For the children, goddamnit, for the children

In a recent posting in the NYT, bible thumpin’ Ross Douthat warns the Christian right to stay the fuck away from Newt Gingrich: “It isn’t just that he’s a master of selective moral outrage whose newfound piety has been turned to consistently partisan ends. It’s that his personal history — not only the two divorces, but also the repeated affairs and the way he behaved during the dissolution of his marriages — makes him the most compromised champion imaginable for a movement that’s laboring to keep lifelong heterosexual monogamy on a legal and cultural pedestal.”

Some of us might think that Ross himself has a tendency to use his (presumably) old-found piety for partisan ends—or perhaps simply for old-fashioned self-promotion—but since I’m even more afraid of a Gingrich presidency than Ross is, I can’t help but applaud the dude’s fervor. But I also can’t help gagging on his fulminatin’ conclusion, when he calls upon the Christian right “to recognize what anointing a thrice-married adulterer as the champion of ‘family values’ would say to the skeptical, the unconverted and above all to the young.”

Yeah, that’s why Ross doesn’t want the Republicans to nominate Newt Gingrich, because of the message it would send “to the young.” The nomination of Newt Gingrich would mean the ruination of the Republican Party if he lost the presidency, and the ruination of the country if he won. Ross knows this. Why can’t he say this? Why can’t he tell the truth, instead of pretending that he’s worried about “the young”? Sometimes, Ross sounds as bad as Newt Gingrich.

Afterwords
The New Republic collects a hilarious list of “anyone but Newt” squeals from the Right here. Over at the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza does an even better job. And if you think Romney might be an improvement, check out his promise to “keep America American.”*

Meanwhile, Tom Friedman, everyone’s favorite punching bag (including mine), takes a break from wishing we all spoke Chinese and writes a withering column on the unholy union of right-wing American politicians with right-wing Israelis. Among other things, Friedman accurately sums up Romney’s take on the Middle East as follows: “America’s role is to just applaud whatever Israel does, serve as its A.T.M. and shut up. We have no interests of our own. And this guy’s running for president?” Another Friedman zinger: “I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

The Chinese supposedly have a saying: “May you live in interesting times.” These times are way too interesting for me. And they just keep getting more and more interesting. I so miss the nineties.