I’ve joked for years that God needs a better PR team on Earth. Some of the most log-headed charlatans, grifters, and just plain logically-challenged people claim to speak on His behalf. Pat Robertson, Ted Haggard, and ethically inept Newt Gingrich are just a few. But, AL state Sen. Shadrack McGill covets his own serving of ignobility.
I know how Copernicus must have felt. He’s the fellow who first posited that the Sun, and not Earth, was at the center of the universe. For his trouble he was branded a heretic and ostrasized by the Catholic church. It turns out Nicolaus was right and the Pope, not so much. It’s a familiar story. It has legs. It’s still happening at the hands of the far right ignorati.
Five years after noted grifter and late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens showed his impeccable technology credentials by likening the Internet to a “series of tubes”, our erstwhile Presidential nominees struggle with the most basic pre-21st Century gadgets. Gadgets like cameras and audio tape. This is a disturbing trend for a gaggle of walking egos intent on becoming the most audio and video-taped person on the planet.
Newt Gingrich has an ego as big as all outdoors, or at least a big as Donald Trump’s. He’s a historian with only a nodding acquaintance with text book history and his own self-professed place in it. The other thing Newt has is a propensity for pissing people off. People like voters and political allies in his own party. While this isn’t an altogether useless skill in an election, it isn’t so great when a President has to work with people rather than through them. If cockroaches will survive nuclear holocaust Newt will be right there tossing garbage to them.
Sectarian tensions rose yesterday as the UN International Dateline Commission convened its 2012 session. At issue was determining how to move the tiny Pacific Island nations of Samoa and Tokelau to the opposite side of the International Dateline.