Party of family values news roundup:
The rehabilitation of Callista Flockhart Bisek Gingrich, her transformation from painted tart to forgiven sinner, begins today with a wan, halfhearted profile in the NYT. This “curious tale of Washington reinvention” seeks to humanize her with details like this:
At 45, 22 years her husband’s junior, Mrs. Gingrich always looks perfectly composed. She favors an almost retro look — platinum hair teased and sprayed, bold-colored suits accessorized by a triple strand of pearls or eye-popping diamond jewelry. In college, friends say, she once signed up for an 8 a.m. bowling class and rolled a 200 wearing a pencil skirt.
Well, good luck with that.
At least some of Mitch Daniels’ reluctance to declare for president may be due to this little-discussed detail from his biography, according to the HuffPo:
In 1993, Cheri Daniels left her husband with their four daughters and married another man in California. She returned a few years later, reconciled with Daniels, and the two were remarried in 1997. That is, in a nutshell, the story. The national press first picked up on it last year when it was buried at the bottom of an 8,600-word Weekly Standard profile.
But much is unknown. Why did she leave Daniels? Why did she come back? That she would be reluctant to publicly answer such delicate questions in front of the nation seems only natural.
The former first family of California, the red-blue union of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger, appears headed for Splitsville with the announcement of their separation yesterday.
These are very apples-oranges items, I realize. To be sure, Daniels and Schwarzenegger have never been culture warriors in the classic sense, and Daniels is infamous in his own party for calling for a ceasefire, so that it can deal with more pressing matters of finance. Of course, when challenged he collapsed like a house of cards, but give him points for trying.
And Schwarzenegger, as the Republican governor of a blue state, wouldn’t even be recognized as one by much of the rest of his party. Not that it stopped them from giving him star-making opportunities at their national conventions. In California, divorce is just another step on the road of life; this is where Ronald Reagan got his, after all.
But Gingrich is gonna have to take every shot aimed at his hypocritical ass, and he’s going to have to smile about it, too. No one manipulated the cultural-conservative wing of the party more shamelessly, while getting his ashes hauled extramaritally, as he did, and as gleefully. Who was it who tied Woody Allen and Susan Smith to the other party? Who led the charge against Bill Clinton? That is one dirty bed he made; now it’s time to lie in it.
In politics, nothing is precisely as it seems, and I’m sure even Gingrich doesn’t think he has a prayer of ever living in the White House, but he’s going to enter the race for his own reasons, which have to do with selling books, upping his speaking fee, and otherwise enriching Newt Inc. After all, someone has to jump into this field, just to give it some credence:
I used to tell my Republican friends that if they didn’t live by the family-values sword, they wouldn’t have to die by it. Never did any good. The upside was too attractive. True story: I once attended a Dan Quayle rally when he briefly ran for president in…when would that have been? Maybe 2000? I interviewed some people in the crowd, asked them what it was about Quayle that enthused them. To a (wo)man, they all said some version of this: “His marriage.” His marriage to the antimatter Hillary Clinton, Queen Marilyn the Angry. Go figure.
I should get this show on the road. It’s trash day here in the Woods, and I just watched the fourth or fifth raggedy cyclist roll past my recycling bin, looking for empties worth returning for deposit. Sorry, guys, but all that’s in there is three from Trader Joe’s, which I’ve given up on anyone bothering to return. Michigan stores only have to return deposit on brands they sell, so until someone in the house who will remain nameless breaks his habit of sampling interesting beers from TJ’s, we’ll be eating 60 cents on every six-pack.
Some bloggage for you as I slip out of the room:
I say this periodically, I’m saying it again: What is happening in Mexico these days is the most criminally undercovered story of the year. Maybe it gets more ink in the border states; you tell me. But every single night I run across these stories in my searching (“drug” is part of my search string), and they’re just jaw-dropping. May I remind you, today’s story is tame, comparatively. Usually they’re about mass graves and the dismemberment of corpses, which is simply routine — it’s a terror tactic the drug gangs use. Last week police were collecting the pieces of a woman whose body was chopped to pieces, then distributed throughout “an affluent Mexico City neighborhood,” if I recall correctly.
The 10 worst states to be a woman. Indiana is No. 4. Red meat for lefties; the red-state version would call it the 10 best states to be an Embryo-American.
I need to leave you with something light, so how about some snark from Roy? Hail Caesar!
And have a good day.
Jeff Borden said on May 10, 2011 at 10:42 am
I was hoping you’d talk about the Newt and Callista profile today. My copy of the NYT sports a brown stain where I blew my coffee through my nose at the story, which ever so delicately traipses around the fact that young Ms. Bisek was fucking a married man who happened to be a very powerful political figure while she was more than old enough to know better. And the idea that Newt, as vicious and ugly a political player as has stalked the stage in recent years, can rehabilitate his image because he converted to Catholicism? Please. Yes, he has confession now, so he can car wash his craven soul every now and then, but what does this conversion convey upon him? He is still a sleazy, cheating, low-rent adulterer regardless of what he proclaims. Plus, in some precincts of Southern Baptists, being a Catholic is akin to being a gay Muslim communist.
Nancy is absolutely correct that this “presidential run” is about nothing than grabbing some free publicity to fluff his alleged credentials. Our media will dutifully play its part, as we have seen with Trump et.al., while our real problems, issues and challenges go unexplored, as usual.
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Sue said on May 10, 2011 at 10:57 am
Re 10 Worst States to be a Woman, our governor declared this week ‘Women’s Health Week in Wisconsin’, which was nice of him, although I don’t quite see how it works with the unbelievable cuts he’s making to programs that affect… women’s health.
Of course, this is the guy who, straight-faced, announced his employee recognition program this week, although everyone knows this is what he was actually saying:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRSfn_NdmQw
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Sue said on May 10, 2011 at 11:05 am
By the way, I don’t understand the Flockhart reference. What am I missing?
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coozledad said on May 10, 2011 at 11:08 am
It’s funny the wingnuts would start to draw parallels between Obama and the Roman Empire, since quite a few Republicans were promoting the idea of a Magnus Oklahomus beginning with our Iraq adventure. And if anything looks like the shit end of the Julio-Claudian family stick it’s the Bushes and the current crop of Republican candidates.
I could see Luis Buñuel making a “Life of Nero” with Trump in the lead role, and Sarah Palin as Agrippina The Younger. Bristol would make a good Julia the Horny, exiled to keep her from exhausting the Praetorian guard, but that’s a different movie.
Newt Gingrich would be a natural as Elegabalus.
We’ve already had Little Boots in the White House, and his dad was no fucking Germanicus.
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prospero said on May 10, 2011 at 11:08 am
Mrs. Gingrich is “almost” retro? Please, she’s Newt’s cheerleader wet-dream, back when that little piece of shit couldn’t play sports, because he was a dumpy little fatass kid that loved him some Milhous. Newt used to be big on term limits. How about his revolting, philandering life? How about a term limit, you know-nothing toad? And what sort of dysfunction affects a woman that finds this sort of human iguana remotely attractive?
Read 2666 Nancy. It doesn’t explain anything, but it is riveting. Most of this has to do with the maquiladoras. That was Poppi Bush. Clinton had no choice but to sign NAFTA, but he attached the side agreements, which W shitcanned immediately. Americans seem to be morons on this subject. No matter how you look at it, Republics made jobs go south while enriching rich people. It is what they do. Disgusting lying shits that convince moron teabaggers they are on their sides, Dick Armey. People can’t see through this shit? WTF?
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nancy said on May 10, 2011 at 11:08 am
You missed nothing. I did. It was a total brain fart for me. It’s Callista Bisek, not Flockhart. That’s the actress. Fixed, and humbly acknowledged.
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prospero said on May 10, 2011 at 11:30 am
I’m stil ppeeved about being oainted as a pedphile defender and anti-abortion loont-tune. My honest thoughts were grossly misrepresented. I do wonder about just relief, Sure, but that’s it. I am sure I’ve been misrepresented in this discussion.I certainly never came out siding with pedphiles nor anti-abortion whackos, but i’ve been accused of both. Bullshit.
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LAMary said on May 10, 2011 at 11:33 am
I find it amazing Mrs. Gingrich is only 45. She looks like a facelifted late fifties type.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 10, 2011 at 11:36 am
Ditto on Prospero’s tap for “2666” by Bolano — our church has made dozens of trips down to Anapra, an outlying village on the southern fringe of Juarez (which is a sprawling Chicago without the skyscrapers downtown or the Oak Parks & Hinsdales out beyond), and for the last year, the resident directors of the school we support have begged us not to come down, and have placed all of their own children up in El Paso or Las Cruces. Out of some 80 kids in their school, 6 have lost parents or aunt/uncles in their immediate families just this past year.
12 staffers, and 6 have left for north of the border or deeper in the south, and they could only replace 3. The eleven of them get along as well as they can, but the descriptions of the streets at night are right out of some vile mix of Gunsmoke & Blade Runner. Mostly silence, lots of fear, and the unsurprising shock of finding a head atop a mailbox when you drive down a side street to get milk.
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ROgirl said on May 10, 2011 at 11:47 am
LAMary, she looks like a dominatrix to me. That mask-like visage is kinda scary.
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Jolene said on May 10, 2011 at 12:34 pm
The PBS NewsHour has done quite a bit of reporting on the drug war in Mexico. Last night they had a two-part report on public reaction to all the violence, and they’ve pulled together a list of stories from other public media sources.
It’s an incredible situation, and it’s hard to see how it can ever be brought to an end when there is so much money at stake. Corruption is a big problem on both sides of the border, and, of course, both the demand and the guns come from the U.S. Mexicans are dying so that Americans can smoke dope and cling to their rights to buy and sell pretty much any number of any kind of guns.
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JenC said on May 10, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Yikes, she’s a scant four years older than me and four years younger than my husband. She looks like the freshly botoxed residents of my in-laws’ retirement community. Must remember to thank Mom for good genetics and plenty of self-esteem.
(Also, I used to post, on those rare occasions, as JC, but seeing as I share those initials with others here, I’m reverting to my school days nickname.)
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alice said on May 10, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Callista Cleaner? Newt-B-Gone? A little off-topic palate cleanser (if I may):
http://beekman1802.com/1802-blogs/happy-birthday-brent.html
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Jeff Borden said on May 10, 2011 at 1:31 pm
I’m trying to figure out what audience Callista’s look appeals to and why. I cannot imagine too many guys find that heavily-lacquered, rictus-jawed look sexy. I cannot imagine too many women thinking she’s pretty or stylish. Just about every aspect of her looks unnatural. . .actually, weird and more than a little creepy. She looks more like Phyllis Schafly (who I think is now in her 80s) than SheWho or Bachmann.
So, I guess, to appeal to a deeply creepy asshole like Newt, one must develop their own creepy persona? Is this it?
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Jolene said on May 10, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Via Laura Lippmann on FB, a link to an affecting piece by Christopher Hitchens re losing his voice. No doubt, you’ll find much that is familiar here, moe.
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Deborah said on May 10, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Jolene, I just read the Hitchens piece, as you say very affecting. But I also noticed that the Illustrator for the piece, Mark Summers, is a friend of mine and I’ve hired him to do 23 portraits for a project I’m working on. He’s a Canadian and a great guy. He also designed and illustrated a custom font for the same project. I see his work in various magazines from time to time. He did the cover of Time magazine’s 2009 person of the year issue, it was of Bernanke and Mark made it look like Bernanke was on currency. I don’t mean to go on but his technique is really interesting, he does it by scratchboard, starting out with a black surface that he scratches away to white, color is added sometimes, later. And he works very small, uses a sharp “scratcher”. It’s amazing how much detail he gets out of it considering it’s so tiny to begin with.
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alex said on May 10, 2011 at 2:33 pm
I’m trying to figure out what audience Callista’s look appeals to and why.
Wealthy people with no taste is my guess. I always thought Cindy McCain was rockin’ the same look, only Cindy’s on migraine meds and not antipsychotics.
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Deborah said on May 10, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Sorry, one more thing about my friend Mark Summers: I just e-mailed him about the Hitchens piece and asked if he gets to communicate directly with the writers when he does the illustrations. He said he’s only met Hitchens once at the Vanity Fair offices and that this piece was a done deal when he got the job to illustrate it. He said that Hitchens asked for him personally though. Cool. Mark also said that he thought it was a beautiful piece of writing. Which it is.
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Jolene said on May 10, 2011 at 3:02 pm
It’s a great illustration, Deborah. Your friend did a terrific job. It’s fun to hear a bit of the back story.
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Deborah said on May 10, 2011 at 3:08 pm
I should also add that Mark said he had 4 days to do that illustration.
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Cara said on May 10, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Anybody want to venture the sort of show Newt could give us as Pres, with a genuine reason to “work too hard”? I’ll happily settle for our current leader’s solid reasonable performance, and give up The Gingrich Whitewash Theatre.
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brian stouder said on May 10, 2011 at 3:28 pm
I’ll happily settle for our current leader’s solid reasonable performance, and give up The Gingrich Whitewash Theatre.
This sentence cracked me up; Thread Win, if you ask me…
PS – and I liked Flockhart better than Bisex, anyway; it captures something
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paddyo' said on May 10, 2011 at 3:59 pm
The Newtie and Calli show would be bad enough just based on what we’ve all laid out and laid bare about them here. But the sphincter-clincher for me in the NYT piece was the line about her writing a children’s book about American exceptionalism.
Really. Really? So, that would make them child abusers, too . . . I think they’ve collected the whole set.
Reading Hitchens’ touching piece took me back to last year, and the Roger Ebert Esquire interview, the one with that arresting mugshot, as well as Ebert’s own blogpost about what cancer had done to him, mouthwise.
Two excellent writers-thinkers, still at the top of their game. Even when the most important other tool in their writing kit is going or gone, how fortunate for us that they can still hear it in their heads as they write.
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Jolene said on May 10, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Did you all hear that Bristol Palin has landed a new reality show? So great to live in a land of opportunity.
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Mark P. said on May 10, 2011 at 4:05 pm
The latest of Newt’s serial adultery partners sports a look not uncommon among some Southern women. Since Newt spent some formative years in Georgia, maybe he developed a liking for that look.
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mark said on May 10, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Thanks for following the Mexico story, Nancy. Amazing and awful (in a train derailment way) stuff. I hope some here can at least be open to the possibility that something other than racism could motivate a desire for tighter border security.
Of course the Mexicans wouldn’t have to suffer through all the beheadings and mutilations if we Americans would stop clinging to our knife and machete rights. Or something like that…
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Snarkworth said on May 10, 2011 at 4:12 pm
I believe it is the French who say that when a man marries his mistress, it creates a job opening. Inquiring minds want to know who is next in line for that forbidden Newtie goodness.
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Dexter said on May 10, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Since the mayhem commenced in Mexico, I have been trying to tell my kids and friends to avoid that nation totally, but they don’t and won’t even check the State Department alerts. They like to see the ruins and dive off the shores…well, none of it’s safe. So far , no problems, with my family, anyway.
The State Department has all sorts of advice posted, it’s time consuming to search all the links, so I have copied a little bit here:
“While violent incidents have occurred at all hours of the day and night on both modern toll (“cuotas”) highways and on secondary roads, they have occurred most frequently at night and on isolated roads. To reduce risk, you are strongly urged to travel only during daylight hours throughout Mexico, to avoid isolated roads, and to use toll roads whenever possible. For more information on road safety and crime along Mexico’s roadways, see the Department of State’s Country Specific Information.
Due to ongoing violence and persistent security concerns, you are urged to defer non-essential travel to the states of Tamaulipas and Michoacán, and to parts of the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Durango, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi and Jalisco.” {END}
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alex said on May 10, 2011 at 4:28 pm
I hope some here can at least be open to the possibility that something other than racism could motivate a desire for tighter border security.
Well, then, maybe GOP politicians should start offering this up as the reason to tighten the border instead of telling me that my tax dollars are going to help a bunch of lawbreakers and job thieves get on public welfare. Ya think?
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Jeff Borden said on May 10, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Hey Jolene,
America truly is the land of opportunity when a moon-faced teen mom with a demagogue for a mommy earns more than a quarter-million per year to counsel other teens not to fuck around. Nice work if you can find it.
I swear to God. William Fualkner is clawing at the top of his coffin, trying feverishly to get out and see the real-life Snopes family he could only imagine in fictional terms. Even the weird names –Trig, Track, Piper– sound like Eck and Flem Snopes to me.
Mark P.,
You may be on to something. I occasionally forget that the first Mrs. Newtie had been one of his high school teachers, so clearly, he must have a thing for that look. When I was a teen, I favored Playboy magazine. I guess Newtie was getting his inspiration from Modern Bouffant magazine.
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John G. Wallace said on May 10, 2011 at 4:45 pm
I feel so left out, this the earliest chance I’ve had to check out the blog in over a week. We finally launched our redesigned website on May 2 – and it’s obviously a lot more work than just updating our FB pages. Yesterday I didn’t get anything done because the site owner – publisher was obsessed with our FB Fans – people who “like” us, which is a respectable 1400+, which no one can browse through except us, and the pages we “like”, local businesses, organizations, etc., which anyone can see. It took me three hours of asking friends, reading FB help pages, et. to determine anyone can see the pages we like, which I knew, and another 90 minutes to convince him it didn’t matter who can see that.
Secured a sponsor for daily fishing reports – 2 local party boats, rounded up the proper people in five counties for beach reports( hard sell to one who insisted, we should just steal it from the local daily) and ruined our web developers week by wanting some changes to the front page to make it more obvious where to find news, since we are a community news page. His complaint, I wasn’t using the site as he envsioned.
Last night I took a break to watch my beloved neighbors load their worldly goods onto a landscaping trailer while my wife and I sat outside listening to a nice mix CD – “Kiss him goodbye” by Steam, “hit the road jack,” “goodbye to you,” “hello, goodbye,” “don’t go away mad, just go away,” “happy trails to you,”and for good measure, Whitney singing, “I will always love you.” My wife was thankful I don’t drink anymore, because cocktails + them leaving + whitney houston = me singing. Please don’t judge me, these were the worst neighbors ever. And I lived in a bad part of Fort Wayne 20 years ago where we came home to find a neighbor holding our TV as he was standing in the kitchen – he set it down like it was an honest mistake, said, “oh, this was yours?” and left. So worse than that…
After we got new furniture two weeks ago I put a worn out sectional on the curb for Waste Management – the budding arsonist son lit it on fire. The fire dept knew it was him, we knew it was him, and the sheriff’s officer concurred, because in his recolection it was the only time he’s ever been to a call on our block when the whole whack pack next door didn’t spill onto the lawn for a live episode of Cops: Vero Beach. Probable cause sucks sometimes.
One last thought, my blog name is too long and formal – I claim JGW now.
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Linda said on May 10, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Why is Newt running? Seriously? In Japan, they have a horribly sexist saying that a single woman is like a Christmas Cake–only good till the 25th (birthday), then out-of-date. Newt is a Christmas Cake, and it’s Groundhog Day. His day was in the 90s, and he should have left it there.
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Mark P. said on May 10, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Dexter, when I visited Mexico back in 1995 all the information I got strongly advised tourists not to drive at night. The reason then was also safety, but the danger was mainly the things you could run into, like cows and unlighted trailers.
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paddyo' said on May 10, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Hey Jeff B @ #30, don’t forget the part about how MoonFaceBabyMamma is making her annual quarter-mil from a “foundation” that has only given about an eighth as much $$ to the kind of teen-counseling programs it supposedly was created to help out . . .
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ROgirl said on May 10, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Guess where the Mexican drug cartels are getting their guns from. That’s right, they’re taking advantage of liberal American gun laws and they’re buying them on this side of the border.
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LAMary said on May 10, 2011 at 6:51 pm
She’s not so much a moon face now that she had the fat sucked out of her chin and neck. She has a nice vaguely unnatural look that is just this side of disturbing.
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moe99 said on May 10, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Thanks, Jolene for the shout out. I really enjoyed the Hitchens piece.
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prospero said on May 10, 2011 at 7:12 pm
ROgirl: Arizona gun shows. We go to the western coast of Mexico annually to dive. Avoiding something great because you’re worried about where you might buy it seems like a circumscribed way to live. One way or another, it’ll happen when it does. Beheaded by drug dealers just doesn’t seem all that bad, if they’ll leave me on Jan Brewer’s doorstep. Or my head anyway. With a smile on my face. Latino immigrants, legal or otherwise sure as shit don’t import enough violence into the USA, home of the Streetsweeper and the Taurus pistol that fires shotgun shells, that anybody would notice a difference in the most violent country since the Dark Ages. Illegal immigration literally became a huge deal when W. wiped out the environmental and labor side agreements to NAFTA that Clinton engineered to blunt the incredibly destructive aspects of the trade agreement that HW had put in place. Not only is this not rocket science, it’s something even a Shrub could understand. It is an absolute fact that GOPers will make political hay from racist anti-immigrant rhetoric, but will never ding the profit centers of bidnesses that rely on being able to lock their employees in burning buildings and getting away with it, because they’re only Mescans doing jobs no Murrican would do for the minuscule wages..
Newt and the other astounding GOPer hypocrites hounding Clinton is the epitome of American exceptionalism. And shouldn’t the specially bizarre prosecutor have to pay back the treasury for indulging his obscene voyeurism? Even St. Henry Hyde had his youthful indiscretion. When he was about 45. Lots of Catholics have lots of arguments with the Church. Letting Newt in is my big one. Somebody that despises poor people the way that fat rasher of bacon does has no business in the Church of Jesus Christ, not of magic underpants.
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prospero said on May 10, 2011 at 7:23 pm
And seriously, if there is such a thing as sex addiction, well obviously there is, and the human race goes on procreating, but anyway, show Tiger some pics of Newt and blonde Elvira in the sack, he’ll start dropping all those ten-footers he’s been rimming out.
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Julie said on May 10, 2011 at 11:39 pm
I am not as up-to-speed on catholicism as I should be, but doesn’t Newt have to get two annulments to marry the cathloic Callista?
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prospero said on May 10, 2011 at 11:49 pm
Anulments are political favors for cash, generally, and I’m sure Newt knows his way around those.
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nancy said on May 11, 2011 at 12:04 am
Contrary to popular belief, annulments are pretty easy to get. I’ve known several Catholics who asked for them, and as long as you’re willing to pay a fee of around $400 and wait a while, you’ll get your wish. Nothing seems to stand in their way — multiple children, multiple years of marriage, whatever.
Frank Sinatra got however many he needed to marry his final wife in the church.
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Dexter said on May 11, 2011 at 1:02 am
In the last presidential election cycle, by now Romney had declared and had already purchased TV ads.
Now the strategy has changed, and the potential candidates are saving their war chests for the end of the road, not the beginning, according to a report on NBC last night.
I still am haunted by the specter of John Boehner staring down on our table last Saturday at the Dublin, Ohio Montgomery Inn.
He had autographed a Time magazine for the place and of course, it was for our table. There were photos of W Bush and Woody Hayes all over the walls, too. Man, was I ever out of place. Oh well…we didn’t even know that restaurant was a repugg lair.
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Dorothy said on May 11, 2011 at 8:26 am
What did you think of the Montgomery Inn’s food, Dexter? Mike and I ate at one in Cincinnati a few times and I always felt like their menu was rather limited. And I’m not a fan of ribs so naturally I had fewer choices than anyone else who went there to eat the ribs.
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Kim said on May 11, 2011 at 8:27 am
I guess it’s time to stop busting on the $P spawn. Her new look is the result of “corrective jaw surgery”. It’s good to know the latest vocab. I spose we’ll be hearing about corrective boob surgery in a few years to lift those 36 longs back to their rightful spot.
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John Brown said on May 11, 2011 at 9:24 am
Just another single mom and a routine corrective jaw surgery. With a “reality” show in L.A. And a book coming out explaining how difficult life can be in the public eye. But with hard work and no government interference, a young woman can persevere.
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