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TODAY’S QUOTE
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H.L. Mencken
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NEWT’S LATEST BOGEYMAN
Our boy Newty has created a brand new bete noir.
You may recall that almost 20 years ago Newt Gingrich, as the virtual capo of the Republican Party, wrote the infamous “GOPac Memo.”
Mob Chieftan
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The memo advised Republican candidates for Congress that specific words and phrases would galvanize public opinion for the GOP and against the Dems. In fact, the memo’s title was “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.”
Gingrich was convinced that the repetition of these words would create indelible images within the minds of voters, much like a TV sitcom hypnotist’s use of trigger words.
Here are some of the words Gingrich recommended Republicans use to associate with themselves and their party:
- Common sense
- Confident
- Courage
- Duty
- Family
- Liberty
- Moral
- Pro-flag
- Proud
- Strength
- Tough
- Truth
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As for the Democrats, Gingrich urged his confreres use these terms:
- Anti-flag
- Bizarre
- Cheat
- Collapse
- Decay
- Disgrace
- Impose
- Lie
- Pathetic
- Radical
- Shame
- Sick
- Taxes
- They/them
- Traitors
- Waste
Democrats, According To The GOPac Memo
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You had to figure the word taxes would be in there. The first word a Republican infant utters upon emerging from the womb is taxes.
Garry Trudeau in his “Doonesbury” strip called the GOPac memo “The Magna Carta of attack politics.”
Anyway, the single most damning, uncomplimentary, insulting word on the list would turn out to be liberal.
To be branded a liberal was tantamount to being barred from winning another election for the rest of your life.
One of the reasons the Democrats so infuriate me is that, instead of embracing the liberal label, they ran from it as if it was analogous to child molester.
Otherwise Known As The List Of Prominent Liberals In Indiana
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Thanks in huge part to the GOPac memo, the GOP staged its mini-revolution in the election of 1994. The party gained control of both the House and the Senate and Gingrich became the Speaker of the House.
Say what you will about the craven, cynical nature of the memo, it worked. And Newty is nothing if not an astute politician.
Today, you can be forgiven for thinking liberals don’t even exist in this holy land.
So, now that the Georgia Doughboy is running for president, he finds himself in need of another monster under the bed. He has found it. And he’s got a name for it.
Gingrich’s sworn enemy in these Republican primaries is Mitt Romney. Ergo, Romney must become Newty’s new Godzilla or John Wayne Gacy.
Romney
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This week, Newty found the damning terminology for Romney. Since the liberal dragon has been slain, Gingrich has had to move the enemy bar lower.
Here’s the crushing epithet Gingrich now uses against Romney: He’s a Massachusetts moderate.
The horror — a moderate.
Yep. That’s what he called Romney this week, his voice dripping with Newt-ish contempt. “I am the only viable conservative candidate,” Newty added.
Yikes. If these Great United States, Inc. move any further to the right, Ronald Reagan’s gonna be lumped together with Abbie Hoffman.
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LEFT BRAIN-LESS
Some of my pals on the far left seem to be going just as batty as Newty — only, of course, in the opposite direction. A lot of radical bloggers and Facebook-posters are so disgusted with the wishy-washy politics of Barack Obama that they’re actively calling for his defeat this November.
They say, What’s the difference between Obama and the Republicans?
Well, I have the answer, in three words: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The nation’s second female US Supreme Court Associate Justice will turn 79 in March. She’s already been walloped in recent years by colon cancer and pancreatic cancer. She’s as frail as a newborn robin. Plus, she has indicated she’d like to retire at the age of 82, which would mean whoever is president in 2015 will select her successor.
I shudder to think of who Newty Gingrich or Rick Santorum might tap to become the sixth conservative member of that august ennead.
She’s No Moderate
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TRUTH IS FICTION
Boxcar Books hosted a book release party for Bloomington’s Julia Karr last night, before the region was iced in.
Karr’s new book, “Truth,” is the sequel to her young adult dystopian novel, “XVI” (or “Sixteen” for the Latin-deprived among us.)
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She read a few pages from the fresh tome and took questions from the audience. Karr then revealed she has to split up her writing session each day, sitting at her keyboard for a few hours each morning before going to her day job and then doing the same thing after work.
As expected at these affairs, there were plenty of questions about how an unpublished author can break into the business. Karr kindly advised the wannabe scribes on how to write the perfect query letter and how frustrating and heartbreaking the whole process of trying to get a first book published is.
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Karr handled the questions better than I would have. Forget about getting your book published, I’d have advised. Try something easier, like climbing Denali in the middle of winter.
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