Gucci Little Piggy

The New York Times reported on Yale quarterback Patrick Witt’s withdrawal from consideration for a Rhodes Scholarship.  Witt withdrew, according to the Times, because of an informal sexual assault complaint filed against him several weeks prior to his scheduled interview date.  Witt had previously stated that he withdrew from consideration because his interview for the Scholarship fell on the same day as his team’s game against rival Harvard.

In a public statement written on behalf of Witt in which the Times’ reasoning was denied, the student-athlete said this:

Regarding the information contained in the informal complaint, neither Patrick nor the other parties are permitted by confidentiality rules to discuss details of the matter, though it is important to note that the committee took no further action after hearing the informal complaint. Patrick is aware that the informal complaint was filed by a person he had known for many months prior and with whom he had engaged in an on-again, off-again relationship beginning in the Spring of 2011 and ending about two months before the informal complaint was filed.

If that timeline is true, it’s pretty easy to discern what happened here.  The young woman (assuming it is a woman) , had temporarily snagged herself the Big Man on Campus.  She had hoped to keep him near but couldn’t.  Frustrated or outright upset, she sought payback.  Maybe an incident occurred, maybe it didn’t.  But the two month wait, if true, is important as is the vague “sexual assault” charge.

It is always interesting when an economic or political system is attacked from two sides which themselves are diametrically opposed.  Think Germany-USSR/USA during World War II.  Capitalism and the notion of the free market commonly falls in the middle of its own two front war.  From the Left, by Marxists of all stripes – feminists and minority advocates; from the Right by those who think that the unfettered free market erodes various cultural bonds and traditions.

Anti-feminist feminist Camille Paglia provided relief from the feminist critique of capitalism in her book Sexual Personae:

If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.  A contemporary woman clapping on a hard hat merely enters a conceptual system invented by men.  Capitalism is an art form, an Apollonian fabrication to rival nature.  It is hypocritical for feminists and intellectuals to enjoy the pleasures and conveniences of capitalism while sneering at it.

This brings in commenter PA who decries free-market capitalism because it brought women into the workforce which, I assume PA would argue, undermined the family unit.  To another commenter, PA wrote:

I already schooled you on how capitalism coopted feminism. Take notes this time: industries have an interest in women flooding the workforce because this depresses the price of labor. They also have an interest in liberating women economically because women are an ideal consumer, buying useless things like Cheetos and McMansions.

The free market existed in previous eras, yet the family unit remained intact.  Free-market capitalism is not a values-creating (metaphysical sense) endeavor.  It reacts to prevailing values – which feminism sought to shift.  Entrepreneurs will always be ready to explore new markets, and they either succeed or fail depending upon that value system.  What PA would have to show is that a capitalist system can subvert social bonds.  I maintain that only a larger entity i.e. the State has such power.

What PA is frustrated at is that the capitalist system did begin operating at the new social equilibrium.  But this seems like two separate issues:  capitalism co-opting feminism versus capitalism rolling with the punches.  It seems odd to me to even think about what capitalism would do, as if it was a being that made rational decisions.  It also seems that the erosion of values, which PA opposes, is due more to an overall shift away from authority and God – part of the even larger Enlightenment saga.  That process which was set in motion a long time ago would have necessarily resulted in female autonomy at some point, and I’m lost in thinking of another system or another historical trajectory that would have led to a better outcome.

The game-changer was The State – not capitalism – which sprouted into a hydra in the decades right after World War II and really picked up steam in the 1960s.  The State gained power as citizens relinquished some rights and responsibilities after the Great Depression and the War, and, once wedged in, eased its way into all facets of society through the New Deal and Great Society which were rooted in Marxist thought.

Anarcho-capitalist philosopher Stefan Molyneux has addressed the issue and summarized the role that radical feminism played in dismantling the family and leading to all of the wrecked families and societal scraps we observe today.

To sum up Molyneux, the mother-child bond was relatively strong directly after World War II.  This strength dovetailed into the radicalization of the 1960s which sought to raise the consciousness of various disenfranchised and economically marginalized groups.

The State sought to capitalize on the decimation of the mother-child bond.  To add my own spin, the State had to do this in order to gain as many points of control as possible.  A family unit is just one unit; an atomized collection of individuals within a family provide more points at which the government can exert such control.

Doing this had several economic effects, according to Molyneux.  First, non-taxable domestic labor was transformed into taxable labor as more and more women worked outside the home.  Keep in mind, the government was always there with its various affirmative action and anti-harassment policies in order to insure that women found places in the workforce.  This transition was not easily swallowed by firms; if pulling women into the workforce to take advantage of cheap labor had been a capitalist strategy, so many businesses wouldn’t have opposed the transition.

Women in the work world created a void which required other forms of domestic labor which could also be taxed.  Childcare providers, maids, and restaurant workers are several of many occupations which flourished as women transitioned out of the home.

Radical feminism – which was funded indirectly by the State, mostly through academia or social services – taught women that they were chattel in the home – slaves.  As Molyneux puts it, women were told that “to be free, you must be a wage slave” to a boss at work.

Molyneux touches on – but doesn’t fully analyze – another aspect of this all when he speaks of The Deal.  The Deal is basically the tacit arrangement between parent(s) and child(ren) that the upfront childcare investment by the parent/mother will be met with care in old age by the children.  This was the payment that mothers received; they were looked after in their old age.  This was the compensation mothers received for birthing and raising children.  But there are several large State-sponsored programs which subvert this deal.  The various health and income safety nets release children from this duty and also subvert the transaction.  When there is no payback from the children, the mother’s work becomes unpaid – slave labor.  So now we have these institutions – nursing homes – which completely dismantle the family unit.  Some might say that this is in the best interest of the elder person, but there is certainly a tradeoff.  Happiness for health.

Right or wrong, simplistic or not, this is always an interesting frame to explore.

1.  Super Bowl sex trafficking is back in the spotlight.  Bill Price covers the Indiana Attorney General’s recruitment of cab drivers to serve as the “eyes and ears” to fight the so-called scourge, one which seems more like a myth.  HuffPo reports on nuns working to fight prostitution – which is conveniently juxtaposed with trafficking for the sake of sensationalism.  Links to my coverage of the hysteria last year:  Change.org’s petition; Traffick911′s distortion; Texas Attorney General’s misinformation; the process by which the government shacks up with activists in a fiscal feedback loop; the mathematical improbability of “10,000″ prostitutes descending on the Super Bowl.

2.  Slate’s Farhad Manjoo on the “pajama craze“:

As you might expect, a whole lot of silly and just-plain-mean people aren’t happy about this nascent pajama craze. A number of school districts have banned sleeping clothes on the theory that they somehow inhibit students’ motivation. The idea, I guess, is that taking the time to dress up for school makes you ready to learn—which sounds plausible until you think about it for five seconds. Isn’t spending time worrying about what you’ll wear an even bigger distraction from academics?

Manjoo favors pajamas, though I think everyone will form an opinion based upon their subjective valuation of pajama wearing.  Myself:  I feel lazy and unmotivated when I walk around the house in my underwear or whatever else I wore to bed the night before.  Putting on “outside pants” and a decent pair of shoes goes a long way towards switching my mind into “do something” mode.  An extension of this is ironing.  I wear a dress shirt and tie to work for my waiter job.  How many times I’ve thought about how much better and more prepared I feel when my shirt is ironed with crisp sleeve creases versus when I just grab it from the drier and throw it on.

3. Commenter Cannon’s Cannon linked to an interesting piece written back in the 1990s by Roger Kimball which reflects on the social upheaval of the 1960s which began as campus revolution.

4.  The U.S. tax system is pretty fucking progressive.

5.  More research that we already knew was true:  mens’ approach time of women decreases when women wear more suggestive clothing.  SlutWalkers….well, let’s start calling them SlutRunners.  They must run really fast to escape the fact that men are drawn to displays of sexual suggestion, and some guys will grossly misinterpret this suggestion and/or devalue the woman making the suggestion which can lead to a number of unfortunate things, including rape.

6.  Michael Moore walking around with earbuds like your typical poorly-adjusted teenage idiot.  He also thinks the highest marginal tax rate should be about 50%.  So we went from a 0% marginal income tax rate about 100 years ago to, if Moore got his way, one that takes half of income (not including property tax, sales tax, and state tax). Do they ignore that tax rates are arbitrary and relative?

A few dozen black Duke students have responded more forcefully to the working paper written by a Duke faculty members that I discussed last week.  CBS Charlotte reports:

A group of about two dozen Duke University students urged administrators Tuesday to create a better climate and provide more financial support for black students, saying they’ve been disappointed so far in how top officials have reacted to their viewpoints.

Talk about bait and switch. Black Dukies were upset that three professors wrote a paper that found that Duke’s black students tended to underperform white students in terms of GPA.  Over the course of their collegiate careers, black students narrowed the GPA gap, but that was explained by their tendency to switch out of more taxing majors – STEM-type fields – into the humanities which generally boost GPA.

I’ll mention it up front:  remember the Duke 88?  They were the Duke faculty members who signed a petition which was later found to be a wrongful condemnation of the Duke lacrosse players falsely-accused of raping a black stripper.  Further, according to Wikipedia, 80% of African studies faculty, 72% of women’s studies, 60% of cultural anthropology, and 45% of Romance studies faculty signed the petition.  So we have the racism-Humanities connection which is mirrored in this latest uproar.  Could this latest response be in the spirit of revenge after the Duke lacrosse incident didn’t pan out as Duke faculty had planned?

The Black Student Assembly, led by Nana Asante, was upset by the papers’ suggestion – one which was only brought to light after an anti-Affirmative action group entered the paper into evidence for a Supreme Court petition.

So now, these students want financial support despite the fact that this paper doesn’t diminish resources provided for students – much less black ones.  And what else do they want?  You know there’s more; ransomers always ask for more:

 “The university has affirmed through media outlets that it has a commitment to meeting the needs of all its students, including black students,” said Nana Asante, a senior psychology major and president of the Black Student Alliance, who led the procession Tuesday. “We have yet to witness any action that reflects this supposed truth.”

…

The document they gave to administrators cites concerns over the future location of the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture and the status of the Black Student Alliance invitational weekend, an annual event the students say is in jeopardy because of the administration’s lack of support.

…

Some of the students’ recommendations include establishing an endowment to create a stable funding source for cultural events and academic programs involving black students, and for the creation of a special university working group to assess whether blacks feel the climate at Duke is unwelcoming.

Black students want to feel accepted by Duke culture, yet they are posturing for institutions and activities that merely reinforce segregation.

“These are really just symptoms of a contentious and strained racial climate here,” Asante said.

The university community has been embroiled in racially charged debates before, as during the fallout over accusations of rape — later found to be false — leveled at white Duke lacrosse players by a black woman six years ago. Bad feelings over that case linger in Durham to this day.

And yet, despite the fact that it was the white Duke lacrosse members who were demonized and bullied by Duke faculty – 88 misinformed petitioners versus 3 academicians engaging in scientific inquiry – it is black students who are looking to leverage an incident of PC-insensitivity for their own benefit.

In his book The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom, who was a professor at Cornell during the revolutionary 1960s, wrote:

Affirmative action now institutionalizes the worst aspects of separatism.  The fact is that the average black student’s achievements do not equal those of the average white student in the good universities, and everybody knows it.  It is also a fact that the university degree of a black student is also tainted, and employers look on it with suspicion, or become guilty accomplices in the toleration of incompetence.  The worst part of all this is that the black students, most of whom avidly support this system, hate its consequences.

To protect themselves from an ego-deflating apples-to-apples comparison, blacks apparently switch majors, shack up in cultural centers full of students of the same race, groupify, and also try to convince everyone that facts aren’t facts and that humanities degrees aren’t fluff.

It seems to me that the topic of genetic investment should arise when we discuss people paying their “fair share” of taxes.  Amanda Marcotte writes:

Contrast that with what we’ve learned about Mitt Romney from his tax returns: 1) He pays a low rate in taxes, lower than many of us who derive our income from working 2) His work income is pocket change compared to the money he makes sitting on his ass paying other people to make money for him and 3) He makes more in a day doing nothing than your average American makes in a year of life being consumed by work.

The critical words here are DOING NOTHING. Romney jokes that he’s “unemployed”, when in fact the proper term is the “idle rich”. He was employed at one point, sure, but it’s laughable to say that his wealth is the result of “hard work”, as every wingnut apologist mindlessly says. Most Americans don’t have the option of making more money sitting on their ass than working. Retirement is usually associated with terms like “fixed income”, not “exploding amounts of wealth”. But the claim from Republicans is that by taxing money you make by not working, you’re somehow discouraging productivity, so we need to lower taxes on money made from not working, and shift the burden to those who actually work for their money. I hope it’s clear what a giant pile of bullshit that is.

The envy pouring through Marcotte’s prose is no different from that coming from liberals and Obama.  Marcotte has moved beyond the point of trying to figure out the proper tax rates for each type of income and has begun denigrating those who receive passive income – as if someone earning money off of money that they originally worked for is a bad thing.  She’s moved from the policy to the personal.

Let’s assume that Mitt Romney worked 100 hours a week for 15 years to develop a business or put in work at a firm.  Let’s assume he was paid well for the work he put in.  He now has a pile of cash which was diminished at first by income taxes.  This residual pile of money is his.  He can burn it, or he can invest it.  If he invests it, and makes money off of his investments, how is his gain anyone else’s loss?  His gain didn’t have to occur.  Without him and other investors, the new pile of money which can now be taxed by the government didn’t have to exist at all.  To me, this pile of income and the attendant new pile of tax money is gratuitous – a windfall.  The government (and perhaps this is the unfair part) is trying to figure out the point at which this pile can be optimized in order to incur more and more taxes.

But I want to go back further and speak about Marcotte et al’s attitude towards “DOING NOTHING”.  Mitt Romney did something, he worked somewhere, but I want to go even further back than that.  His father did something, and his father before, and his father before.  Which brings up this: the ability to sit back and earn passive income today is a function of certain investments made not only in our personal past but also our genetic past:

Starting at the extreme, the benefits of walking upright came through many costly genetic mutations of our ancestors. Some primate ancestor of ours was able to walk upright, not knowing if such a mutation would lead to death or benefit the individual. Randomly, such a mutation worked to the benefit of the individual and is present in humans today. Genetic benefits today – height, strength, intelligence – all stem from genetic investments eons ago. As time wore on and our species branched across different continents and ecosystems, our expensive and risky mutations sometimes floundered and sometimes flourished.

Genetic Darwinism and social Darwinism.  But it must be axiomatically true that the lineages of the people who are successful today made certain investments in the past which just so happened to pay off for their scions.  If Mitt Romney is smart or cunning or tall or extroverted it is because his ancestors made sacrifices – again, either genetic tradeoffs or economic tradeoffs – which set the table for his success.

Reihan Salam writes:

But another way of thinking about charitable giving is as a reflection of one’s sense of obligation. Some people translate this sense of obligation exclusively through the state: I care about poor people, ergo I think other people should pay higher taxes and I will vote for candidates who might be inclined to raise my taxes. Another approach, however, is to say: I think the government should be subject to spending discipline and also that taxes in some sense represent a diminution of personal freedom, which is why I tend to think of taxes as a necessary evil; yet I also think the fortunate among us should share our good fortune with institutions that are able to take into account considerations of moral character in ways that would actually be inappropriate for the state.

This is the thing with taxation:  the government gets the credit for funding the various facets and functions of government including transfer payments to the less fortunate.  I’m reminded of the Seinfeld episode where George gets miffed that his then-girlfriend took credit for the salad that he had actually purchased for Elaine.  The girlfriend handed Elaine the salad and accepted the “Thank you”.

The way George is painted in the show is similar to the way net taxpayers are painted in this country.  They’re pissed at the misdirected credit, and they have a good reason to be pissed, but they are ridiculed for being so petty about it.  They are accused of not wanting to pay their “fair share” – a subjective amount, to be sure.  But as Milton Friedman (among others) made so clear, the government doesn’t have money.  The People have money.  For the government to pay for something it has to take money from the pockets of its citizens.  But the government is adored by the more liberal citizens for doing the things that couldn’t be done without taxpayer financing.  And it is the middle men – the President or Congress or bureaucratic employees or state workers and social workers and state-funded academicians – that take the “thank you” on behalf of the people who bought the Salad.  George is getting angry!

The virtues of charitable giving versus tax payments might be a big topic now that Mitt Romney has released his tax records for the past two years.  Romney gave upwards of 16% of his gross income to charitable organizations including millions to his Mormon church.  Coupled with his federal tax payments (and this doesn’t include property taxes and state income taxes), Romney paid out 42% of his income in 2010 and 2011.

This brings up a couple of questions.  First, a wonkish one: how much less would Romney had given to charity if he didn’t pay a 15% tax rate on his capital gains income?  Second, which is more noble, important, or gracious – charitable giving or tax payments?  Clearly, charity is more gracious since tax payments are an obligation.

People who have money do prefer to get something back for the money they pay out.  Why should they not?  By donating money to charitable organizations, donors gain esteem and a sense of well-being while recipients don’t adopt a mentality that acclimates them to being wards of the state.  With taxes, net payers develop resentment towards the entity that collects the taxes and the people who are perceived to be the net recipients i.e. the poor, federal/state employees, and all other middle men.

Being an obligation, the recipients of tax transfer payments absorb the assumption that someone is obliged to provide something for them.  For everyone, really, the mere notion that someone is obligated to pay something creates a certain tension as every individual feels that everyone else is not meeting their obligation. Nobody is happy.  By premising the “obligation”, a state-run tax system sets the table for acrimony regardless of whether everyone pays their “fair share” or not.  Obligation ensures that this utopia will never be reached.  Constrast that with a system through which donors decide where to send their money.  Those receiving charity feel fortunate to receive something from another person’s good grace.  Only when they come to expect something does their appreciation for it calcify into a right which is merely an obligation on someone else.   And the donor feels that they did something good for someone else, and the appreciation they receive nudges them towards more of the same behavior.  Neither side is resentful of the other which allows for an organic Tocquevillian communal bond.

As we all learned at a young age, a simple “thank you”, rightly directed, goes a long way.

I really need to pare back my Facebook friend list.  The picture below was posted by a gay black guy I know (Obama’s core constituency; “Black Bottoms for Obama”?).

Yes, I notice the difference.  Romney is getting a service* that I assume he’ll pay for in cash while Obama thinks that his ‘dap’ will help service-workers pay their bills.  As a waiter, I’m all too familiar with this difference.  It’s what us in the industry call a “verbal tip”.  It’s when someone very graciously thanks their server for their service but leaves little or no cash.  The patron feels that their gracious personality or their “thank you sooooooo much”  is of objective value – a very narcissistic interpretation, if you ask me.

As a service-worker myself, I disdain the type on the right, and this sums up my general disdain for liberalism.  I know of it because I’m prone to acting that way myself – feeling sorry for a guy who is working what looks like a crappy job and then having the audacity to think that my attention is worth something to him.  Being a prideful person it seems clear to me that the guy who comes strolling by, glad-handing, acting as if he’s interested in me as a person instead of a worker thinks that he is better than me.  That he can transfer esteem or status to me merely be coming down to my level.  Nah, that doesn’t do it for me.  My attitude is this:  if you like whatever service I provide or the job I do, pay me well.   If not, get out of my way so I can do my job.

*Blogger/commenter Ulysses points out that Romney is actually getting wanded by TSA rather than having his shoes shined.  I didn’t notice this and assumed that the picture was what those on Facebook assumed – that Romney is getting his shoes shined.  But accepting that frame (those people think it is a bad thing that Romney would be getting his shoes shined), its also worth pointing out that Obama is giving ‘dap’ to what looks like a janitor.  Obama-lovers want to compare a shoe shine-getting Romney to prole-loving Obama.  But, if you’re a prole (and some have accused me of being one), which would be more satisfying:  a powerful politician paying you to do work for them or a powerful politician giving you a fist bump just because you happen to be standing there and happen to look like you work for a living?  Again, I’ll take the money; save the empty gestures.

1.  Warren Buffett’s secretary, the one who supposedly pays a higher tax rate than her multi-billionaire boss, will sit next to the first lady during the POTUS’ SOTU address. Remember though, Warren Buffett’s capital gains income is doubly taxed – first at the 35% corporate level and second at the 15% capital gains level.  So Buffett is obfuscating the truth, and the Obama’s are going along with it.

2.  In 2010, Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway bought Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad which stands to gain from Obama’s recent decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline from being built through Nebraska.  Rail transport has less direct environmental impact but releases more greenhouse gasses.  Also, it costs $3 more per barrel of oil to transport by rail versus pipeline.  *Also*, Canadian PM Stephen Harper is pissed at Obama for blocking the pipeline which would transport oil from Alberta’s oil sands down to the Gulf of Mexico.  Canada may sell that oil to China.  If the goal is to get rid of oil in order to move towards a cleaner energy, why would Obama want to prolong that process and make it more expensive?  The stuff is going to get burned up, why not do it for as cheaply as possible?

Reihan Salam had a very interesting article connecting the railroads to the shipment of coal – a dirty energy source, if that does actually matter to liberals.

3.  Older piece at The Freeman which provides the history of the internet all the way from ARPANET to the modern incantation.  The internet that we know today “grew out of a spontaneous ordering process of the interactions of millions of users.”  Only when government – which did play a role in setting certain protocols – got out of the way of the internet did it become the beast that we have today.  Curious that they want to limit its power now.

4.  Speaking of SOPA and PIPA, internet guru Clay Shirky has a informative TED talk about the effects of those two pieces of legislation.  He says “the real effects of SOPA and PIPA are going to be different than the proposed effects.”  Someone tell Bill Maher.  Shirky provides a chilling prognostication:  ”Get Ready, because more is coming.”

Feminists speak a lot about ‘victim blaming’ which sparked a series of Slut Walks after a Toronto police officer advised young women to avoid rape by “not dressing like sluts”.  Some saw this as pragmatic advice while feminists saw it as victim-blaming; thus, Slut Walks activism.

The police officer’s advice – decontextualized for political convenience – was qualified.  As a cop, he likely understood that fighting crimes such as rape involves a concerted effort on the part of cops themselves, prosecutors, the community, and potential victims.  At some point the people who stand a greater chance of being victims i.e. women, could greatly diminish their odds of victimhood.  Of course, the ire conjured up by capitalizing feminists was a greater boon to their ideological coffers than the loss incurred by a marginal rape here and there.

Feminists and the ‘sluts’ they’re shielding could mimic the behavior of most street-wise individuals.  These could either be ghetto-dwellers or people who live in big urban centers.  The attitude – a second-nature, actually – is so entrenched in people who value self-protection that it hardly gets mentioned as an actual tactic.  It is a learned response in an environment that doesn’t care about feminist activism or victim blaming.  I don’t know exactly what it’s called or if it even has a name, but I call it “street walk”, “street hustle”, or plain old “being aware of your surroundings.”

It’s easy to spot guys who are familiar with the streets.  They are efficient in their movements.  No loose parts, swinging arms, or lackadaisical gait.  They move fast with their shoulders shrugged up tight and their head on a swivel.  They are wound tight and prepared.  Their face is forged into a menacing glare at least signaling that they’ll put up a fight if messed with.

A woman in short skirts or low-hanging tops – party gear – is about like a guy walking through a rough area of town with hundred dollar bills sprouting from his fists like turnip leaves with the look of a sucker on his face.

If a police chief were to address a spate of robberies of people wearing Rolexes and clutching hundred dollar bills, his first piece of advice would be to hide the thing that robbers are targeting.  “Don’t look like a mark,” he might say*.  It’s hard to see why the rationale behind protecting those assets would be any different than a woman who wants to protect hers.  I make an analogy to the streets, but the precaution applies there or at a house party or at a night club.

Can you imagine a feminist going to a rough patch of any major city and spouting their ‘activism’ to  people whose only form of mobility are their feet?  Imagine the feminist telling these people that they shouldn’t walk heavily or with precaution because to do so is to tacitly accept being the victim.  No, set aside your realities and your street survival techniques in protest.  Empty your bank account and carry your wallet in your hand; talk to everyone you see on the street; stare up at the clouds; walk really slowly past a gathering of young men on a street corner.  The main difference here is this:  people on the street know that they need common sense to get by in their world; some young women don’t understand the same thing.

*Feminists took issue with the use of the word ‘slut’, but they tend to jump down anyone’s throat who even sniffs at victim-blaming.

When paid writers make the same arguments as I’ve made I feel the need to mention it.  The other day in my post about Newt Gingrich’s seduction of GOP voters, I wrote:

If South Carolina marks the beat going forward (mo-mo has certainly shifted), the GOP base doesn’t care so much about actual values or policy issues – they care about rhetoric.  They value style over substance just as much as, if not more so than, the Democrats who voted for Obama.

At The Washington Examiner, Gene Healey writes:

I’ve never heard a better explanation for the former speaker’s ability to cloud conservatives’ minds. How, after all, did a man who’s the very model of a Beltway-consensus influence-peddler convince Tea Party voters he represents “real change”? It’s the “forcefulness,” stupid!

Unfortunately, what’s going on here is not “very deep.” Gingrich’s rise represents the triumph of rhetorical style over substance. In a way, it’s the ultimate tribute to Barack Obama.

Gingrich has supported similar measures to the ones that the Tea Party – who GOP candidates are still paying lip service to – railed against Obama for pushing through.  Gingrich was for “cap and trade”, Medicare D, and is an advocate of Big Government Conservatism.  He also served as “historian” for Fannie Mae.  In tonight’s debate, Gingrich tried to muddle his work with that agency by arguing that he had knowledge of the “history of Washington”.  That’s fat head speak for “lobbyist”.  Gingrich knows the history of which Representatives’ backs he’s scratched.