Rise of the Toad

I’ll be damned if the Human Toad (Newt Gingrich) didn’t win the South Carolina GOP popularity contest, easily besting Mitt “Easy Money” Romney. Now the Toad is atop this sad heap of would-be rulers and heading to Florida with what the politicos like to call the Big Mo’.

If the Toad appears capable to a segment of the Republican base it’s only because Easy Money is so incredibly wooden on the campaign trail, and so totally out of step with the people of this country. Referring to more than $350,000 in speaking fees (nine speeches in all) as chump change -- not that Romney said it quite like that, but the way he brushed off the income as almost not worth counting, like finding a couple of dollars in quarters between the sofa cushions -- is damned insulting when millions of Americans are struggling to put enough food on their tables.

Romney clearly doesn’t get it, and neither does the Toad -- the Toad is simply better at appealing to the baser instincts of his audience.

An egomaniacal crackpot without peer, the Toad treated his marriage vows like political promises, and did his best to have his cake (an open marriage) and eat it too (keep his mistress,) and now passes himself off as a righteous man, a reformed and rehabilitated philanderer, bathed in the light of the Catholic faith.

Make no mistake, the Toad is no stranger to hypocrisy and if the adulterer’s loafer was on Romney’s foot, you can bet the Toad would be howling about “character” from every rooftop. He’d quote Churchill, Gandhi and Rabbi Hillel on the dangers of backing a leader with questionable character.

More amusing still, Gingrich makes the incredible claim that he is a Washington DC outsider, the only candidate with sufficient independence to disrupt the culture of corruption in our capitol. Thieves, perverts, and con artists beware! Sheriff Toad is coming to town.

The claim strains credulity to the breaking point. Word to those of you not paying attention: Gingrich served in the House, and was in fact Speaker of that body, around the time P.J. O’Rourke dubbed it a Parliament of Whores. What P.J. meant was that almost every one of those so-called “public” servants was on the take in one way or another, doing political favors in exchange for campaign dough, plum private sector jobs, or sky box seats for the Super Bowl.

Not much has changed; the whores still have the run of the place.

When Gingrich left government covered by a shroud of disgrace and failure, he became a shill for private interests, using his contacts and knowledge of the political machinery to enrich his corporate clients and himself. Basically, the Toad graduated from common streetwalker to high-class hooker. Instead of servicing clients in the Men’s Room he began entertaining them in luxurious boardrooms. But let’s not split hairs here -- a blowjob is a blowjob no matter where it is administered. You can dress it up, call it fellatio, but it’s still a blowjob.

OK, glad we got that out of the way.

It doesn’t require any genius to see that the GOP is in disarray, tearing itself apart from within, lurching so far right that the party faithful would reject Dwight Eisenhower if he were running today. Gingrich is banking on naked fear to carry him along, and by that I mean the fear white people have of blacks, Mexicans, lesbians, gay men, skateboarders, transsexuals, vegans, and any person who drives a Prius.

Romney, on the other hand, believes that his business background qualifies him for the Oval Office, the theory being that he knows how to grow the economy and create jobs. While this may sound logical, it’s utterly batshit. I ask you this: after the colossal failure of corporate America during the first decade of this century, why would anyone trust a businessman?

Today the Toad may be rising, but we can take comfort in the fact that gravity is on our side.