement Syndrome?" Well, I think the right (as clearly seen last night in the form of Ginrgrich and his supporters) have some taken their warped perception of this Bush "derangement" and actually achieved more perfectly what Krauthammer was describing but with President Obama instead.
Here is Newt's victory speech in its entirety.
At about 12 minutes in, Newt starts talking about President Obama. He says that the "centerpiece of this campaign is about American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinksy?"
Uh...huh?
Who beyond right wing bloggers know what he is talking about? I suppose the Tea Party folks do as Saul Alinksy was required reading, not for "researching the enemy" but for their own organizational purposes.
"Radical left wingers and people that don't like the classical America?" What Obama is he talking about? The one who said this when he accepted his Nobel Peace prize?
The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.
And has backed it up with actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya? I don't know who this Obama is that he is talking about.
"Food stamp president?" Is that the one added 2.3 million private sector jobs and has reduced public sector employment by 600,000 jobs? The one who averted another Depression after the mess Bush and the GOP left us in back in 2008? Again, I don't know who this Obama is that he is talking about.
"An american president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country" This is so unbelievably ridiculous that I'm at a loss for words.
"President Obama is a president so weak that he makes Jimmy Carter look strong." Let's see...bin Laden=dead. Al Alawki=dead. Hundreds of sorties by drones in Pakistan. Gaddafi=dead. Al Qaeda significantly damaged with ongoing US attacks. And a back channel warning from the president to the Supreme Leader of Iran which was repeated later in public.
“We made very clear that the United States will not tolerate the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz,” Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said. “That’s another red line for us and … we will respond to them.”
Again, I don't know who this Obama is that he is talking about.
It's obvious that Newt and much of the right have created a fictional Obama...one that is all these things...because they can't run against the real one. It's much more appropriate to characterize their's as derangement when you compare their fictional creation with the anger and frustration that formed over the very clear incompetence from the Bush Administration which ended up costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars of debt, it's not even a fucking contest.
4 comments:
Iran has also been making polite noises recently because the Chinese are backing away from them as an oil supplier and warning them not to go nuclear. Working with China to make Iran toe the line seems like a policy that will do the whole world a lot of good.
China has become a capitalist's paradise, where employers can hire slave labor -- in prison or at FoxConn. Not that long ago Republicans were full of praise for China, with Michele Bachmann's observation that China doesn't have food stamps. Yes, the Chinese provide lots of low-paying, long-hour jobs making iPods and X-boxes while living in cramped dormitories.
That's the society the Republicans want us to emulate?
Betting that M and the YLDP immediately attack this since it criticizes Obama as well as Republicans. That is if any bother to actually read it.
It’s symptomatic of our times. The people who aspire to hold the highest office of our land actually know very little about the history of this nation, let alone the rest of the world.
"when he accepted his Nobel Peace prize"
then
"And has backed it up with actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya"
bin Laden=dead
Al Alawki=dead
Hundreds of sorties by drones
Gaddafi=dead
ongoing US attacks
Can we all at least question the idea of Obama deserving the Nobel Peace prize?
Is that the one added 2.3 million private sector jobs
Aren't you the one who also tells us that the President doesn't have much to do with that? At least, when it's convenient for you to argue that. It does seem to change depending on day of the week and phase of the moon.
and has reduced public sector employment by 600,000 jobs?
How many of those are Federal, the only ones over which he has any conceivable control? (and even that's limited, because Congress has more than a little to say about that). States, counties and municipalities mostly have to balance their budgets, so when tax revenues drop, so must their expenses. Very often by downsizing. If you're going to give anybody credit for reducing the number of government employees, shouldn't that go to Bush? Well, no doubt it will next month when you decide it's a terrible thing. But by March it will be A Good Thing again when it's time to give Obama another tongue bath.
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