It's not often that you get to make fun of Newt Gingrich and a liberal Washington Post columnist in the same breath--but we've arrived a such a moment! Day after day, the Newt-ster is reminding normal people on all sides of the spectrum why they're frightened by the prospect of a Gingrich presidency: the hypocrisy is one reason, but mainly it's his pretentious, vainglorious, overreaching rhetoric, which the logorrheic candidate seems incapable of moderating or containing. Two examples from recent days: Newt believes the best "analogy" to his being kept off the ballot in the Virginia primary is Pearl Harbor, according to TalkingPointsMemo, quoting Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull. It was a setback, Krull explained, but "in the end we will stand victorious.”
Somehow, in Newt's addled consciousness, his failure to get enough signatures for a state primary adds up to the beginning of World War II. So... what would a real challenge like Pearl Harbor mean?
Then, campaigning in Iowa, Gingrich declared: "This is the most important election since 1860, because there's such a dramatic difference between the best food-stamp president in history and the best paycheck candidate." The election of 1860, of course, was about whether the nation would dissolve into Civil War. Uhhhh, WHAT? Yes, Newt, we are a politically divided nation. But I haven't heard any secession talk lately. Nonetheless WashPost columnist E.J. Dionne, departing today from his usual informed sensibleness, cited Gingrich's ridiculous 1860 analogy in concluding that "everyone agrees that the 2012 election will be a turning point involving one of the most momentous choices in American history."
No, they don't agree. At least I don't. "For the first time since Barry Goldwater made the effort in 1964, the Republican Party is taking a run at overturning the consensus that has governed U.S. political life since the Progressive era," Dionne writes. To wit: Republicans want to remove government from American life, and Obama wants to impose it. OMG, we've been hearing this since the Reagan era, and the reality is nothing like the rhetoric. Reagan launched a deregulatory era but did not cut the size of government; he increased it. So did the two Bushes. The tea-party-driven GOP rhetoric we're hearing now is an angry reaction to that, but let's not overreact ourselves.
In truth, Obama and his likeliest opponent, Romney, are far closer in mindset and philosophy than anyone is willing to acknowledge just now. Obama, despite his image, has sought to placate business and left Wall Street largely intact, and he is taking a far tougher line on foreign policy--one that reflects a traditional GOP "realpolitik" view and a dramatic ratcheting up of covert war-- than is generally acknowledged, even when it comes to China. Romney, increasingly desperate to win over his base against an onslaught of "Not-Romneys," has allowed his rhetoric to grow more inflamed on the trail, including commitments to a balanced-budget amendment and partially voucherizing Medicare as well as eliminating Obamacare. But based on his history, if he gets the nomination he is unlikely to follow through fully on these overheated pre-primary pledges and do many things very differently, either on the economy or foreign policy. The problems of slow growth, chronic deficits, and an overextended military will inevitably lend themselves to similar solutions from either an Obama or a Romney administration.
Dionne acknowledged that Gingrich's metaphor was "cheap and inaccurate," but he nonetheless took Newt's "historical sweep" seriously. "It says a great deal" about the importance the election, Dionne concluded generously, "that Gingrich chose to reach all the way back to the election that helped spark the Civil War."
Sorry E.J. It only says a great deal about Newt.
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