Arrest Them All

As if we need reminding of his instability, Newt Gingrich has once again untethered his massive ego from reality, taking flight ever further from grounding in our Constitution. The man is a megalomanical nutjob. To imagine Newt Gingrich as president is to be scared shitless, or depressed motionless. Were it to happen, he could well become the first ever to be impeached and removed from office. By his own party. (One can hope.) Unless, of course, he managed -- and I bet he'd try -- to declare martial law and somehow make it stick. Given the evermore evangelicalization of our military, it's not beyond possible.

There’s “no reason the American people need to tolerate a judge that out of touch with American culture,” Gingrich said on CBS’ Face the Nation, referring to a case where a judge ruled that explicit references to religion were barred from a high school graduation ceremony. And Gingrich recently has said judges should have to explain some of their decisions before Congress.

Host Bob Schieffer asked Gingrich how he planned to enforce that. Would you call in the Capitol Police to apprehend a federal judge, he asked.

“If you had to,” Gingrich said. “Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send the U.S. Marshall in.”

Really? Does it need to be explained? You know: separation of powers; judicial review; rule of law, even when unpopular? Especially when unpopular, ferchrissakes! One might well ask of this man who claims our president is trying to destroy America: how does the idea of eliminating the judiciary at the metaphorical point of a bayonet square with your professed (!) desire to take America back to where it once was?

More than anyone who's ever sought or occupied the White House (Dick Cheney excepted), Gingrich's wet-dream is absolute and unfettered power, unrestrained by any piece of parchment, any branch of government. What, after all, goes better with omniscience than omnipotence?

But Newt's insane grandiosity -- or is grandiose insanity? -- isn't really the issue. It's that a man like him could, even for a second, become the darling of the Republican electorate: the latest in a steady stream of deliberate liars, intellectual lightweights, religious fanatics, or combinations of all three, to be the next not-Mitt. Or, for that matter, the Mitt. How riddled with Obama-hatred and paranoia, how brainwashed by the RWS™ and the propaganda mill known as Fox "news," how dumbed-down and polluted by magical thinking, how ill-informed about our democracy do you have to be even to consider such people, much less refrain from throwing them off the field like a streaker? Are there no thoughtful conservatives left? If so, for gods' sake come out of hiding and stand up for yourselves. Let it be known that knowledge and reason aren't automatic and universal disqualifiers on your side.

These people are an embarrassment, and Newt tops them all: his self-exceptionalism exceeds even the brain-stoppage of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, the craven malleability and corrupt prevarication of Mitt Romney. Except to those within it and too blind to see, their party has become a laughing stock. Which is not to say they'll lose. Because the whole damn country is on the verge as well. When fully half the population has happily and deliberately taken leave of reality, considers this crew credible contenders for the highest office in the land, unless more people start paying attention, what hope for the future can there possibly be?