Kevin Drum has this to say about the 90’s ascension of Newt Gingrich:
It’s hard to explain how this felt to a liberal like me. It was like waking up one morning and discovering that Norman Mailer was the new leader of the Democratic party. A guy who had been considered a fringe radical just a few years earlier was suddenly a serious statesman.
Umm, Nancy Pelosi? Ron Dellums? Jesse Jackson? There are enough wingnuts on either side, Kevin. I am not sure why Gingrich scared you anymore that the other collections of lunatics in both parties- except for the fact that Newt was successful at gaining power and changing the political make-up in Washington. As Kevin is a Democrat, I can see how that scared him.
Kevin Drum
Pelosi’s not a wingnut, she’s just an ordinary liberal. Listen to her talk and compare it to the way Newt talks.
As for the others, I don’t know much about them, but neither was ever the leader of the Democratic party.
Ricky
If Nancy Pelosi and her gov’t funding needle sharing programs are considered the mainstream of liberalism and you don’t know much about a former candidate for President who has been a keynote speaker during conventions or the person who was slated to be the chairman of the armed services committed (from your home state) should Newt’s gang to have lost the house, no wonder you see right wing fringe fundies everywhere.
I’m sure (hopefully targeted) ignorance and selective memory can be quite soothing during down times for the Democratic party.
Bill Quick
“Pelosi’s not a wingnut, she’s just an ordinary liberal. Listen to her talk and compare it to the way Newt talks.”
I’ve been listening to Nancy Pelosi considerably longer and harder than you have, Kevin – she represents my city (and me, supposedly, heh) in Congress. Trust me, she’s nuts. You ought to hear her at a nabe fund-raiser sometime. I always enjoyed the time she teamed up with Barb Lee and George Miller to try to get Clinton to resign as head of the Boy Scouts.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/09/13/MN96167.DTL
As for Newt – it’s an article of faith on the left that he’s nuts – but that faith seems sadly lacking in specifics. “The way he talks” is not a specific. I think his real sin – as John points out – is that he destroyed the Donk congressional hegemony, from which the Donks have never recovered.
JKC
“If Nancy Pelosi and her gov’t funding needle sharing programs are considered the mainstream of liberalism…”
As a health care provider, that sets my teeth on edge. Needle exchange programs have been proven to cut down on the transmission of HIV to the partners of IV drug users. (And, by extension, if those partners are women, their unborn children.)
I, for one, am proud to be a liberal on that one, friends.