Newt Gingrich to the rescue!  Newt Gingrich to the rescue! Newt Gingrich to the rescue!Go, Newt Gingrich! Go, Newt Gingrich!  (Sung to the song Jim Dandy to the rescue)

Being a liberal Democrat, few things put a smile on my face like watching the GOP so stupid things that show people their true colors. Their recent attempts to link President-elect Obama to Governor Rod Blagojevich really smack of both of their normal smear tactics mixed in with a fair amount of whining. You can watch their new video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2M1zMaZPmI. The announcement on their page is here: http://www.gop.com/News/NewsRead.aspx?Guid=be000046-39ad-4992-8e7e-05bdcbb80189. I would have thought that Obama’s landslide victory last month coupled with the fact that even most Republicans polled want to see him succeed – not because they like him so much but because the country needs it so badly – would make them reconsider this path. It has been the path you are on and maybe they are just following the old adage that when things get tough, just keep doing what you’re doing. A policy that clearly helped them this past election.

The one GOP name that keeps popping up again and again is Newt Gingrich. He knows a thing or two about revenge. He might agree with the saying that holding a grudge is like taking poison and hoping you enemy gets sick. He is very familiar with that one because after he swore he would get Bill Clinton out of office, the first casualties of the impeachment fight were Newt Gingrich the then-Speaker of the House and his designated replacement Bob Livingston. Both resigned when their own infidelities were brought to light. Additionally, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, at the time, Henry Hyde – also an R, had to admit he had also had affairs but they were ‘youthful indiscretions’ (he was 52 years old, which means I have loads of time to make the same claim should I do something stupid but I digress). The last force behind the ridiculousness was Tom Delay, who probably inhaled too many chemicals as an exterminator, also had to resign a while later for other ethical failings. In fact, the one person who remains pretty much intact after all of that is President Bill Clinton. He’s a total rock star. Love him.

Now that all this happened and Newt is back in favor – he did orchestrate the Contract on America. Oopsie, I meant with. That PR ploy – and 40 years of Democratic arrogance – got him the House of Representatives in 1994. Not only did they win but they managed to oust the then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-WA), which was the first time a Speaker lost since 1860 (side note: in a poll of Foley’s Congressional district I think about 60 to 70 percent of the voters assumed anyone they elected would be Speaker, yeah, our education is system is the best in the world). So it’s natural to look to him, he is a very smart guy.

This week he proved himself to be even more valuable when he announced he was unhappy with the way the GOP is behaving, and you know that will always get news. According to the Post :

Gingrich boils it down to a single sentence: “Republicans should be eager to work with [Obama] when he is right, and, when he is wrong, offer a better solution, instead of just opposing him.” http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/12/more_republicans_revolt_on_oba.html?nav=rss_blog

Gingrich has also called the video a ‘destructive distraction.’ He is absolutely correct but I hope the RNC sticks to its guns. What’s been good for them has not been good for the country.

Their legal educations will come in handy for this one

As a layperson, I can only imagine the difficulties facing the Supreme Court right now. They will have to rule on a case that is coming before them, this week I think, to determine – and please sit down for this – on a case that questions whether or not Barack Obama’s presidency will be constitutional. Be patient, this really does get amazing.

This case stipulates that Mr. Obama was not born in the US and therefore cannot be president. Unless you are a fan of ‘Arnold’s Amendment’ (Senator Orrin Hatch, R-UT, sponsored a change to the Constitution to allow people born outside the US to become president) you may think this is a good requirement. I do. I wish we could have given Texas back to Mexico to prevent Dubya from getting into the White House but this is different.

These allegations are not new. Clearly they aren’t because it takes time for cases to make their way to the Supreme Court. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I believe in Occam’s Razor (all things being equal, the simplest explanation is probably accurate). The anti-Obama people claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. He took a trip there to see where his father was from and while there he broke into the hospital where he was born and stole his birth certificate. Oh, it gets better. He then had a fake one made, which is the one that has been circulated to the media and apparently is a very good copy, having fooled the US government, when they issued his passport, and everyone else. He then took the real one and hid it in under the second drawer of his grandmother’s desk. The real reason for his trip to Hawaii was to recover it, it had not been destroyed because he thought he might have needed it at some point.

Yes, that is the story. So you can only hope the Supremes are a lot smarter than me because that looks like crap to me. What do I know? I never went to law school.

We should let them fail

When the banking system started to collapse we had to save them because of the impact their failures would have on the economy. Moreover, many of us caused this. Americans have more debt than most other countries. We bought houses we could not afford, etc.

The ‘big three’ American auto makers cannot make this argument. They made bad decisions that led to making products people didn’t want to buy. I am not just talking about their decision to make Hummer, and other gas guzzlers, rather than hybrids only to watch the cost of gasoline soar. That’s a short term error but their mistakes go back much further than that.

When I was a kid, there was big campaign of ‘buy American and Americans work.’ That argument made sense back then but it doesn’t anymore. Toyota and Honda have plants in the US and employ Americans. And no, they do not treat their employees the way Wal-Mart does.

Another event that was big a long time ago was the oil crisis of the 1970s. The ‘big three’ could have started investing more in cars that getting better gas mileage back then but the government standards stayed where they were and the companies kept making cars that got, at most, 30 mpg. When gas prices came back down most Energy Department programs to find alternative energy were scrapped because the powers that be (that would be Ronald Reagan) didn’t think it was important enough anymore. Had the automakers been smart or had the ability to see beyond their noses they may have started working on better cars then but they didn’t.

When the top car execs went to DC, tin cup in hand, they reminded Congress that of the devastating effects their failures would have on the people of Detroit. Have any of you been to Detroit? It’s not exactly utopia now. It hasn’t been for a long time, because of the bad decisions these people made.

As I say – all the time – the government exists to do collectively the things we cannot do individually. Rewarding these car companies for creating a bad business model – and the $34 billion (up from $25 billion) is more than all these companies are worth combined. Additionally, without a plan, they could blow through it in six months and then we are back here. It is just throwing good money after bad.

Therefore, I propose this: Let them fail. Use that money to help the employees who will lose their jobs. This is not their fault and they should not pay for their bosses stupidity and excess. Help them with actual cash but also training. Republicans like to talk a lot about personal responsibility and for the first time in my life I agree with them.

Sarah Palin is down in GA campaigning for Senator Chambliss. She is just the gift that keeps on giving. LOVE HER!!!