Newton Leroy Gingrich is someone for whom I feel a remarkable antipathy.  Not least because as Speaker of the House back in 1994, he modeled the sort of obnoxious partisan hostility that I believe has contributed directly to the present Uncivil War of Words and the rampant “Us against Them” mentality that stymies progress and frustrates every thinking American in 2012.   By encouraging the Republican Congressional freshmen of 1995 to refer to Democrats as “Sick, Pathetic and Traitorous” (and probably worse)  he ushered in a destructive new era of  downright rudeness and partisan hostility that has turned the necessary adult qualities of cooperation  and  bipartisanship   into insulting epithets.

           We face huge problems, but trying to reach out toward Gingrich’s political heirs is a good way to get your hand bitten. Bipartisanship only works if  all parties  concerned  act in good faith. Cooperation to reach solutions we can all live with is harder to find in Washington than wise men or virgins.   Hard to solve a problem if half the people in Washington refuse to even acknowledge it on ideological grounds. Honoring members of the opposite party as human beings who might have workable ideas with merit and generally acting like courteous adults and statespersons seem to have gone the way of   top hats and white gloves.

            I’m not saying that we’d all be singing “Kumbaya” and toasting marshmallows together around a campfire if it were not for Gingrich, but he was damned eager to  open the hostilities eighteen years ago and the snowballs he threw then have become an avalanche.  Damned if I’ll let him off the hook for the portion of the responsibility that truly is his for  this dysfunctional state of affairs.  Nice going, Newtie.

            In the past I’ve found other possible meanings for GOP and for the TEA of Tea Party such as “Greedy Oil-soaked Pricks” and “Tacky Egregious Anklebiters.”  So what else my the initials N. L. G. stand for?  “No Longer Gracious” works, if a bit tame.  But we can do better:

Noxious Larvae Grunting

Narcississtic Libertinageous  Grandisonant

 Narcoleptic Larvivrous Grinagog

Nasally Lachrymogenic Gonoph

National Landocratic Gasconite

Nefarious Latrant Gamophobe

Nincompoopish Leucochroic Gowk

Negligent Lambdoid Gammadion

Notorious Legulaian Gardyloo

"Vote for me! My straight white teeth are more Presidential

than Obama's straight white teeth!"

And what about Mitt Romney? Well…..he looks more presidential than Gingrich.  

Okay. That’s all I’ve got.

Where Gingrich wears his callous, egotistical unpleasantness openly on his sleeve with refreshing frankness,  Mitt Romney is kind of like a creepy uncle  who tries too hard to be funny at the family reunion. All that happens is that people stand around smiling in a fixed sort of way, unable to laugh at lame jokes and making awkward conversation until he finally goes away.  Romney could hardly be whiter, more Republican or more 1% --he looks as if he wouldn’t have any idea how to have a relaxed conversation with a person he wouldn’t meet at his country club. Like George W. Bush, I find Romney’s honesty even more disturbing than his lies at the times Romney decides to spew a few truths. Because I’m sure he means it when he says he likes to fire people, or that we really need to make those home foreclosures go more efficiently, and that he really doesn’t care about the very poor. It speaks damning volumes about the sort of man he really is. And that’s not even getting into the business about making his family’s dog ride on the luggage rack on a car trip, then claim that the poor thing “likes fresh air.” At least Bush never did that to his dogs!

So Willard Mitt Romney…your first name does rather remind me of that creepy movie Willard from the 60’s or 70’s about a man who ends up living in a rat-infested apartment.   There must be fitting words to fit W. M. R. ..Searching….

Wussy Mondo Rich

Wagtail Mabsoot Ragabash

Weedicidal Militaster Rectalgia

Wheepling Magniloquent Ramulus

Whiffety Maliferous Rasophore

Widdershins Mammonistic Reductionist

Windlestraw Metagnostic Rejectamenta

Wiseling Mangonel Repbrobate

Woggly Marcescent Reremouse

Woopie Mechanomorphic Ridgeling

                      Worsification Menticidal Retromorphosis 

I kind of admire Ron Paul for speaking his mind. Unfortunately for him, I also find his beliefs abhorrent and unworkable.  I have no confidence whatsoever in his ability to run a nation  or even a dog pound. And, rather like Bob Dole in 1996, I keep wanting to say “Somebody get this man  a name with more syllables!”

Rick Santorum… he’s well named. Evidently, it’s his five minutes to shine. It appears we live in  Interesting Times.