Nut #10 - Enough

I've had about enough of writing about Nut, and I suspect everyone else has too. So this will be my last post about him -- at least for a while. What I'll do, as long as he's making news, is put up a new Nut post about once a week, and just add comments to that, when I can't help myself.

That way Nut news won't have such a dominant place on ShrinkRap. And I'll turn my attention to other things.

People are still writing about the terrible, awful, not very good week that Nut has had -- all self-inflicted. The more he tried to fix it, the worse it got.

Now the comedians are moving in for the kill -- and campaign cash will slow to a trickle and then stop. That's the way the world ends, Nut -- not with a bang, but a whimper.

Ralph

Battle fatigue

The Army leaders say that in the last year the stepped up fighting campaign in Afghanistan has reversed the momentum of the Taliban insurgency.

However, a report released today by the Army shows the psychological price paid by our troops for this dramatic increase in combat. Morale has "plummeted," and they are seeing the highest rates of mental health problems in 5 years.

"There are few stresses on the human psyche as extreme as the exposure to combat and seeing what war can do," according to the Army surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, speaking at a Pentagon news conference.

And the level of war-horror stories is astounding:

Some 70 percent to 80 percent of troops surveyed for the report said they had seen a buddy killed, roughly half of soldiers and 56 percent of Marines said they'd killed an enemy fighter, and about two-thirds of troops said that a roadside bomb – the No. 1 weapon of insurgents – had gone off within 55 yards of them.

Is it worth it? Is it any longer necessary, if it ever was?

I still like my idea from 2001 -- don't drop bombs on Afghanistan; drop food, medical supplies, build them schools and bridges and roads. That would win the Afghan people; instead we alienated them by invading their country and killing innocent civilians. It would have cost less, maybe done more to win out over the Taliban, and a lot more of our young men and women would be alive and un-maimed.

Ralph

Newt/Nut - #9 - Bye, bye newtie

Nut had a disastrous first week out as an official candidate. Fighting with his own party, then backtracking and flip-flopping. Then trying to blame his "Meet the Press" debacle on the interviewer and claiming it was a set up interview; and his spokesman going ballistic and saying they were out to get Nut.

It couldn't be much worse -- especially for someone with so much baggage to try to overcome. And then there was the character issue waiting in the background to inevitably do him in.

But who knew it could happen so fast?

Now HuffPost is reporting that big donors are deserting him. For a fund-raiser that was planned with 18 sponsors, 13 of them backed out within 24 hours of his disastrous "Meet the Press" interview.

And that was before Nut made it even worse with his attempt to repair the damage.

Wow -- this is astounding !!!

Ralph

Newt/Nut - #8 - Bad news

The Wall Street Journal headed its editorial with:

"Gingrich to House GOP: Drop Dead."

. . . Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday about Paul Ryan's reform plan, Mr. Gingrich chose to throw his former allies in the GOP House not so much under the bus as off the Grand Canyon rim.

The Ryan program "is too big a jump," he said. . . . "I'm against ObamaCare, which is imposing radical change. And I would be against a conservative imposing radical change.

Criticizing Nut for attacking the Ryan's plan, the WSJ said:

The episode reveals the Georgian's weakness as a candidate, and especially as a potential President—to wit, his odd combination of partisan, divisive rhetoric and poll-driven policy timidity. . . . Mr. Ryan speaks softly but proposes policies commensurate with America's problems. Mr. Gingrich speaks loudly but shrinks from hard choices. Who's the "radical" and who's the real leader?

Nut, your campaign is in big trouble. Let us count the ways: The Club for Growth doesn't like you. You're just 1% ahead of Sarah Palin in the polls. The people have a preponderantly negative view of you. And now the WSJ doesn't like you.

Now just who is it that thinks you're what the country needs?

Ralph

News flash to Vatican: "Wake up, it's 2011 !!!"

Here it is 2011 and the Vatican has just released a directive to bishops worldwide to make fighting sexual abuse of minors a top priority.

This is at least a decade after the scandals in the U.S. brought the pattern of their neglect to their attention. And it's a full year since the big revelations of high level abusers in the European priesthood shocked the Vatican.

The directive tells the bishops to set up clear policies for dealing with abusers, including complying with civil laws of reporting to authorities, if there are such laws in their country. But the directive also reiterates that each bishop has the final say in the process and each bishop is answerable only to the pope.

It's clear: the church's top priority is still its priests, not its abused children. It also makes the pope ultimately responsible, since the bishops are answerable only to him. Let's hold him to that, then. It's finally all in your hands, Benedict.

I'm considering joining the church, so that I can resign in protest.

Ralph

John McCain rejects torture [from May 12]

[This was supposed to be posted on May 12 -- but got caught up in the glitch that froze my blog-server last week and, somehow, just got returned to my files today. Because I have savaged McCain so much, I want to give him this credit, even if it is late.]

John McCain regained an ounce of redemption in my book today (at least a moratorium on calling him McNothing) when he declared on the Senate floor that torture is not what led to the finding of Osama bin Laden.

Differing with some of his colleagues on this issue (those who want to justify the Bush administration's endorsement of "enhanced interrogation," including GW Bush himself), McCain wrote the following op-ed piece for the Washington Post May 13):

I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.

In fact, the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator — none of which was true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee — information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden — was obtained through standard, noncoercive means.

So there, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and lots of GOP senators and congressmen. But then, why believe Leon Panetta? He's an Obama appointee, is he not?

Ralp

Newt = Nut - #7 - Nut's in trouble within own party

Reported from an Iowa meeting with Repub voters:

IOWAN: What you just did to Paul Ryan is unforgivable.
GINGRICH: I didn't do anything to Paul Ryan.
IOWAN: Yes, you did. You undercut him.... you're an embarrassment to our party.
GINGRICH: I'm sorry you feel that way.
IOWAN: Why don't you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself.

That's pretty bad, but it's one voter in Iowa.

But here's someone with more influence and clout, the new darling of the GOP, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. She described Gingrich's criticism of Ryan's plan as "absolutely unfortunate."

"Here you've got Representative Ryan trying to bring common sense to this world of insanity, and Newt absolutely cut him off at the knees. . . . When you have a conservative fighting for real change, the last thing we need is a presidential candidate cutting him off at the knees."

And lamely trying to wiggle out of accusations that he has flip-flopped on a number of issues, Gingrich said:

"The challenges that we face are so big, that no one has the solutions. . . . And we’re going to have to run a campaign where ideas keep evolving."

Watch it, Nut. That's right up there with trying to explain your adultery to the Christian Broadcasting Network:

“There’s no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”

Pathetic. Just admit that you're a jerk. You might be more acceptable as a simple jerk than as a jerk who is also a weasel.

And we're not going to let you forget it, any of it.

Ralph

The Donald is out

Well, that came a little sooner than I anticipated, but it's a wise decision on his part: Donald Trump says he's not going to pursue the presidency after all.

His reason: He's sure he could win, and he refers to polls that show him at the top of the field (yeah, but that was 2 weeks ago, before the fall). But, he says, you can't run for president half-heartedly, and he's really a business man at heart and not ready to leave the private sector.

What he doesn't mention is the wide-spread ridicule and scorn with which his antics have brought. I think it really wounded the big narcissist in him. He didn't know he was so unliked and had made such a fool of himself. That's pretty devastating for a narcissist: to have that self-inflated balloon punctured.

So far, Newt/Nut is still banging that bunny's big bass drum of energy and perseverence.

The field just got a little less colorful, and a lot saner.

Ralph

Newt = Nut - #5 - Refreshing honesty

Well, well, well. Newt/Nut is capable of a sliver of honest self-reflection after all. And was it ever refreshing !!!

Today on "Meet the Press," in a long interview that was typical Gingrich, there was this moment of clarity.

David Gregory: "Would you consider the idea of being vice president?

Newt Gingrich: "David can you think of a single candidate that would have me on the ticket with them?"

Quite true, I'm sure. But what does that tell you, Newt?
That everyone's out of step but you?

Ralph

Newt = Nut - #4 - How his mind works

Here's the story on Newt/Nut.

If I were not a shrink, and therefore not bound by my ethical responsibility not to diagnose people that I have not interviewed professionally, I would say that Newt is a pathological narcissist with sociopathic behavior.

Newt-Nut is a colossal, grandiose/super-needy ego wrapped around a sharp mind that generates ideas faster than anyone can process them, including himself. And he is dangerous because he can be very convincing, especially to people who don't know the facts and assume his confident manner comes from speaking truth.

It does not.

It comes from what Mickey Nardo calls the defining characteristic of the narcissist: they believe their own ideas: "I think it, therefore it is true."

Newt is also what someone has called "a Versuvius of ideas;" and as those change mercurially, then so does his conviction of rightness. Hence the flip-flops that are hard for him to explain. He actually believed x yesterday, but today he believes y. So was he insincere yesterday? Or is his duplicitious today? From his viewpoint, the answer is no; because at any moment he believes it.

Well, yes and no. It's relatively easy to understand how this must work in his mind. But there is also the odor of willful manipulation of the ignorant masses, putting forth ideas that I do not believe he believes, like saying that Obama's policies are more of a danger to America than is al Qaeda.

So, in addition to the gradiose narcissist, there is the sociopath who will just say anything to pander for votes.

As a potential POTUS, we must hold him accountable for his behavior, not just what goes on in his mind. Do we want NEWT/NUT answering the red phone at 3 am?

Ralph