Newt's Moon Base! — Making It Up As He Goes Along

Reader Wanooski requested that I post on Newt Gingrich's plans for colonizing the Solar System. I am happy to oblige.

A colony on the moon? Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich floated the idea before a massive audience on Florida's space coast. Thousands lost jobs there when the space shuttle quit flying, so what he told them was music to their ears — the promise of jobs once again, another space race.

Gingrich offered his vision of an ambitious new space program. "By the end of my second term," Gingrich said, "we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American." The crowd erupted in applause.

 

OK, which part of this is funniest?

1. floated the idea before a massive audience on Florida's space coast (incredible pandering)
2. by the end of my second term (psychosis, grandiosity)
3. the crowd erupted in applause (there's a sucker born every minute)

And then there are America's intrepid journalists, those with a real Nose For News, asking Newt about the Moon Base and the Mars Shuttle, as though any of this were real. It is fitting that this took place in Florida, the home of Disney's Magic Kingdom, the Fantasy Capital of the World.

My colleague Bill Hicks of the Downward Spiral recently wrote a post about Newt which is worth reading. In December I wrote a post about Newt called Equal Time Bashing — Little Neuter. The main conclusion of that post, which Wanooski and everyone else should bear in mind, is that when little Newt talks, he's simply making it up as he goes along. Anything he says need not bear any relationship to Reality. The Moon Base is a case in point.

In short, Newt is The Quintessential American Politician, A Man For Our Times. If we can't fix our problems here on Earth, and here in America, and it's becoming increasingly obvious that we can not, we'll simply colonize the Solar System and create some new unsolvable problems elsewhere. But of course there will never be a Moon Base or a shuttle to Mars for reasons too numerous to list here.

Thus Newt's Moon Base is the perfect microcosm exemplifying the entire 2012 presidential campaign.

Bonus Video — The Best Moon Base Simulator. Although everything I said in this post is true, all of the above was merely an elaborate excuse which allowed me to play this video, which sums up the Moon Base idea very nicely.

 

Comments

[Usman A.]

HAHA. I can't stop laughing!