GOP Collateral Damage

[ProSense]

GOP Collateral Damage

By Ed Kilgore

The hatefulness consuming the Romney-Gingrich struggle in Florida is spreading pretty rapidly through the opinion-leaders of the GOP, whose exchanges are beginning to resemble Dollar Beer Night at a professional wrestling venue.

The oddest back-and-forth involves an attack on Gingrich by veteran conservative foreign policy luminary Elliot Abrams, who as part of National Review’s unofficial Week of Unloading on Newt, published an article accusing Gingrich of having rhetorically stabbed Ronald Reagan in the back as he was fighting treasonous liberals to stop an imminent invasion of Florida by the Nicaraguan Sandinistas (no, Abrams didn’t use that last phrase, but that’s pretty much the intended implication).

But then Abrams was taken down a big notch by the American Spectator’s Jeffrey Lord, who showed that the grizzled neocon had taken Gingrich’s remarks far out of context. In the same piece, howeer, Lord went on to accuse ABC News of conducting its interview of Gingrich’s second wife Marianne as retaliation for a criticism Newt made of the network back in the mid-1980s. That’s some serious grudge-nursing he’s suggesting, but the idea went viral once Rush Limbaugh repeated much of the Lord tirade on-air.

Now nobody loves a good food-fight quite like Sarah Palin, and having been out of the news for a bit, she took to the same famous Facebook page from which she successfully launched the “death panel” smear of health reform, and went after “the Republican Establishment” for savaging poor Newt.

<...>

Entertaining as this all truly is to outsiders like me, you do have to wonder if the GOP nomination contest is getting a little out of hand. Sure, it’s common for candidates in competitive primaries to call each other horrible names and then once it’s over grip and grin for the cameras as though it was all a game, which in fact it generally is. But when your intra-party struggle begins attracting high-life political ambulance-chasers like Palin, it may be time to chill.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_01/gop_collateral_damage035060.php

Love the last paragraph.

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[ProSense]

2. Gingrich Predicts ‘Wild and Woolly’ Campaign

Gingrich Predicts ‘Wild and Woolly’ Campaign

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Despite facing recent setbacks, Newt Gingrich pledged on Saturday to stay in the nominating fight until the end, vowing to a group in central Florida, “We’re going to the convention.”

Mr. Gingrich made the remarks in Brooksville as he has faced a torrent of criticism from establishment Republicans and a recent decline in the polls, and as he comes off two debates in which his main opponent, Mitt Romney, has been more agile and aggressive.

Mr. Gingrich predicted a “wild and woolly” campaign ahead as he barreled through a series of speeches and town-hall-style meetings on Florida’s affluent “Treasure Coast” before the state’s primary on Tuesday.

<...>

The Romney team and its supporters have portrayed Mr. Gingrich as erratic, unhinged and too temperamental to be president. They also say that Mr. Gingrich has no chance of beating President Obama in November.

- more-

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/politics/gingrich-ignoring-attacks-plays-up-ties-to-reagan.html

It's Newt "Chuckie" Gingrich vs. Mitt "Corporations are People" Romney!

[Cartaphelius]

3. Pro, might I offer a clear definition?

This charade is simply a new TV reality series gone wild.

[mick063]

4. The GOP

A party with a central theme of selfishness and hate.

It isn't any wonder that their campaigns are full of it.

It is who they are.

[onethatcares]

5. yes folks, this is why

we need a Sumo Wrestling cage match to decide the winner. CaribouBarbie can be the ring girl.