Eugene Robinson: Newt and the Closet Kenyan

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/newt_and_the_closet_kenyan_20100913/

Newt and the Closet Kenyan
Posted on Sep 13, 2010

By Eugene Robinson


Is Newt Gingrich just pretending to have lost his mind, or has he actually gone around the bend?

snip//


In fairness to Gingrich, he wasn’t being original. He was speaking in praise of a big gob of gibberish written in Forbes by conservative “intellectual” Dinesh D’Souza. In the piece—much of it strikingly lazy—D’Souza argues that Obama somehow absorbed a fully elaborated, frozen-in-time, anti-colonial worldview from his Kenyan father. Who left the family when the future president was 2.

Well, we knew Obama was precocious. But if he was so absorbed with the study of colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism and all the other isms, when did he have time to learn to go potty?

snip//

It has been suggested that perhaps Gingrich, who is thinking of running for president, is trying to lure attention away from a recent unflattering profile in Esquire—the one that charts his three marriages in excruciating, and embarrassing, detail. But it hardly furthers his ambitions to pretend to be so nuts.

And there’s a thread that connects his outbursts: They all fit into the idea that American democracy—indeed, the whole Anglo-American-Judeo-Christian enterprise—is under attack in a titanic clash of civilizations. In this view, we are threatened most acutely by the Islamic civilization. But we must also be on guard against the “Sinic” civilization of China, the “Hindu” civilization of India, and assorted others. This analysis was developed by Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard professor who died in 2008—and who said he never intended his work to be read as a battle plan.

Gingrich seems to believe that our culture and values are also threatened from within—by black and brown people who demand that they, too, be given a voice in defining that culture and those values. He really needs to get out more. But, hey, it’s a free country. If he wants, Gingrich can imagine himself a retired British colonel in 1963, harrumphing in his armchair about who lost Kenya. A diverse and multicultural America has long since moved on.

[saltpoint]

1. Newt is in his white period. Ok, he's been in his white

period a long time. Like, probably all his life.

White is the color of his own true hair. White is the color of his third wife's hair. Or is it blond? Who can keep track, after so many episodes of adultery?

[babylonsister]

3. Hi, saltpoint. It never occurred to me

gingrich was trying to deflect attention from his own disgusting past, but it does make sense, and seems to have worked. I'm glad Mr. Robinson connected the dots.

:hi:

[saltpoint]

4. Hey. Good morning. Yep. Eugene gets it done.

One of the many problems with media in this country is that not enough newspapers have Eugene Robinson's columns in them.

:hi:

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Newt has a lot to overcome when comparing himself to Obama.

That's why he's desperate and trying anything and everything.

When you've been married three times with a history of at least two adulteries, you married your geometry teacher, you asked her for a divorce during her chemotherapy treatment, you simultaneously tried to impeach a president for adultery while you were engaging in the same activity . . . and you compare yourself to a man who is happily married to a wonderful woman with two great daughters, a family.

The comparison makes Newt feel inconsequential and inadequate, both as a political figure and as a man. He can't stand the competition yet he craves it as he tries to replace Obama as the ultimate political leader.

I'm not surprised by anything he's said or done. He's desperate.

[old mark]

5. Newt has a lot to overcome when comparing himself to a decent human being....nt

[Ikonoklast]

8. Newt has a lot to overcome when comparing himself to a

garden slug, let alone a sentient being.



The man leaves a slimy trail everywhere he goes.

[Cha]

9. ..

:D :rofl: So vividly true.

[jaxx]

6. Classic Eugene Robinson,

he nailed the newt.

K&R

[besdayz]

7. a

its laughable that this guy has presidential ambitions. probably in line with the rest of his delusional views.

he has some bad unfavorables which i'm sure went down after his personal stuff came out.....funny how the clintons have become extremely popular while this douchebag has plummetted....