Fearing and Loathing the Idea of Newt as President

I want to delve into the world of politics because, in case you hadn't noticed, this is what we call an "election year," and you probably can already guess that I'm none too thrilled that Newt Gingrich (a man who oozes sleaze) won big in my home state of South Carolina. Granted, none of his competitors would appeal to me any more than he does (Ron Paul is batshit crazy and isolationist, Romney is of the manor born, and Santorum is slang for anal discharge following gay sex...no, really, Google it if you dare), but Newt is something else entirely.

The guy has no moral compass except his own personal aggrandizement, he reeks of political corruption and financial misdeeds, he's a hypocrite who only sees what he wants to see, and he has a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas. Plus, he's from Georgia...just kidding, I have friends from Georgia so I know not all Georgians are like him.

But he's more than enough.

I went through a Watergate phase a few years back, possibly due to the release of Frost/Nixon, and my reading on Newt is that he's very Nixonian, and I don't mean that as a compliment. Richard Milhous Nixon might be the most fascinating president we've ever had, because at no point did he ever attempt to mask the fact that he was a bad, bad dude. Okay, in '68 he ran as "the new Nixon" much like Newt is running as somehow a minted hero of the '94 "Contract with America," claiming credit for Clinton-era reforms that by anyone else's logic would be...well, Clinton's achievements, not Newt's. But the American public, particularly the conservative bent, have short-term memory loss, and to them Newt is appealing. God knows why, but he is.

Newt Gingrich as the next president of the United States is both alarming and intriguing to me, alarming because it means a return to Bush-era hypocrisy in the name of "national security" and intriguing because part of me wants to see just how much Newt would out-Nixon Nixon. Nixon's mistake, in Newt's world, isn't that he covered up the burglary of the Democrats' national headquarters; it's that he got caught.

And now, thanks to my fellow South Carolinians, Newt isn't going anywhere fast. We sure know how to pick a winner.

Trevor