The mask slips some more
by Dan Crawford
National Review quotes Newt Gingrich:
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.”
So now we have Gingrich approving a standard rant by D’Souza with a Kenyan twist, and affirming Gingrich’s claim to sanity as a truthsayer…mainstream outlets carrying the Kenyan twist. If our President is not actually Kenyan by birth, he must be in spirit is the Gingrich plea. What a convoluted set of code. Are Kenyans Muslim in addition?
So when did Forbes become a mainstream media outlet rather than the reactionary propagandist journal that it has always been? And exactly what are the credentials that make D’Souza’s rambling ignorance worth noting. Gingrich has proved himself to be an opportunist pig currying favor with the rich and powerful all his work life. And not much work has he had to do. Lying and obfuscating take little physical or intellectual effort.
Well, Jack, it’ll put some wear on your whitewalls to serve your wife with divorce papers while she’s in the hospital recovering from a cancer operation. You have to admit–must have been hard on him, stalwart defender of the Republic that he is now and ever. Thing that strikes me about D’Souza is that other than saying what his masters want him to say, I can’t remember anything he has done either then or lately to merit any attention whatsoever. You know, I wonder if he’s from Kenya? Ya think? NancyO
For ‘Russia’ substitute Alaska. Which we should note was called ‘Seward’s Folly’ when we bought it from the Russians. It was only dumb luck that had the U.S. owning Alaska when gold was discovered and that the 20th century was not marked by having a Soviet province on the North American continent complete with what turned out to be huge oil, gas and mineral resources to go with known timber and fisheries.
Or maybe Secretary Seward was just God’s instrument. I am sure Sarah thinks so.
his apparent dislike of or disbelief in American exceptionalism.
Ridiculous right wing talking point #1. Offer something other than a naked assertion.
His Mideast apology tour.
Ridiculous right wing talking point #2. If you want to make yourself look credible, or even less like a tool, you’ll have to start quoting better sources than Steve Doocy.
His erratic support for Israel.
Ridiculous right wing talking point #3. If you want to make yourself look credible, or even less like a tool, you’ll have to start quoting better sources than Sarah Palin.
You are so blinded by – not even ideology, where Obama has been rather staunchly conservative – but by partisanship – that you would criticize Obama no matter what he does, because he is Obama, and a Democrat, and therefore always wrong, no matter what. Meanwhile, everything is OK if it’s done by a Republican.
No common experience from which to draw a comparison?
This is not just pathetic, it is pathological.
Really – WTF?!?
JzB
Which is just Obama’s (clever?) attempt to redefine ‘exceptionalism’ into simple ‘patriotism’. When people like Palin and Gingrich and most decidedly former Pres Bush invoke ‘exceptionalism’ they are making claims that go far beyond the ‘No True Scotsman’ deal. They are far from equating ‘exceptional’ to ‘equal’ in way one sees in handing out prizes in a pre-school ‘contest’.
Bruce,
A little may be due to Calvinism, America is the chosen.
NO,
Newt is a sick person. So in tune with much of the holier than thou conservatives.
Liberals are immoral, because they involve the humane teachings of the New Testament.
The evangelicals are mostly old testament Calvinists.
And David was a sick person too.
Bruce
just a note on alaska:
the history book they gave us when i was in the tenth grade showed a map of alaska and pointed out how close it was to Russia, proving that it was a mistake to buy it. Sewards folly was alive and well in the mid twentieth century.
Ilsm–Was the depot Warner Robbins? And was that wise old GA Senator Richard Russell? A fine fella, from what I heard as a child. Equalled perhaps in GA history only by Herman Talmadge, from McRae, GA in my family’s home county, Telfair. As fine a pair of thieves as you’d ever care to meet. My grandfather went to school with ole Herman, never met Richard, but had no use for politicians generally, observing that Talmadge couldn’t play baseball for squat and cheated on tests in school. Says it all about GA’s contribution to our Republic. NancyO.
You do realize, don’t you, that the average Republican voter cannot tell a Kenyan from a Keynesian.
The way I remeber the tale, he was Sam Nunn’s father in law, kept the committee feeding Ga.
Without pull in DC, Robins AFB would have been shuttered to keep a couple of productive air depots open elsewhere.
CoRev says D.D.’s view is “compelling”, but leaves out the important qualifier “to CoRev”. Compelling is very much in the eye of the beholder. What we have from DD is not scholarship, but speculation. It is worth noting that DD’s speculation ends up where it almost always does, an effort to erode support for Obama. What we see is a view in search of supporting arguments, and DD routinely offering this sort of speculation – which CoRev claims to be “compelling” – as the argument.
CoRev is tilling much the same soil as Gingrich, trying to grant weight to an anti-Obama screed, when the screed itself is weighless.
That’s because everyone in Washington DC appears to be a Kenyan.
cedric
most folks wouldn’t get that. fortunately.
The two Obamas may be in tune with John Admas in terms of anti colonialism.
What is worng with that?
Would anyone have a problems throwing off English colonialism?
Is it now bad to throw off Chinese, Euro or US colonialism?
How far from the US constitution to empire?
which would be too bad really. the Larison article is probably worth reading. here are a couple of quotes:
“Dinesh D’Souza has authored what may possibly be the most ridiculous piece of Obama analysis yet written. He takes a number of decisions Obama has made on a grab-bag of issues, declares that they are “odd,” and then proceeds to explain the “oddness” he has perceived by cooking up a bizarre thesis that Obama is a die-hard anticolonialist dedicated to his father’s anticolonialist legacy.
“Considering how atrocious D’Souza’s argument is, why spend any time answering it? For one thing, when nonsense like this isn’t countered it tends to gain traction. Another reason is that conservative pundits and writers such as D’Souza have been indulging in so much evidence-free, ideological babbling for the last two years that many of them now seem convinced that this babbling is actually extremely serious, insightful commentary. If we are going to have anything remotely resembling an honest or informed debate over foreign policy or anything else during the remainder of Obama’s time in office, arguments like this one have to be knocked down.”
this is in reference to my comment above, not to ilsm’s, or any other comment js-kit inserts.
Larison’s essay is in The American Conservative. both it and most of the responses there to it surprised me, as being reasonable. These are not the Conservatives we hear on the teevee.
Reminded me that the other day I had lunch at a small country store. Really sweet people. But they had a cartoon over the counter that showed the State economy “buried” by the teachers union and public employee’s pensions. I did not tell them that I paid for lunch with a public employee’s pension. It would only have hurt their feelings. But it is so tragically easy to exploit these people by appealing to primitive ideas* and repeating them endlessly so that they form the very basis of their thought… that it ought to be a crime.
[from their point of view government employees don’t work in the first place, and then only to pour sand in the gears of progress. but a retired employee is not working by definition, so his pension amounts to a “gift” or pure theft. the idea that it is money the person earned by sometimes hard and dangerous work, that he deferred receiving until he was too old for that kind of work, is just too complex a story to tell them.]
Let’s play free association bingo — what group is associated with the phrase ““Kenyan, anti-colonial” — the ‘Mau Mau’, purportedly cannabalistic anti-colonial group. That’s their backhanded slander against Obama !
MG,
Was the F-22 assembled in Ga?
Newt represented a district near Atlanta, I do not recall where I have seen him on flgiths to Atlanta.
MCD Albany? Was supposed to BRAC but survived.
Corev,
It’s it amazing the hate from the left? I don’t see why half these people even bother rolling out of bed in the morning anymore. How can one walk through life with the hate hanging over their head everyday?
An old WWII veteren that I like to go fishing with, told me way back before the election, He said “It doesn’t matter who wins or loses this election……if the Democrats get power with Obama as thier leader they still won’t be happy and the entire country will pay for it emotionally, and if they don’t get power and Obama loses, the entire country will pay for it emotionally….this is the first election in my lifetime where it is a lose-lose situation…..I don’t recognize my country anymore.”
He recently died, but I think about what he said all the time!
It will be the same with the election of 2012, there will be no gain, only loss whether Obama wins or loses.
An anti-colonial worldview is as American as apple pie! After all, we fought a war to cease being colonies. And while European powers were divvying up China in the 19th century, the U S stood for the Open Door policy. (To be sure, we have not always upheld anti-colonialism, and arguably have our own empire now, empire has never been an American ideal.) To hear Gingrich attack Obama for being an anti-colonialist is incredible!