Forget about Gingrich being a debater. He is no more than a racist pandering to the lowest common denominator. He is also a man withour scruples or a sense of propriety. And let's not forget the inabilty to be truthful. Counterpunch puts things into context about Gingrich and the GOP.
South Carolina. It’s going to be the state that keeps on giving to President Barack Obama. I’m not talking votes; I’m talking hate. Newt Gingrich’s primary win has the pundits praising his “debating skills,” but the less prudish among us can be clear: Gingrich’s skills aren’t rhetorical; they’re racial. He’s feeble at striking down his opponents’ arguments; what he’s great at is digging up his audience’s racial rage. It worked for the former Speaker in South Carolina; it’ll work against the Democrats all year.,
War with Washington, the “best food stamp president,” a slap down of the one African American moderator (“First, Juan…) Newt Gingrich had the GOP crowd on its feet in Myrtle Beach last Monday with exactly the same linguistic bombast that worked so well to end federal income support for poor people when he was speaker of the House. For the Republican candidates it’s all about looking presidential and Newt Gingrich was so confident about what activists of the South Carolina GOP want in the White House that he re-cut his joust with Juan Williams for a campaign ad as if to say “Vote Newt! He Can Beat Up A Black Man!” Cap that with his attack on CNN’s John King and you have vintage Gingrich: beating up the straw black man – and the straw liberal broadcaster who coddles him too.
As I wrote in At The Tea Party… it’s sick but satisfying for Democrats to be reminded just how much racial resentment and flat-out racism remains, especially if it remains someplace else – far from where they are. Tea Party hate was never anything super special; its roots lay in the same old dirt that the GOP’s drawn on for decades, and not just the GOP, either.
The GOP’s racism is inexcusable, and let’s face it, no one on the stage with Newt muttered a peep to hush him. But it’s not only the Right that keeps alive the good ol’ boy idea that America is special, stand-alone, white and Christian. As a nation we keep our racist bombast warm because it’s just so convenient when it comes to cutting help for the poor, ending affirmative action, even waging war. (“Fight them over there, so they don’t fight us over here” and so on.)
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