Over the last few years, whenever I have been forced to watch Newt Gingrich on television, I have had this nagging question at the back of my head: where have I seen this before? And suddenly, it just hit me: Gingrich is AWESOM-O.
AWESOM-O, you might recall, is a fake robot, invented by Cartman from South Park. Cartman pretends to be a robot so that he can find out embarrassing things about gullible Butters. Butters gets the last laugh: as they say, watch the whole thing. But what reminded me of Gingrich was when Butters and his family takes Cartman/AWESOM-O to Hollywood, and through a bizarre series of circumstances, Cartman/AWESOM-O starts having to randomly spit out stupid ideas for movies. He comes up with thousands of them — most of which involve Adam Sandler. None of the ideas makes any sense, and none of them has anything to do with each other, but the Hollywood brass eats it up and thinks that the robot is a genius.
That’s Gingrich! He just spits out stupid ideas. Let’s give every child a laptop! Let’s get rid of child labor laws! Let’s put Barney Frank in jail! Let’s go to the Greek islands to come out with a world-historical transformative idea! Let’s bomb Libya! Let’s not bomb Libya! Let’s say that Freddie Mac hired me as a historian! And Republicans think somehow that this makes him a genius.
I’m just waiting for Gingrich to propose making Adam Sandler Secretary of Commerce. He’s a film star! He knows how to sell things!
The Shrill One said the other day that Gingrich is what a stupid person thinks a smart person sounds like. I don’t think that that’s quite right: Gingrich is what Cartman thinks a smart person sounds like.
Referring to the Obama administration, Gingrich said, “The secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did.” He also warned that America will become “a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists.” The fact that the Republican Party and the media can take him seriously after these statements speaks volumes.
I continue to believe that the Republicans have an excellent chance of nominating a candidate who is outside consensus reality this year, but it is hard to believe that it will be Gingrich because under presidential-level scrutiny it will be hard to ignore the fact that he frequently sounds like someone reading the results of a game of MadLibs.
But I can dream.
Great. I just copyrighted the idea and will be bringing out a movie of it in the new year. You’re a genie-ous.
http://thepeakoilpoet.blogspot.com
pop
“Gingrich once introduced a bill mandating the death penalty for drug smugglers. Gingrich’s bill would have required execution for anyone attempting to bring 2 ounces or more of pot into the country. Merritt also reminds us of this shameless, astonishingly stupid attempt to justify his policies with his own drug use: ‘See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality… That’s why you get to go to jail and I don’t.’” http://www.theagitator.com/2011/11/19/newt-gingrich-drug-warrior-extraordinaire/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+radleybalko+%28The+Agitator%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Well, when you think with your gut, you talk out of your ass.
That’s just too rich. And true.
In a past life, perhaps, Mr. Gingrich was a Ring-Master for P.T. Barnum!
Newt is the right-wing version of a public intellectual. For the rest, I refer you as usual to Harry Frankfurt.
I just erased my post piggybacking on Henry’s amazing link up above. Nope, I’m not going to pile on Newt. Not me. Every time I (and we) do, the GoOP’s cycle out that candidate and step one candidate closer to Romney. TPM is now reporting Newt is “rocketing” past Romney in the polls. I’m with Nate Silver’s analysis (Is Obama Toast?), Romney has the absolutely best chance of beating Mr. Obama. Hell, even the crazies know that. It doesn’t require Silver’s “analysis”.
So I won’t help put a dagger in Newt. Hell no.
He is a great man. He’d make a fine director, philosopher, and even a better president.
The crazed enemy who is enemy to Crazy’s best candidate is my friend.
It’s not whether you want to put a dagger into Newt: it is when. Once he goes, only Santorum is left as the anti-Romney. And he is an even finer director, philosopher or resident than Newt.
Let’s see, maybe sometime around mid-January?
Are we really disciplined enough to spend the next four months claiming that Newton Gingrich is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being we’ve ever known in our lives?
Hey, Newt is smarter than W. I don’t know if that works to his advantage.
Is that damning with faint praise, or praising with a faint damn?
I never thought South Park, much less the Awesome-O episode would ever, ever, ever be featured on the RBC. The only problem I have with this analogy is that in the episode, [SPOILER ALERT!!!!] Awesome-O passes gas at a critical juncture, and everyone around suddenly snaps out of their hibernation of common sense and reflect, “A robot that farts? that doesn’t make any sense.”
And that’s the problem, even the supposed “serious” republicans will still say that it smells like roses and that’s unfortunate because eventually, Awesome-O gets his just desserts.