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Political Hay
Implosions
A week of politicians self-destructing.
It “has provoked horror and aroused disgust,” said former French culture minister Jack Lang, referring not to the alleged behavior of Dominique Strauss-Kahn but to his treatment by New York police and prosecutors. According to media reports, a majority of the French see the matter in the same way, regarding Strauss-Kahn as the victim of an elaborate plot.
Bernard-Henri Lévy, who at times almost seems like a paid actor playing the role of a French intellectual on TV, told a nodding Eliot Spitzer on CNN that Strauss-Kahn has been treated very shabbily. Lévy appears to be one of Spitzer’s favorite guests. Not so long ago Lévy was In the Arena to decry the rapes and violence in Libya.
Libyan soldiers, perhaps aging like Strauss-Kahn, have been receiving Viagra (via the Gaddafi regime) as fuel for their rapes, according to reports this week, a fresh outrage to trigger anguish in Lévy’s heart. But, first, Strauss-Kahn has to be defended. Lévy is worried that the French left has lost its “champion” and France could be deprived of one its “most devoted and competent servants.”
Strauss-Kahn had apparently grown accustomed to these defenses, assuming that his socialism would protect him from too much scrutiny. “He has said he loves women, but it seems more accurate to say he loves Socialist women,” said a French lawyer quoted in Time. “I suppose he viewed that milieu as providing his supply of new women, and as one where women who caught his eye would either be compliant, or keep quiet about having to fight off his advances. Either way, there are a lot more women — and men — in Socialists [sic] circles who know about his activity than have ever said so.”
Bill Clinton could count on some feminists to look the other way out of gratitude for his support of abortion rights. Strauss-Kahn had adopted a similar trust with socialists, though even his political rival Sarkozy reportedly warned him that this trust wouldn’t hold up in America where they “don’t joke about this sort of thing.”
This has not been a good week for womanizing pols of varying degrees. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who once inspired giddy calls from admirers for a change in the Constitution so that he could run for president, seems to have fewer apologists these days than Strauss-Kahn. Now that he is out of office, his admirers in the Republican Party don’t feel the need to defend him anymore. But at the time of the Recall, they insisted that the accusations against him of misconduct represented much ado about nothing. After all, his wife Maria Shriver had vouched for his good character. Moreover, he was, they said, bringing to the party a less stuffy approach to social issues that would revive the GOP in the Golden State. He launched his campaign on the couch of Jay Leno, to which he will now no doubt return to explain his housekeeper scandal.
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, who thought the toughest questions this week would touch upon his three marriages and womanizing during the Clinton impeachment, faced far tougher ones on his erratic ideology. Yesterday’s conservative backbencher finds himself today’s reviled establishment Republican. He has shown himself to be out of touch with the Tea Party on mandates and the Ryan plan. He is lucky that he didn’t run into Joe the Plumber, though his encounter with the angry Iowan was damaging enough. Gingrich has managed to unite the right and left against him. The dominant media hates him for his “divisive” conservatism and the Tea Party distrusts him for his Washington ways. That he was doused with glitter by a gay-rights activist in Minnesota and confronted by a Tea Partier in Iowa this week served as metaphor for this haplessness.
The Republican presidential field is so weak that a more disciplined Gingrich could have risen in it. But he couldn’t help himself on Meet the Press, itching to use a show-off phrase like “right-wing social engineering” to wow his liberal audience and establish his independence. As much as he attacks the “Washington establishment,” he longs at the same time for its respect and seeks it by taking faux-independent stands and assuming the unconvincing role of above-the-fray statesman (his comment about the danger of “radical” change in a “free society” is typical of this self-conception).
He got ahead of himself ludicrously, acting like he was already a general-election nominee, who, as he put it, couldn’t afford to speak like a Fox News analyst or shoot-from-the-hip professor, as if that would somehow convince his liberal detractors to see him in a new light. He failed to see that his “divisive” conservatism is the only thing he had going for him, which he has now squandered through his “evolving” campaign.
About the Author
George Neumayr, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is co-author, with Phyllis Schlafly, of the new book, No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (23) | Leave a comment
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Maddox| 5.19.11 @ 7:00AM
When will Rhinos learn the leftist press they long to impress will devour them in an instant?
Conservatives are begging for candidates who will clearly articulate their principles and own them. Newt didn't and he is toast as a candidate because he selfishly played down to the level of the average democratic voter rather than rising to help America.
Maddox| 5.19.11 @ 7:02AM
This should be posted in the article about Newt. Sorry my computer is flip flopping too.
Cosmo| 5.20.11 @ 2:06AM
Newt...loser...bye...
Looking at Pawlenty...He was one of the few candidates to see the follow of the Boehner sell-out on the 2010 budget deal..
But I'm having a hard time getting over Al Franken and Pawlenty's failure to fight against the theft of the Senate seat in Minnesotta...(Turned out to be the 60th vote for Obamacare)...
Occam's Tool| 5.20.11 @ 7:33PM
Don't forget that he didn't campaign for Emmer, his putative replacement.
martin j smith| 5.19.11 @ 7:58AM
Gingrich as far as I am concerned is self destuctive and further destructive to the very party he claims he wants to represent as a Presidential Contender. Instead of saying why we should vote for him he gives good reason to throw him under the bus so to speak.
As a general rume for me: If a candidate chooses to attack a group of fellow republicans instead of the opponent Obama and the Socialists he is not serious and worse he is destructive and left him join the Socialists as far as I am concerned.
Hillel| 5.19.11 @ 8:45AM
As a new translation of "The Ethics of the Fathers" says,"Who is strong? He who can surpress a wisecrack."
Chalkdust| 5.19.11 @ 8:51AM
The European socialist and their delusions of grandeur, the ex-governor of Californication and the newt thingy have a common thread woven into their sackcloth. All shout the disdain they and their ilk hold for people they decide is below their station in life.
Dee See| 5.19.11 @ 9:28AM
AS two Globalist front op candidates are,
AGAIN, given featured billing, and no less
than 3 pieces on the latest token sting of
a capstone throwaway
RE: The now UNDENIABLE Fukishima
world cover up
"This is clearly about depopulation. CLEARLY.
NOTHING fries fertility better than radiation
and fallout. ----Even better than flouride."
-ALEX JONES
(yesterday)
Take your truth WHEREVER you find it.
Peppermint Tea| 5.19.11 @ 9:49AM
NEWS FLASH
This just in...Arnold, the Frog, and the Newt...it seems that powerful men have multiple sex partners.
Doctor Right| 5.19.11 @ 9:51AM
Strauss-Kahn, another hypocritical Euro-socialist who whines about the "common man" while living fat off of their labor, is finished.
Good.
Schwarzenegger, a RINO-Republican who promised BIG things and never delivered (and who may have been black-mailed into abandoning his election-agenda) is out-of-office, and looking to return to Hollywood.
Who cares?
And Gingrich's candidacy was probably dead-in-the-water before last week's dust-up with Paul Ryan.
Whatever.
As a Conservative, all 3 of these events please me.
Occam's Tool| 5.20.11 @ 7:37PM
Dr. Right: You are, as usual, correct. I see not the rectum magnet yet posting on this thread. Have a great weekend!
Chuck| 5.19.11 @ 10:14AM
Nixon said perfectly clear run to the right to win the nomination and then to the center to win the election. Newt flunked GOP political history 101.
Too Many Tims| 5.19.11 @ 12:01PM
Yes, he sank the knife in too soon.
Bob| 5.19.11 @ 10:16AM
The press ought to check out Mrs. Gingrich. She looks like a kook too in the mode of Cheri Daniels.
Anommynous| 5.19.11 @ 10:18AM
"told a nodding Eliot Spitzer on CNN that Strauss-Kahn has been treated very shabbily."
Anyone else see the humor in this? I laughed heartily.
Anthony| 5.19.11 @ 10:22AM
An elite is an elite, be he socialist or Republican.
This particular era of human history has produced more of these folks than perhaps any other.
Is it any wonder the world is in the shape that it's in? We need a wholesale removal of elites, no matter what their political stripes are.
cicero| 5.19.11 @ 2:17PM
Maybe if our princelings would find monied husbands for the women they choose to inflict their attentions on, all would be well. After all, it worked when they were titled. Now that they believe they are entitled, they could resurrect the practice.
jgo| 5.19.11 @ 6:45PM
Of course, if he were a "little person" they would have held him for 3 days before an arraignment, just because the courts say they can.
The IMF and World Bank are already disreputable.
Beyond that, let the jury decide, and use the same sentencing guidelines they would for the average previously unindicted repeat offender.
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weddingdress | 7.1.11 @ 1:00AM
Nixon said perfectly clear run to the right to win the nomination and then to the center to win the election. Newt flunked GOP political history 101.
project management steps | 9.2.11 @ 2:34AM
excellent