The French Jon Stewart

is how The New Yorker's Lauren Collen describes this guy and his show:

Le Petit Journal 06/02/12 - La civilisation anglaise

The bit that matters is this:

“The battle of who has the most perfect family [in the upcoming American presidential race] has begun,” Barthès says. “We choose the Republican Newt Gingrich, having discovered his delicious wife, Callista.”
Next: “We have an image just of Callista!” She’s in blue. The hair is voluminous. “Good God!” Barthès sputters. He makes some gestures around his head. “But what is this crash helmet?” A moment later, he declares, “We have discovered the secret of this mysterious cut, thanks to Leonardo da Vinci.” Now it’s Caleesta again, with the Vitruvian Man superimposed on her face. Barthès rattles off measurements and radii in a tone of Dan Brown-ish portentousness. We see another image of Callista, on a day with “winds strong enough to tear off a cow’s horn,” standing alongside Newt. “It swells slightly,” Barthès says, “but nothing moves.”

And there you have it.

Oh How I Long for the Millionaire Hobo of Yesteryear

I was reading Whateveritisimagainstit this morning and  learned of James Eads How the "millionaire hobo." I assumed, foolishly, that the epithet was ironical. According to Wikipedia, he was in fact a millionaire. Or, more precisely, the son of a millionaire one who refused his wealth because, he said:

I have not earned it, it is not mine

Instead he spent his time trying to improve the lot of the poor and, as his name suggests, living like hobo even as he attempt improve their lot.  And odd man? Perhaps. However, he understood the difference between merit and luck; between unjust suffering and unjust opulence and he decided to work to overcome rather than benefit from the system that created both.

In contrast, robotic sociopath Mitt Romney has been given everything he has and yet claims that

I did not inherit what my wife and I have.

He goes yet even further and enlists, or tries to, Thomas Paine in his war on equality and justice. In the process he exposes his general ignorance of history, which is nice. Finally, he says, in a burst of honesty, that he is not

concerned with the very poor. We have a safety net there.

I mean really, he likes to fire people, he isn't worried about the poor. Next he will actually kidnap some young woman and tie her to the railroad tracks.

Let's hope that Newt Gingrich stays in the election and the two horrid little men continue to expose their horridness, their littleness, and their aversion to the truth for a few more months. Ideally this will ensure the Obama's election and we can have four more years of disappointment that don't include recreating all of the 19th century.

Dogwhistle

When Newt Gingrich said that he was

 little bit tired of being lectured about respecting every … religion on the planet, I would like him to respect our religion.

I thought it was the usual Obama hates Christianity. However as

a campaign spokesman confirmed Gingrich was referring to Romney.

Who'd a thought the maniac would go all in on the Mormons aren't real Christians. The Republicans are going to have a hard time getting the evangelicals back on board if they select Romney.

See also Gingrich's supporters proving that Romney is a Medicare fraud enabler:

Muppets as Reverse Newt Gingrich

In South Carolina Newt Gingrich made like a cordoroy pillow, i.e., created headlines, when he attacked a moderator for asking obvious questions that torpedoed Gingriches sanctimonious preaching to the less fortunate concerning their immorality and etc. Because King is a buffalohead, he accepted the chastisement and begged the lordly fathead Gingrich for pardon. Here is how public figures need to deal with the demented bullies of Fox News and the robotic sociopaths of the right:



In this case, of course, the scorn and laughter are earned.

Missing the Point

David Brooks is. He explains that robotic sociopath Mitt Romney isn't a "cosseted character" . . .corrupted by ease and luxury" because he is "relentlessness" like many "striving immigrants" and is Romney, despite being on is does not behave like most "rich scions." How to explain this? Romney's Morman forebearers. No seriously. It seems that two of Romney's great grandpas overcame all manner of crap back in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Consequently, Brooks assures,  as far as Romney is concerned the "wealth issue is a sideshow."

It's not even vaguely clear that Romney's career of moving from fantastic wealth to untold wealth provides evidence of striving or the fact that rich people can ensure that their kids continue to get rich. Secondly, the wealth issue is that Romney, as a result of his father's and his own, wealth has no clue what the world is like and that Romney will subject America to an intensification of the economic policies that got us into this mess in the first place.

Newt Gingrich is a dimbulb who has tooted his own horn for so long that he mistakes noise for music; Romney is a rich but lucky fellow who, like George Bush before him, was born on third base and thought he it a triple with the added benefit of neoliberal rigging policy so that third base became home.

Right Wing Critique of Capitalism

Lots of neoliberals, conservatives, and the right more generally are up in arms about the Perry/Gingrich/Huntsman assault on Romney because they think that assailing "vulture capitalism" is a left/radical critique of capitalism. This is the bunk. Fascists and Nazis offered critiques of capitalism that decried its excesses and plutocrats while lauding "authentic" capitalism. Gingrich is the most explicit in this maneuver because he insists that

[t]he question is whether or not these companies were being manipulated by the guys who invest to drain them of their money, leaving behind people who were unemployed,” Gingrich said on Bloomberg. “Show me somebody who has consistently made money while losing money for workers and I’ll show you someone who has undermined capitalism. … That’s an indefensible model.

This critiques of capitalism asserts that it cannot fail but rather can only be failed. This ignores, of course, the actual left/radical critique of capitalism which is that Romney and Co are the logical culmination of capitalism and that the only way to fix it is to fundamentally transform the ownership model by democratizing it.

It's true that "moderate" and "left" neoliberals might be troubled by the criticism, if only because they might realize how silly they sound in defending the indefensible.

Republicans in Disarray

Flush from his recent victory of the sociopathic robot Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum makes with the wisecracks about Romney's wealth. Newt Gingrich, apparently stung because Romeny's fellow plutocrats spent millions making sure everyone remembers Gingrich's record of double-dealing, personal and professional crapulence and asshatery, had his plutocratic pals put out a movie with this for a trailer



I think it's great that this clowns are decrying wealth and neoliberalism; I await Romney's, who calls their kid Willard?, measured and reasonable response.

What I don't get is how they think they can attack Romney who represents decades of Republican, conservative, and neoliberal policies' successes and woe the crazed hordes they need to win the primaries or how they suddenly pivot back to hating socialism, which mean moderate neoliberalism.