Bush & Company

Mitt and Newt, Newt and Mitt---media journalists and pundits are absentmindedly calling Mitt Newt and Newt Mitt as the two adversaries role reverse.

Reactionary Far Right voters, resentful and rebellious, want a ruffian for their presidential candidate, one who will shamelessly, even mendaciously, demolish his foes.

This was Newt Gingrich before his religious conversion and he's now, at least partially as a protective gambit, preaching against negative campaigning, while Mitt, once cautious and aloof, is attacking with the slanderous techniques previously employed by his rival, perhaps learned from the late Lee Atwater and his pupil, Karl Rove.

In compensation, Mitt's falling back on his exemplary family life as a contrast to Newt's chequered marital past.

Both, however, now favor Paul Ryan's budget plan to destroy Medicare.

Attempting to distance themselves from themselves, Mitt and Newt are becoming each other.

They're switching places, Newt and Mitt,
Mitt the attacker, Newt grown kind;
And yet, as they're alike in name,
They're fundamentally the same.

In practice I think that you'll find
Both are of the unprincipled kind;
Goal motivated, of one mind---
To win or know the reason why.

How willingly they tell a lie!
In essence they're not far apart---
They share a shady blackguard's heart.
Mitt or the Newtster, Newt or Mitt,

The bottom line---they're both unfit.

Not only is the greedy Newt Gingrich an obnoxious egomaniac, a brazen, self-righteous, mendacious opportunist, but worst of all, a very dangerous man.

Imagine this undisciplined, self-promoting tyrant in charge of the overwhelming complex of often interdependent challenges that our current president faces. Newt's astonishing rise to the top of the heap is more a commentary on public and party distaste for his leading competitor, job-killer Mitt Romney, than a tribute to his worth; meanwhile, the honorable, if extreme, Ron Paul, is coming up hard behind. Newt's supporters deliberately blind themselves to his flaws out of their unreasoning frenzy to topple President Obama at any cost and GOP moderates are quaking with fright.

The new Newt---a kindly man---few believe in, despite his apparent sincere conversion to Roman Catholocism and his plea to others to run non-negative campaigns and warnings against his menace may ultimately prevail.

A real fear is in the air
And growing as primaries draw near;
Yet while Newt's currently on top,
That could come to a grinding stop

With Mitt and Ron hard on his tail.
Who knows the end of Newton's tale
When all of them who know him best
May finally override the rest

And rivals bringing up the rear
Are heading to that final test,
But febrile voters out of hate
Flock round their fractious candidate

And stubbornly ignore what's clear;
What would come after? They don't care. . .

Donald Trump announced that he would moderate a Republican debate in December, that many had asked him to do it, that it would get the highest ratings of all the debates.

As most candidates declined the invitation---only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum accepted---Mr. Trump announed that he didn't want to "waste Donald Trump's time," because he might still run for president (although he actually lacks sufficient funds). He'd simply host a chat with Newt about issues. "Newt and I will talk about what has to be done," he told Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, evading mention of Rick Santorum and asking him "a few questions." This, too, would receive highest ratings.

Nothing is lost! Donald Trump will still be in charge.

As usual, Donald Trump was late
Announcing he would moderate
Another GOP debate
With every top-notch candidate;

But when the bulk of them declined,
He said he didn't really mind
Because it would have been a crime
To waste the Donald's precious time

Since he might run for president,
A thing that would be time well spent;
Meanwhile, he'd hold a chat instead;
Like that, he'd still be way ahead---

He'd be the man who's in control
And wasn't that his real goal?

President Obama, unruffled as he seems, must occasionally become riled up, athough he publicly rises above the increasing maligning by his detractors, either ignoring the attacks or responding quietly with a touch of humor.

The insufferable accusations currently leveled at him that he takes too much time off, that he's turning victory in Iraq into defeat, that he's inept at foreign affairs and has, in fact, failed in this arena and further, is an appeaser, not unlike Neville Chamberlain of Hitler, have noticeably galled him and he's tactfully, though effectively, fought back. "Ask Osama bin Laden," he said calmly, with a few other words in his defense; and they sufficed.

Such unfounded assaults only make the president look still better and his slanderers far, far worse.

The president in his quiet way,
While laboring from day to day
To keep the bogey man at bay,
Has very little time to play,

But every chance they get, The Right
Will petulantly pick a fight;
With lies licentiously lay blame
Boldfaced, without a trace of shame.

Those accusations that they spin
They do with much ado and din
And do they think those tales they've spun
Have gained them ground that he has won?

Although it began as a means of gaining wealth for Tiffany purchases, cruises and front business groups and foundations, has Newt switched his mindset---stimulated by his unexpected surge in support as an anti-Romney candidate---to actually run for president? Has he finally made enough money to satisfy his greed? Is he now ready to spend on a real campaign or is it still a ploy by the attention-seeking "historian"? How will once-liberal Mitt overcome this frightful turn of events?

Manchester's conservative New Hampshire Union Leader's endorsement of Newt on November 27, disloyally slapped its favorite son in the face, forcing him farther to the Right to prove himself a true conservative, critical to outdistancing his latest rival.

Who would dare scramble to be the anti-Gingrich?---Gingrich, whose hallmark is character assassination. . .

Will Newt and Mitt, both perhaps fatally flawed, self-destruct while destroying each other?

It seems the Newtster's on the stump,
Considering his surprising jump---
But is he ready for a run
To be the nation's Number One?

How will poor Mitt begin to cope
With polls that well could dash his hope
Of being Number Forty-Five;
How keep that tenuous hope alive?

Conceding to the mindless Right,
The Mittster still might lose his fight.

There's a theory that everyone has an invisible aura above his head, denoting his character and how he conducts his life.

For the best of us, this aura is bright, white and radiant; for the worst, a roily, dingy yellow.

Considering the arrogant, mean, unscrupulous, often brawling behavior of past and present Newt Gingrich and his continued capricious dance with truth and fact, one might rightly assume that the aura, halo or aureole he wears is of the latter kind.

The reputations that he stole
Would further each self-serving goal;
While playing one or another role,
He'd swing with ease from pole to pole;

Chameleon-like, self-contradicting,
By logic never is constricting.
Is he the braggart politician,
An intellect, a word magician?

Is he a man without a soul
Who wears an earthly aureole?
Who is this double-dealing fellow
Whose aura is a dirty yellow?