Andrew Sullivan quotes Newt Gingrich:
“The Congressional Budget Office is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated.”
Sullivan then comments:
The CBO is just a branch of the Congress that is widely respected for its scores for legislation and refuses to build into its calculations now-discredited theories about how cutting taxes increases revenues, among other such “conservative” innovations in math. To pick on the CBO as “socialist” is to attack, as Newt has since he first appeared in politics, yet another respected institution in Washington, the better to condemn them all.
The better to condemn them all.
Newt – seriously – Newt has a certain sexiness. I know late night comedians call him the Pillsbury Doughboy, but Newt Gringrich has the sexiness of the nihilist.
The better to condemn… them all.
Newt’s appeal… Well, when I read Sullivan’s comment, I immediately thought of all the years I sat in my parents’ living room in Garrett Park (in a house almost directly across the street from the house I now live in) and listened to my aunt and my mother be nihilistic together about politics. They condemned it all – all politicians, all political institutions, all political journalists, all political movements… It was all cynical thieving crap.
They seemed happy to have this nihilistic conversation about the world again and again. There’s something thrillingly clarifying about this philosophy of life, about the rage and disdain it releases…
Yes, there’s even something sexy about it. A man walks onto a stage and snarls at all the Occupy movement people in America: “Take a bath.” “Get a job.” It’s Clint Eastwood: Make my day. And when Eastwood says that, UD says: Hold me back.
“Take a bath.” “Get a job.” People protesting inequality are … they’re stinking layabouts like … well, like most people…
Sarah Palin had a lot of sex appeal with voters; Newt does too, but his is more complex. Deeper. He is the voice of my mother and my aunt. The hope of the nihilists.
November 22nd, 2011 at 5:19PM
Noot wants Republican voters to believe that he’s a bombthrower… but he’s got this other side that just can’t give up the cynical thieving crap, particularly when it enables buying sprees at Tiffanys and gettin’ into the pants of hard-eyed blondes. Which is the real Noot? How many guesses would you like to have?
November 22nd, 2011 at 7:00PM
Finding NG sexy is an insult to Mr. UD. How do you feel about puffy Captain Kirk?
November 22nd, 2011 at 7:37PM
Well, I didn’t mean to say I find NG sexy; rather that I can see how he might look sexy – how his ideas might look sexy – to some Americans…
I had the hots for Kirk before he puffed up.
November 22nd, 2011 at 8:50PM
La donna è mobile.
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:50PM
Pur mai non sentesi
Felice appieno
Chi su quel seno — non liba amore!
November 23rd, 2011 at 1:59PM
Cachez ce seno que je ne saurais voir.
November 27th, 2011 at 3:24AM
We have a saying in France about politicians that prefer to disregard data computed by official bodies (such as the national institute for statistics): we say that it’s like treating a feverish child by breaking the thermometer.