Barack Obama (aka. Hopey-Changey) is richly deserving of the bashing I gave him yesterday. But I felt a little guilty because I have not bothered to bash any of the Republican candidates for president. The reason is simple. If we're talking about the leading candidates (at this point, not counting Buddy Roemer), people like Willard Romney and Newt Gingrich, who I have referred to privately as "Little Neuter" for years now, there's simply no way to make a serious criticism as I shall explain below.
I fear some readers will think I am being partisan when I call out Obama, and don't give equal time to the "other" side.
Thus I will make a half-hearted effort to go after Little Neuter today. First, there was this item in the transcript of the latest Republican "debate" (hat tip The Oil Drum). Newt is talking about U.S. crude oil production. (This is taken out of context, but it's awfully difficult to establish a context because Newt is making it up as he goes along.)
GINGRICH: But let me make a deeper point. There's a core thing that's wrong with this whole city. You said earlier that it would take too long to open up American oil. We defeated Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in three years and eight months because we thought we were serious.
If we were serious, we would open up enough oil fields [here in the United States] in the next year that the price of oil worldwide would collapse. Now, that's what we would do if we were a serious country. If we were serious...(APPLAUSE)
And then there was this—
WOLF BLITZER: The argument, Speaker Gingrich -- and I know you've studied this, and I want you to weigh in -- on the sanctioning of the Iranian Central Bank, because if you do that, for all practical purposes, it cuts off Iranian oil exports, 4 million barrels a day.
The Europeans get a lot of that oil. They think their economy, if the price of gasoline skyrocketed, which it would, would be disastrous. That's why the pressure is on the U.S. to not impose those sanctions. What say you?
GINGRICH: Well, I say you — the question you just asked is perfect, because the fact is we ought to have a massive all-sources energy program in the United States designed to, once again, create a surplus of energy here, so we could say to the Europeans pretty cheerfully, that all the various sources of oil we have in the United States, we could literally replace the Iranian oil.
Now that's how we won World War II.
(APPLAUSE)
World War II? Now, these are perfectly good examples, and typical of Newt, illustrating why there is absolutely no reason for anybody with an IQ exceeding 74 to take Little Neuter seriously. If you want an easy, brief refutation of this supply-side insanity, read The Oil Drum article I cited above.
I am unable to respond to this stuff myself. I require something with substance to criticize, even if it is only tenuously connected with the Real World (for example, something by Paul Krugman). Little Neuter's statements have no relationship whatsoever to the Real World, so I find myself at a loss for words when I read this imaginary nonsense. Even the guy at The Oil Drum felt embarrassed by taking a little time to refute Newt's flaming psychosis.
And there's more fun with crazy people. We might find it entertaining when one Republican whack-job runs with the comments of another Republican whack-job. Here's nutcase Larry Kudlow supporting Little Neuter and pressuring Willard Romney to respond in kind to Hopey-Changey's recent change in message.
Say what you will about former Speaker Newt Gingrich. His philosophy, his policy proposals, his track record, his campaign, and all the rest. But the one thing you have to acknowledge about Gingrich is that he's a sizzler. He has a way with words. And he's as good a communicator as anyone in modern politics.
In my CNBC interview with Gingrich this week, he slammed President Obama's tax-the-rich, class-warfare attack on bank's and businesspeople.
He hammered Obama, calling him a hard-left radical who is opposed to free enterprise, capitalism, and "virtually everything which made America great."
It was a brutal, frontal, hard-hitting attack on the president...
Now, I haven't heard any of the other GOP candidates offer that kind of response to Obama's recent class-warfare speech. Maybe I'm missing something. But I haven't heard it from Mitt Romney or the others in a sizzle fashion, which is the way Gingrich operates.
Frankly, Romney ought to be beating back Obama right now. He should at least be asserting that America's free-enterprise, capitalist system rewards success, not punishes it, and that free-market economics -- including supply-side tax-cut policies, worked in the 1920s under Calvin Coolidge, in the 1960s under Democrat John F. Kennedy, and again in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan.
Although we have exactly the same problem here as we did with Newt's remarks about the domestic oil supply—none of Kudlow's remarks bear any relationship to the Real World—some may find the ravings of this lunatic (and reformed former cokehead) darkly humorous. Of course, the whole point of yesterday's post was that Hopey-Changey is not a progressive warrior in America's Rich versus Poor class war. He just talks like one.
So, in the future, when you see me criticizing "liberals" without giving equal time to the "other" side, you'll know why I do that
Have a good weekend.
What everyone fails to explain--and that includes the so-called news media--is that all the oil and gas companies drilling everywhere in the U.S. and off our coasts will NOT affect the cost of oil here or fix our energy problems. That is because these companies can sell the oil and gas to anybody they like--our resources do not stay here in our own country.
That is why Alaskan oil goes to Japan and why natural gas as well as oil is sold on the world-wide market. If we were really serious about saving ourselves and our country, we would nationalize our resources so that they are kept and used here. But that will never happen as long as big business owns Congress.
Posted by: sharonsj | 12/09/2011 at 11:42 AM