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Newt Gingrich’s inanity knows no bounds

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Believe it or not, Newt Gingrich and Sean Hannity are still, even now, laughing like school children over the notion of properly-inflated tires.

After Hannity described this nonsense as one of his “favorite” stories “of all time,” Gingrich explained, “Well, I got a very funny e-mail from a retired military officer in Tampa who pointed out that most tire inflation is done at service stations and you pay for it. And it’s actually a higher profit margin than selling gasoline. So Sen. Obama was urging you to go out and enrich Big Oil by inflating your tires instead of buying gas.”

A lot of Republicans have said a lot of stupid things about energy policy in recent weeks

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, but this may very well be the single most inane comment any of them have uttered publicly. (Worse than a House Republican from Texas exclaiming, “Let’s bring up the Paris Hilton plan”? Yes, even worse than that.)

Ben at TP valiantly goes to the trouble of pointing out why Gingrich’s argument is demonstrably ridiculous — explaining why tire maintenance is a good idea, and wouldn’t “enrich Big Oil” — but I’d just add that it’s worth remembering just how idiotic Newt Gingrich’s worldview can be.

About a year ago, the WaPo’s David Broder said the former House Speaker has “earned the label ‘visionary.'” That’s absurd; Gingrich is a little more than pseudo-scholarly nut.

I’m not just talking about his nutty behavior. Gingrich, as Speaker, shut down the government (twice) and he pursued presidential impeachment over an adulterous affair (while carrying on an affair of his own)

, which certainly sounds nutty, but I’m talking more about his bizarre worldview.

We talked recently about some of his greatest hits, including Gingrich’s sincere arguments such as the notion that the homeless should get laptops and that women shouldn’t be permitted to serve in combat roles because “males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.”

But poking around a bit last night, I was also reminded of Gingrich’s habit for blaming liberals, government, and liberal government for just about every societal ill he can identify.

* In 1994, after Susan Smith drowned her two young sons, Newt Gingrich, just three days before the midterm elections, equated her crime with the values of the Democratic Party. Gingrich told the AP, “The mother killing her two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we have to have change. I think people want to change and the only way you get change is to vote Republican. That’s the message for the last three days.”

* In 1999, shortly after the Columbine massacre, Gingrich argued that American “elites” bear responsibility. “I want to say to the elite of this country – the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite: I accuse you in Littleton…of being afraid to talk about the mess you have made,” Gingrich said, “and being afraid to take responsibility for things you have done, and instead foisting upon the rest of us pathetic banalities because you don’t have the courage to look at the world you have created.”

* Last year, after the shootings at Virginia Tech, Gingrich blamed liberals for supporting “situation ethics

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,” adding, “Yes, I think the fact is, if you look at the amount of violence we have in games that young people play at 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 years of age, if you look at the dehumanization, if you look at the fact that we refuse to say that we are, in fact, endowed by our creator, that our rights come from God, that if you kill somebody, you’re committing an act of evil.” Gingrich, explaining the VT tragedy , went on to condemn Halloween costumes and the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law.

Broder may think this clown is a “visionary,” and the DC establishment may perceive him as some kind of “big thinker,” but I look at Gingrich and see a strange partisan hack with a PhD.

Comments

  • Martin

    says:

    About a year ago, the WaPo’s David Broder said the former House Speaker has “earned the label ‘visionary.’” That’s absurd;

    Oh, I dunno. Crazy people can have all sorts of “visions.”;>

  • woody, tokin librul

    says:

    It’s false on the face, which is true of everything that Neutie or Hannity say.

    The small fee service-stations now have begun to charge to power their air-compressor goes to the station operator, not to the “brand.”

    Neutie needs a sock stuffed in his feculent gob, and rabid gerbils up his ass…

  • Danp

    says:

    And it’s (air) actually a higher profit margin than selling gasoline

    Yes, at 25 cents every few months, that’s where Big Oil is focusing all their energy. Of course they could make even more profit by raising the price of air to $5.00. That way people would waste more gas. But Newt always has a way of spinning it to the Fox News crowd.

  • Former Dan

    says:

    I’d rather Newt spend most of his time writing (bad) book reviews on Amazon rather than wasting people’s time and precious EM spectrum.

  • jhm

    says:

    In a somewhat related, albeit non-Newt, vein; not everyone is thrilled about the University of Chicago’s plans for the Milton Friedman Institute:

    Why not also a Louis Farrakhan Center for Religious Studies? Or a Friedrich Engels Institute for Political Science?

  • beep52

    says:

    Gingrich is the kind of person a majority of Americans used to ignore, laugh at, or dismiss as a fringe element no one would ever take seriously. We underestimated the power and appeal of sheer lunacy. Now, people like Gingrich not only have microphones, they’re experts, visionaries, pundits and they’re running the country.

    The American political landscape has been infected with insanity, top to bottom and all levels in between. We’ve literally given the inmates the keys to the asylum, and half of the country seems to think that’s worked out so well they’re planning to do it again in November.

  • mikem

    says:

    Um, gee. Last time I filled my tires, it was free, and I did it myself. Perhaps Newt has his driver do this and Newt isn’t aware that you can get air for free. He should talk to his driver about that extra money he’s been charging him.

  • kevo

    says:

    The two media “personalities” you mention above have merely to add the white face and red nose to make their efforts of irrelevancy more believeable! -Kevo

  • Shalimar

    says:

    In 1994, after Susan Smith drowned her two young sons, Newt Gingrich, just three days before the midterm elections, equated her crime with the values of the Democratic Party. Gingrich told the AP, “The mother killing her two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we have to have change. I think people want to change and the only way you get change is to vote Republican. That’s the message for the last three days.”

    And it turned out after the election that Smith’s Republican step-father had been raping her for years. Republican family values in action. Vote Republican, molest your juvenile children without punishment!

    I looked on wikipedia for confirmation of the rape story in Susan Smith’s entry but there is no mention of her being molested by a Republican party official. Russell admitted it in court, this isn’t controversial. Yet the Schlafly children were “forced” to start their own site because wikipedia supposedly has a liberal bias. Another example of how conservatives are unable to deal with reality.

    http://conservativebabylon.lavenderliberal.com/category/beverly-russell/

  • BuzzMon

    says:

    Every discussion about Newt’s opinions should include the impeachment situation (adultery for me, but not for thee) and the name Beverly Russell.
    Actually Beverly Russell is a guy, a Republican activist, and Susan Smith’s stepfather. A stepfather accused of molestation by Smith. Get a quick overview here: http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/8695/
    So another Republican gets his sick jollies, another horrible story ensues, and then Republicans blame the Democrats.

  • Broken Bottle

    says:

    “most tire inflation is done at service stations and you pay for it. And it’s actually a higher profit margin than selling gasoline.”

    I filled up my tires at a gas station last night. It cost me $.50 to get all 4 of them to 44PSI, all of about 3 minutes of my time. I didn’t fill up my tank at that stop. If Gingrich honestly thinks that the gas station (it was a Mobile franchise, btw) made more money on my $.50 tire fill up than they did on a 10+ gallon fill up, he’s nuts. In the time it took me to fill my tires 3 or 4 cars stopped, filled and left.

  • Phil Philiben

    says:

    I live in the Pacific Northwest and I buy my tires from a place called Les Schwab’s. Now Les just recently died and was hard core Republican, but the guy knew the proper way to treat customers. I just go to Les Schwabs pull up to the flat repair station and the employees run (yes they run) out and ask me how they can help me. I state “please check my tire pressures”. They do it never asking me where I bought my tires. After completing their task they ask “anything else sir” – “thanks no” and I’m on my way.

    Putting this aside – Republicans please, please keep Newt on TV and the radio speaking his nonsense.

  • Grumpy

    says:

    I inflate my tires at home with a small compressor that I keep in my trunk.

    I also fuel my car with a backyard refinery.

  • petorado

    says:

    Somewhere around 95% of all gas stations in the US are independently owned. Oil companies themselves own just a few percent. These independent owners make the majority of their money from selling snackfoods and other stuff at the store inside since the margins for selling refined gas are so low. Charging for air is another way to make a buck. Typical Republican that Newt – screw the little guy while helping out the fat cats. I hope some of these independent owners, who tend to be struggling given how they are treated by refineries and their big oil franchise lords give Net a lot of crap over his remarks.

  • 2Manchu

    says:

    “….women shouldn’t be permitted to serve in combat roles because “males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.”

    Yeah, the guy who avoided military service during the Vietnam War shouldn’t be telling those who have more guts than him that they can’t serve.

  • mr.ed

    says:

    For guys who get their hands dirty cleaning their golf spikes, this is as much effort as I’d expect toward anything resembling research. And yes, you can improve your mileage on that SUV by setting tire pressure to what the mfr molds onto the sidewall.

  • T-Rex

    says:

    My husband carries a bicycle pump in the trunk, and pumps up the tires himself when he thinks the pressure is getting low. Newt would never do that, however, because it would require a little muscular exertion. That’s why my husband, who is about Newt’s age, looks a decade or so younger — that and riding a bike to work whenever he can.

  • Tom Cleaver

    says:

    In 1994, after Susan Smith drowned her two young sons, Newt Gingrich, just three days before the midterm elections, equated her crime with the values of the Democratic Party. Gingrich told the AP, “The mother killing her two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we have to have change. I think people want to change and the only way you get change is to vote Republican. That’s the message for the last three days.”

    Of course, what he didn’t mention was that Susan Smith was in the state she was due to the repeated long-term sexual abuse she had experienced from her step-father, a senior member of the South Carolina Christian Coalition and the South Carolina Republican Party.

    Republican family values at work – “keep it in the family.”

  • Cindy McCant

    says:

    I got my tires inflated for free last week at Discount Tire. They also checked the air pressure. For free. That’s my small way of “sticking it” to Big Oil.

  • Steve

    says:

    The Frankenstein-esque bad dream known as “HanniNewt” is nothing more than the two sides of a coin—if you can imagine a bent, splintered, charred, defaced-by-graffiti, rusted-beyond-all-conceivable-recognition, bullet-riddled wooden penny that’s been subjected to the fastasmagorically-political hyperinflation of Rovian neoconservatism.

    Or am I being obtuse?

  • KRK

    says:

    Like Phil @12, I get free (and friendly) tire pressure checks and inflation at Les Schwab’s.

    Like Grumpy @13, I also have a small air compresser in my car.

    Like every marginally intelligent person, I think Hannity and Gingrinch are tools.