Interesting speech. To me it sounded like, “I got your unitary executive right here, motherfuckers,” with a side of, “If you think $21 million per year of unearned income taxed at a rate of 13.9 percent sounds populist, well, I raise and call. Show me your cards, bitches. Plus I killed Osama, so fuck all y’all.”
More in the morning.
These guys watch the Repuglican debates so you don’t have to:
• Charles P. Pierce: “(Newt) Gingrich’s political gifts are solely those of an arsonist. Challenged with the reality of what he’s always been, he will bluster and fume and light a dozen strawmen on fire, but he’ll never actually answer the damn question in a way that anyone with the intellect of an andiron would find to be adequate. Asked any kind of decent follow-up, and you can almost see his megalomania collide with his insecurities while he gropes for what comes next.”
• John Nichols: “Ron Paul and Rick Santorum took some pokes at the front-runners—indeed, Santorum got off a decent “there is no difference between President Obama and these two gentlemen” riff late in the debate. But neither of the other contenders stated the obvious: the leading contenders for the GOP nod embody everything that leads Americans to dismiss politicians as crooks.”
• Conor Friedersdorf: “Republican voters, who like the connotation of ‘conservative,’ say it’s a quality they prefer; revealed preference suggests what they actually want is an inconsistent right-leaning opportunist (George W. Bush, John McCain) who helps them evade certain kinds of cognitive dissonance (like hating deficit-financed government health care in theory and loving the budget-busting Medicare prescription-drug expansions in practice).”
And so on.
Meanwhile, the RomneyBot 2012 outputs some tax info and it ain’t pretty. None of his more than $42 million in income in 2010 and 2011 came from wages — it came from “a profusion of investments, as well as stock dividends and interest payments,” according to The Washington Post. And his tax rate last year? 13.9 percent. Ouch. That’s gotta sting. I tip better than that for bad service.
Notes Steve Benen: “(E)ven if Romney argues that he’s simply playing by the rules — taking advantage of existing tax loopholes to pay lower rates than much of the middle class — this doesn’t explain why Romney is eager to exacerbate issues on tax fairness with his tax plan that makes the problem worse.”
Steve adds: “Romney and his aides believe these materials should end the discussion. That’s backwards — the larger debate is just beginning.” Let’s hope so.
The nets are calling it for Newt, and one wonders whether it’s too late to throw up a huge, nuclear-powered electric fence around South Carolina. They’d probably like it just fine, and God knows the rest of us need it.
My man Charles Pelkey, who has actually worked in DeeCee as press secretary to Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), notes on Facebook that the upside of what Charles Pierce is calling “The South Carolina Primary of Resistance” is that it gives Gingrich confidence — “and the more confidence (hubris?) he enjoys, the crazier shit he says.”
Indeed. As Newt of all people should know, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” And you just know that the press corps — along with various opposition researchers — are following the Colossal Head around like a bad smell, hoping to catch him and Callista in a Motel 6 shackup with a Communist midget, a Log Cabin Republican and a black goat.
South Carolinians are polishing their tinfoil beanies and adjusting their Confederate flag lapel pins for today’s big GOP primary, in which the serial adulterer is widely expected to slap the Valvoline smack out of the vulture capitalist’s coiffure.
Indeed, the RomneyBot is already rebooting for what Talking Points Memo suggests will be “a tougher than anticipated” primary contest.
The Post and Courier in Charleston is live-blogging the festivities if you’d like to drill down through the smarty-pants Noo Yawk punditry to hear what actual people are saying. For example, Joseph Patterson voted for Rick Santorum because it “seems like he loves the Lord.” Meanwhile, John Davis went to the wrong precinct but plans to vote for Ron Paul just as soon as he finds the right one. Good times.
In heaven, Molly Ivins smiles: Gov. Goodhair will be taking his carefully coiffed clown act off the national stage and slinking back to the Lone Star State (sorry ’bout that, all y’all in Austin).
The contest for the Pachyderms’ pestilential nomination has been particularly feeble this time around, like watching a herd of blind pigs try to find an acorn buried deep in their sty, and it’s caused me to consider whether we need a knucklehead tax on would-be candidates.
Here’s how it would work. If you are so woefully ill-prepared to hold high public office that thoughtful people snicker at the very sound of your name, you still get to run — this is America, after all, despite the Kenyan Muslim socialist occupying the White House — but should you drop out because you can only muster the level of support one might expect from a Nazi at a bar mitzvah, the fund-raising ceases at once, the debt comes due with a vengeance, and you have to pay back every dime contributed to your campaign by people who, frankly, should have known better.
True, it’s something of a poll tax. But it’s levied against candidates, not voters. And it would be a net job creator, too, because all the late-night talk shows would have to rehire their writers instead of just running with Associated Press copy.
