Rick Ungar must be a nicer person than I am. He attributes the Newt-bashing by “Elliot Abrams, Ann Coulter, Tom DeLay, Matt Drudge, R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr., the editorial staff of the National Review and the many ultra-conservative writers” to their patriotic terror at the prospect of a Gingrich Presidency. Rick thanks this rogue’s gallery for “putting country country first.”
Sorry. I’m not buying. All of Rick’s new heroes backed Bush/Cheney to the very end. All support the efforts of the current Republican leadership in Congress to tank the economy and paralyze the government in order to make the President look bad so the GOP can reclaim power.
Rick is right on his other point: these folks do retail “a shred of sanity.” They can read the polls, and know that the Grinch would be such a disastrous candidate there’s no real need to worry about his becoming a disastrous President. As paid servants of the plutocracy, they’re all rallying behind Mitt Romney as the one candidate committed to lower taxes on very rich people who might beat Barack Obama in November.
“Willing to do the right thing for the protection of their country”? Not so much.
these folks do retail “a shred of sanity.â€
Perhaps, but they wholesale a broadcloth of lunacy.*
*Yes, broadcloth is not an antonym of shred, but it sounds right, it has the ring of truthiness!
I’ve had similar thoughts, Mark. The question: if those folks knew that Gingrich would win, and Romney would not, who would they back? They backed Bush when the guy was obviously incompetent, and, as you note, they continued to back him after he’d become a disaster. Their opposition to Gingrich is almost certainly entirely political.
This: They can read the polls, and know that the Grinch would be such a disastrous candidate there’s no real need to worry about his becoming a disastrous President.