"WHEN GINGRICH LOSES HIS MIND.... Obama Derangement Syndrome can take some strange people to some strange places. Disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), in all his pseudo-intellectual glory, has become so enveloped in his own garbage, he appears to have suffered some kind of severe head trauma.
Gingrich's trip to Crazy Town began quite a while ago, but in recent months, his unbridled hatred of the president has pushed him to the point of sputtering, incoherent rage. Earlier in the summer, Gingrich insisted that Obama and his allies represent "as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did."
Ol' Newt seems to be getting more worked up as time goes on.
Citing a recent Forbes article by Dinesh D'Souza, former House speaker Newt Gingrich tells National Review Online that President Obama may follow a "Kenyan, anti-colonial" worldview.
Gingrich says that D'Souza has made a "stunning insight" into Obama's behavior -- the "most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama."
"What if
is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together ?" Gingrich asks. "That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior."
"This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president," Gingrich tells us.
"I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating -- none of which was true," Gingrich continues. "In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve . . . He was authentically dishonest."
Gingrich appears to have been inspired by D'Souza, perhaps best known for writing an entire book arguing that terrorists are right about the problems with American culture. Osama bin Laden and other dangerous Islamic radicals believe the U.S. is too secular, too permissive, too diverse, too free, and too tolerant -- and D'Souza concluded that they're absolutely correct. Indeed, D'Souza went so far as to argue that liberal Americans are at least partially to blame for 9/11 -- the left invited the attacks by reinforcing the beliefs al Qaeda had about the United States.
In one particularly memorable episode of "The Colbert Report," D'Souza conceded that he finds some of the critiques from radical, anti-American extremists persuasive.
And now that D'Souza has crafted some new twisted theory -- the president, the argument goes, is executing an anti-colonial agenda pushed by his father -- Gingrich's twisted little mind has concluded that the "Kenyan, anti-colonial" worldview makes perfect sense.
I care about this, not because Gingrich is a lunatic, but because Republicans and the media establishment continue to treat Gingrich as a sane, credible visionary. I think it's fair to say most reasonable people would charitably describe his attacks on America's leaders as idiocy, but the problem is, it won't make any difference.
Given the way the political establishment is "wired" for Republicans, there simply aren't any consequences for this kind of abject stupidity. In the first year of the Obama administration, the most frequent guest on "Meet the Press" was Newt Gingrich. Despite having left office more than a decade ago in disgrace, he remains a leading figure welcome in polite society.
There's literally nothing the man can say to lose his platform to spew nonsense.
Update: I didn't realize this when writing the post, but Gingrich is on "Fox News Sunday" right now, which only helps prove the point.
—Steve Benen 9:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (37)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_09/025625.php#1823412
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