Newt Gingrich: why do people take such an instant dislike to me?

Bob Dole: because it saves them time.

Andrew Sullivan labels this exchange “a quote too good to check.” Mark Shields refers to the exchange as “apocryphal.” I’d say, rather, that the short conversation excerpted above conveys a deeper truth that transcends such crude and unhelpful categories as “factuality” or “historicity.” Asking whether Bob Dole “really said that” is akin to putting a conch shell to a child’s ear and answering “no” when he asks you if that’s really the ocean he is hearing. Of course that’s the ocean the child hears, and of of course Bob Dole actually said that. How do I know? Because it couldn’t possibly have been otherwise.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich is on TV reminding us why it is we despise him so. Speaking to This Week host Jake Tapper on Sunday, the man who insisted that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae paid him 1.6 million dollars to act, not as a lobbyist for the mortgage giants, but as a historian, explained his poor debate performance on the most recent Florida GOP debate by noting:

“I don’t know how you can debate someone with civility if they’re prepared to say things that are factually false.”

There’s nothing so unseemely as a bully who’s finally been beaten up by a foe who chose to fight back, licking his wounds and complaining how unfair it was to be matched against an opponent who didn’t “fight fair.”

Being Our Age, one of the things we remember from Our Youth was the annual Bob Hope USO Show. Whatever you think of Bob Hope’s politics — we weren’t aware of them at the time — the USO Show was unabashedly a Good Thing, bringing entertainment to Our Beleaguered Boys in Vietnam, none of whom was Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney.

That war is long past, but the USO endures — not just with high-profile events like Stephen Colbert’s week in Baghdad, but visits to the troops from folks you’ve probably never of. Comedian Graham Elwood is one of those folks, and in a recent podcast chat with Chris Hardwick, Elwood describes the practicalities of doing stand-up in war zones. You don’t just work blue, for example — you go full on fucking indigo. But Elwood steers a wide berth from one subject:

“I’m fairly liberal in a lot my politics, but I was like, ‘They don’t need to hear this shit — they’re living it…’ They’re living the result of politics.”

Read more »

Not my doing, but nice:

Title: “Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America’s Border”

Author: Jan Brewer

Rank: 8

Blurb: “Jan Brewer became Arizona’s twenty-second governor in January 2009, upon the resignation of then-Governor Janet Napolitano, inheriting one of the worst fiscal crises in the country for any state. Born to a close-knit family during World War II, Governor Brewer aggressively confronts the trials of life and government with conservative common sense. Governor Brewer is now serving her second term, after winning a convincing 2010 election victory.”

Review: “While browsing I came across a blog about the tarmac incident… curious about the cause I bought the book.”

Customers Also Bought: “How I Got This Way” by Regis Philbin

Footnote: Next week, Jan Brewer crashes a White House State Dinner.

Scorpions for Breakfast [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon Kickback Link]

If you haven’t watched this movie, you can stream it on Netflix. He was a Brazilian F1 driver who drove so hard to win the Brazilian Gran Prix that he passed out after finishing first – he had nothing left to give. Three times world champion, he was an amazing figure.

Read more »

In Canada, this will totally get you laid: