For months the folks in DC who worked with Gingrich have been attacking the very notion of him getting anywhere near the levers of power. That was all fine and good before the Gingrich surge, but what will they do when they have to take it all back to support The Professor over President Obama?
Today Joe Scarborough took the lead in showing how this can be done. After spending two thirds of his weekly column in Pravda on the Potomac describing Newt’s many flaws he shapes a myth to fluff The Professor:
By this point in my column, you may be asking yourself what could be the case for a man who is an ideological train wreck and the worst manager this side of Barack Obama?
It’s simple, really.
When Gingrich was speaker of the House, he was responsible for kick-starting a movement that did three historic things:
(1) Balance the budget for the first time in a generation.
(2) Balance the budget four years in a row for the first time since the 1920s.
(3) Pass welfare reform.
Consider that Gingrich did all three over the strenuous objections of Bill Clinton and the Democrats in Congress and you begin to understand the affinity that conservatives who don’t know Gingrich have for Gingrich.
Is there a Republican in the field who can top these achievements?
No.
Does any other living Republican come close?
No.
The fresh hot meme that Morning Joe is selling is a fantasy where you imagine Newt Gingrich as America’s ONLY living Republican hero and the greatest Conservative since Reagan. The Bush/DeLay years are erased as is any factual history of the 1990s. Gone too is any discussion of all the post-1998 Conservative policy failures and disasters caused by wingnut magical thinking. With the Scarborough meme, all you have to do is give Newt credit for things he did not do and a reason to become a Gingrich supporter can be spun from smoke.
Reality was different. Budgets were balanced as a result of a difficult vote Democrats took in 1993 (which Newt opposed and exploited to win the 94 midterms) and Welfare Reform was a Clinton agenda item since the 92 campaign. The final result of Welfare Reform was far more what Clinton wanted than what Newt wanted. The successes of the Clinton years were done over Wingnut objections, not Democratic ones. Still, Joe has invented a fine nutter myth to justify his Gingrich walk back and I expect him to polish it in the coming months.
Look for others to pick up the meme and run with it as well. I look forward to some great hilarity from Will, Bobo, Rove and the other members of the wingnut noise machine as they all get in line to fluff The professor.
Cheers.
John Dillinger
Whenever Rs take credit for budget balancing in the 98-01 time frame, Ds need to remind everyone that Clinton stood firm against the major tax cuts Rs were proposing then. We saw what happened to budget when the Rs got their way when the Supremes made sure Bush became President.
JPL
Truth has a liberal bias.
PeakVT
The quote above illustrates another reason that the left will never build the media machine being talked about in the previous thread: how many lefties are willing to just flat-out make shit up on a daily basis?
Calouste
Of course the GOP so much appreciated Newt “balancing the budget for four years” that they kicked his ass out on the street at the first opportunity after those four years.
Ben Cisco
Listen, if there is someone that needs fluffing, no matter how odious they are, JoeScar’s the guy to do it. Any port in a storm, and I do mean ANY port.
David in NY
That meme, as I have noted here before, has been running around among the trolls for some days now. Which has led me to complain that this is only possible because the Democrats themselves have been unaccountably remiss in not taking credit for these things, and so to the uniformed observer, the meme seems to make sense.
Once again, sad to say, Will Rogers had it right.
Punchy
I believe I made this very comment this morning…watching how these Newt-haters become Newt-fellaters will be comedy gold.
catclub
@Calouste: they kicked him out in 98, right? So he was not involved in FY2000 or FY2001 balanced budgets.
Scar does waffle on this by saying he kick started a movement that did these things, not that he was in power when they actually happened. Of course, he also helped kick start a movement that brought down the WTC – supporting the Afghan rebels in the 80’s.
The Moar You Know
I would expect a man who murdered an intern and got away with it to be good with the fast talk.
Dave
And turning the Doughy Ball of Hate into the Pillsbury Doughboy has begun. Can’t wait to see who falls in line next.
Schlemizel
This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has seen how the Kewl Kids Klub works in DC. IF Newton gets the nod you better believe the fluffing will be furious and the whole “hes an intellectual” story line will be played to death.
This is why we should be careful in wish he is the GOP candidate.
Roger Moore
@Ben Cisco:
I’m not sure if I’d want to be fluffed by Joe Scar’s port. Think of all the other guys he’s fluffed with that same port; that’s how diseases get spread. And I definitely don’t want whatever diseases the people Joe has been fluffing have; they’re a scary bunch.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
O/T, but it’s gonna be 14 years in the pokey for Blago.
Martin
Ha! This just keeps getting better:
What’s next, Ramzi Yousef head of the FAA? Hedora named head of the EPA?
TooManyJens
This from TPM:
People who opposed Newt don’t have to worry too hard about how they’ll pivot to support him. It’s not like anyone will remember what they were saying a few months ago. Just keep throwing the red meat out there, remind everyone that Newt loves America (and Israel) and is tough on its enemies (unlike the Kenyan usurper), and the media will get all pants-tingly and won’t have the attention span to point out any inconsistency.
LGRooney
Newt put a horsehead in the shape of a JoeScar aide in the bed and he remembered his “debt.”
It’s still fun to play around with that conspiracy and, just as they’re ability to stay one step ahead of sarcasm, who knows…?
Yutsano
I’m actually disappointed here. I was so looking forward to the Jeebus freaks fluffing Willard after tarring his religion as a Satanic cult. Now that will be a helluva backflip.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
Bernie Madoff as head of the SEC.
TooManyJens
@Martin: Damn, you beat me to it. But when you think about it, appointing the anti-diplomat to the top diplomatic office is a perfect example of the Republican “government doesn’t work, and if you elect us we’ll make sure of it” philosophy.
Villago Delenda Est
The intern killing scum is of course wrong about those three points.
Those things happened DESPITE Gingrich.
bemused
Republicans are just not capable of feeling even a second of embarrassment. Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing a Republican blush. Red with rage, yes, blush in shame, no.
kay
True, but I just don’t think people are going to buy it. I don’t think all the pundits in the world can erase Bill Clinton and replace him with Newt Gingrich. It’s too late to rewrite that.
The cast and guests of Morning Joe believe they are representative of some broad swath of “average Americans” in this country, but that is actually not true.
Not everything they sell sticks. They miss as often as they hit. I just think this is a loser.
Villago Delenda Est
@Calouste:
Actually, he was kicked out in 1998, after an off year election nearly cost the GOP the House. Gingrich was blamed for this near disaster…someone had to take the fall, and Newt’s shitty leadership created all sorts of insurgent movements against him. The crown never rested easily on his head…his underlings were constantly looking for an opportunity for a coup. I still remember the glum faces of the Faux Nooze election night team as the numbers rolled in, particularly the funereal visage of the shitstain Brit Hume.
The balanced budgets came AFTER Newt was tossed out by his own party…not for his ethical lapses, mind you, but for fucking up the election.
cyntax
It may take Rove awhile to fall in line, since as the GOS notes, he was on Fox the other day:
Brachiator
@kay:
I agree with you. But the Republicans can’t help themselves. They have been pushing lies, distortions and denials for so long as political strategy that they don’t know any other way of doing things.
The double irony is that Newt and conservative pundits slam Mitt Romney for his flip flops, and now must dive deep into the same pool of perpetual contradiction.
Suffern ACE
Well I’m writing checks to various Dems now, thank you very much. First time he drops the name “Doug Feith”, I’ll be emptying my 401(k).
Redshift
@Schlemizel:
Maybe, but I’d prefer to have expectations set that he’s brilliant, rather than Bushian “a regular guy, but not too bright.” The result with Bush was that he was considered a T-ball style “winner” in debates if he managed not to drool on himself. I don’t think Newt’s supposed brilliance will hold up very well against Obama, and it’s much harder to claim victimhood for being stomped intellectually by some “elitist” when you’ve previously claimed that your candidate is even more brilliant.
DougJ
Great post, I saw that Joe Scar piece and had the same reaction.
Redshift
@Suffern ACE: Careful what you wish for. Feith was one of the questioners at the recent “foreign policy” debate; I bet we could find something in the transcript.
Raven
The rest of the quote:
Raven
Joe
elftx
Da Newt must have been watching “our” Joe as he just spouted all that at his talk this afternoon.
Marty
@PeakVT: I wouldn’t be so sure they are making sh*t up. Sometimes they just really are that clueless. Remember that Dana Perino was not familiar with the Cuba missile crisis. Scary.
Raven
IMHO Joe is laying out the reasons that people that don’t know Newt might vote for him.
Brachiator
@Schlemizel:
it’s already started.
And as I noted in an earlier thread, when Newt is “the smartest guy in the room,” he’s wonderful. But when Obama is “the smartest guy in the room,” he’s just uppity.
kay
@Brachiator:
I think we focus on when they succeed at this nonsense, but they often fail. They sold Sarah Palin hard well past the time most people had rejected her, not just as a candidate, but as an appealing or admirable person.
rikyrah
they do not care. they would follow a sheep, if it had the GOP logo on it
Calouste
@Brachiator:
Well, he hangs around mostly with Republican politicians, it ain’t particularly hard. But “guy” is a necessary qualifier. He’d easily be beaten by a gal, the table or a lightswitch.
Steve
Is it really fair to say that Newt deserves credit for passing welfare reform “over the strenuous objections of Bill Clinton” when Clinton campaigned for years and years on “ending welfare as we know it”?
Also, I would be curious to know how many of the people who make intern comments actually believe that Joe Scarborough murdered his intern, and how many of them just say it for fun because they don’t like the guy.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Only when the rest of the people in the room are Republicans.
Mike in NC
Polishing a turd takes great skill, and Joe is a highly skilled bullshit artist (as a former GOP Congressman).
Raven
Do any of you actually WATCH Mornin Joe? I think he’s a fucking weasel but he has been killin Newt on a highly personal level for weeks. How this is interpreted as “walking back” is beyond me.
Jennifer
Newt had nothing to do with balancing the budget. In fact, he led the House in rejecting Clinton’s 93 budget plan which raised taxes slightly on the top brackets and over the next 6 – 7 years, in combination with a booming economy, it brought the budget into surplus.
Not one single Republican in the House voted for that budget. Not one. And that was at Newt’s behest.
Jenny
Morning Joe = Dead intern
David Koch
That Mika is a piece of ass.
sherparick
@TooManyJens: The start of wars, the shock and awe phase, are good for ratings. The long drawn out years of killing that follow not so much. Scarborough really just makes stuff up here. It was the 1993 vote and a very unexpected boom (followed by a stock market bubble) that balanced the budget. Then people realiaed that pet.com did not have any revenue! And Dubya and Cheney decided that starting wars and cutting rich people taxes was the way to go.
El Cid
Note: Republicans in Congress balanced the budget without raising taxes under Bill Clinton. While it’s true that under Clinton, there were tax hikes on the wealthy, and that tax revenues usually go toward the budget, it’s irrelevant to this. Because it just is. Republicans balanced the budget against the spending Bill Clinton wanted to do, and that’s true, because it’s TRUE, and if anyone doubts this, then it becomes necessary to SAY IT LOUDER.
StevenDS
The budget got balance for 3 reasons:
1) The 1990 budget reduction act that raised taxes
2) The 1993 budget reduction act that raised taxes, and
3) Roaring economic growth.
Part of the credit for #3 above comes from #’s 1 and 2. I generally want to stay silent and hope Newt wins the nomination, but here is a FASCINATING video showing how Newt felt about #2 above:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/47894-1
...now I try to be amused
Ya know, Newt might actually be the greatest Conservative since Reagan. Which speaks volumes about Conservatism.
El Cid
@StevenDS: No, it was because of the Republican Congress stopping all the spending on Welfare which used to take up all the money. This is true because if you don’t agree I will have to say it again and again.
Xecky Gilchrist
but what will they do when they have to take it all back to support The Professor over President Obama?
Swallow a shit-ton of bile, but by God they’ll do it and they’ll smile as best they can.
Dave
Gotta love achievement #2. Any idea of what that four-year run of balanced budgets in the 1920s helped create?
The same thing balanced budget mania in the second half of the 1990s created: a deflationary contraction and a lost decade (and counting) …
Edo
The budget got balance for 3 reasons:
Actually there is a 4th reason, the peace dividend. As a % of GDP, defense spending dropped dramatically by the mid to late 90s. Yes, part of that was due to the strong growth in GDP, but nevertheless defense spending decreased. It has since risen and that’s part of the problem.
Irritable Liberal
The Republicans, with Newt front and foremost lined up to predict the end of America as we know it. They were right but not in the way they thought. Here’s what Newt said.
I believe that that will in fact kill the current recovery and put us back in a recession. It might take 1 1/2 or 2 years, but it will happen. (Congressional Record, 1993, Thomas)
I’m sure there’s video of it. That will put this nonsense to rest.
Caz
“The successes of the Clinton years were done over Wingnut objections, not Democratic ones.”
You are either blatantly lying or unbelievably uninformed.
Did you get this revisionist history from somewhere or are you just that thick that you can’t see reality when it smacks you in the face?
So, it was Clinton and the D’s that balanced the budget, over the objections of the R’s??
You must know what total BS that is, right? I mean, did you follow it at the time? If you did, then it should be obvious to you that Newt led the charge to balance the budget, and Clinton was smart enough to jump on board, and subsequently took a lot of credit for Newt’s plan which resulted in a balanced budget.
So if it was the D’s that were so fiscally responsible, what has happened to them in the last 15 years?? Because today, they can’t spend our money fast enough. Record debts and deficits at every turn. And you think they were the ones who balanced the budget just a decade ago, yet today they can’t find a single item on which to cut spending?
Your views are flabbergastingly entertaining and unbelievably ignorant!
Jennifer
@Caz: What, are you high?
Let’s see…first there’s the fact, not the premise, but the fact, that Clinton’s budget package of 93 set the state for surpluses, and it passed without a single GOP vote. Not one single vote. Why was it important? Because it signalled to the markets that Clinton was serious about getting the financial house in order AFTER 12 years of continually increasing deficits under GOP presidents. As a result, interest rates fell and investment boomed, which led several years later to even higher tax revenues resulting in the surplus.
Let’s look at what happened AFTER that. Bush the Lesser runs and says, “government shouldn’t be running a surplus, even though we still have trillions in debt racked up by my dad and Reagan. If I’m elected, I’ll make sure we don’t have any surplus.” And boy did he ever. With the help of a solidly GOP Congress, in the period between 2001 – 2008, he spent us into a hole so deep we may never climb out of it. But at the time, mouth-breathers like you had no problem with all that spending…it’s as if the world began anew on Jan. 21, 2009, when you all awakened with a gasp and said, “my god, where did all this debt come from? We’ve got to pay it all off, right now, this instant! Even though we’ve been ok with it for the past 30 years.”
And here you are bitching that the Democrats haven’t reversed in 3 years what it took 30 to foul up. No wonder you keep voting for people who screw you. You’re too damn stupid to see what’s going on even when it’s right under your nose.
Edo
Jennifer,
he must be. or the sky is plaid in his world.
R Johnston
True, but truth has an even greater anti-conservative bias. Liberals can be, and frequently are, wrong; conservatives, at least as far as the modern American understanding of the term “conservatives” goes, are by definition incapable of being right. Conservatives uniformly reject reality altogether. Liberals generally acknowledge reality, but don’t exactly embrace it on average.