You’re absolutely correct that nobody is voting for Gingrich here. They’re voting for the deeply cherished fantasy that he will do to Obama what he’s done to Mittens.
Nothing else counts. When he scolds John King and Juan Williams, they can actually see him doing that to Obama. It doesn’t matter what he says. Nobody is listening to the words. They’re listening to that visceral, piggy-eyed hatred, and they love it. Romney’s mealy-mumbly management-speak imitation of the same performance exasperates them almost beyond endurance.
—Guardian comment from ‘Natasha Fatale’
This is the most brilliant deduction I’ve read for why Gingrich is winning.
Obama promised to ‘return science to its rightful place’. So why is he breaking that promise with restrictions on emergency contraception?
By Hadley Freeman | The Guardian
The Republican party’s self-serving and dangerous disregard of science has been a rash on the American government for some time, one that blistered into a seeping sore under George W Bush’s administration. Bush politicised science the way he politicised religion, two acts that have no place in an enlightened and democratic society. Needless to say, these two acts frequently overlapped, with the Bush administration repeatedly ignoring the advice of scientists about the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancies – promoting unrealistic chastity programmes instead – as much as he did about climate change.
In the early days of his presidency, President Obama repeatedly cited this massive failing of the previous administration as a point of difference, promising to “return science to its rightful place” in his inaugural speech. Last week, he broke that promise, badly.
This is a really good read that, after complaining about how this latest decision reflects how badly Obama has politcised science (just like his Republican predecessor), goes on to talk about this study which shows how little difference there is between statements from Men’s magazines and convicted rapists and also how women in the media talk about each other. I’ve always liked Hadley’s work and I recommend reading all the articles she links to in this one also.
My favorite part of this post though came, quite surprisingly, below the line in the comments section. User RichJames drops this gem in response to the disregard for science in American politics:
True - but the war against science is the only war that America is actually winning.
I want that on a bumper sticker: “The War on Science, the only war America is winning”. Fucking beautiful.
Let me begin by saying, I’m not posting this link because I support Ron Paul. Oh no, I may respect his anti-war policies but they can not overturn the fact he has some serious issues. No, that’s just the title of the article and I’m posting this because of the last paragraph of the article:
In Boone, a small town near Ames that looks as if it opted against moving on from the 1950s, Paul addressed a crowd of about 150 in the library. Among them was Joany Gorman, 49, mother of four and a home-schooler. Asked why she supported Paul, she pointed to the Cookbook. “The reason I support Ron Paul is because I believe Jesus Christ is the one true God,” she said. She had never heard of him before this election but will vote for him on caucus day.
The Cookbook she’s referring to if you didn’t read the article and I don’t blame you is the Ron Paul Family Cookbook, full of recipes but mixed in with quotes from the Bible. Let me quote her again because I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it:
“The reason I support Ron Paul is because I believe Jesus Christ is the one true God.”
…what?
Ladies, gentlemen, unknowns, undecideds, boths, and neithers: I present to you an American voter.
So have you guys heard about this guy Barack Obama? He’s made some pretty impressive statements over the last several days. There was this speech where he basically railed against Congress for not extending a tax cut. Then during a Q&A with reporters today, he rebuked the accusation that he is an “appeaser” by reminding us all how many people he has had killed. Later in the same session, he even defended a decision by his Health and Human Services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, not to allow emergency contraceptives to be sold over the counter. He also stated that no options are off the table for dealing with Iran. Man, this guy is on fire! Tax cuts? War mongering? Restricting women’s access to birth control? He is a shoo-in for the Republican nomination next year! I wonder what yahoo the Democrats will put up against him.
What’s that?
What do you mean he is the Democrat?
Shit.
Well, at least he’s threatening to veto the bill that will make it legal to detain citizens and destroy the 4th amendment, right? Well, yes but, “Obama’s veto threat doesn’t actually stem from a concern for the rule of law so much as it has to do with his attempt to amass greater presidential powers.” Oh, and his lawyers agree that US citizens are fair game?
Well, then, I guess we are completely and utterly fucked.
