Las Vegas Gleaner

Drat

This week's CityLife column unpacks how the Nevada Chapter of Billionaires for Obama has singularly reshaped the Republican presidential race, so read that, ifn's you want.

Due to print deadlines the column was necessarily written a few days before Thursday's Florida debate, an event which sadly (for Democrats) indicated that Newt Gingrich (the very name is, as Mittles would say, "repulsive") will not be the GOP nominee: One of Gingrich's central arguments is that Newton and only Newton can out-debate Barack Obama. And yet when he had to, Newton couldn't even out-debate Mittles. Sigh.

Also at the Florida debate, Rombot floated Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval's name as a potential cabinet appointee. Sandoval has also been mentioned as a possible VP choice, speculation that your Gleaner has typically dismissed. But upon reconsideration, Marco Rubio or Chris Christie would shine in comparison to the personality-challenged Romney, overshadowing the (alleged) human at the top of the ticket. No threat of that with Sandoval.

Nevada chapter of Billionaires for Obama dedicated to securing president's second term

Prior to the revelation that Adelson Inc. will vomit up another $5 million to the Gingrich super PAC, I confess I thought our bitchy little area megalomaniac (and/or spouse) might cease bankrolling Pig Newton.

Allow me to 'splain...

Con job performance settings dialed to industrial strength, Gingrich once convinced Adelson that Newt, too, thinks one country's interests must be protected above all others, right or wrong and no matter what, and that country is Israel. Adelson has been financing Gingrich's phony baloney "policy" slush funds ever since. So when Adelson pooped out the first $5 million to Newt's vanity presidential campaign a few days after the Iowa caucuses, well, it looked as if there was no threat that Gingrich could actually be competitive. Adelson might have been just throwing a dog a bone as small token of appreciation.

But then! (Your Gleaner's more thorough review of "but then" and what it means for the NV GOP caucuses will be in CityLife later this week.)

In the last year or so, it has not been unusual for Gingrich's favorable rating to be 30 points upside-down. I'll leave it for others to confirm (assuming it can be confirmed; too lazy/bizzy to look), but presumably Gingrich's favorable rating has not been higher than his unfavorable rating at any time in the current century.

One might have expected that some cooler head among Adelson's courtiers would have humbly but carefully explained to Sheldon and Dr. Mrs. Adelson that Newt Gingrich will never be president of the United States, ever, and that nominating him all but guarantees Obama's reelection -- a prospect that surely must horrify Adelson as much as it horrifies all of Adelson's fellow paranoid and irrational (albeit non-billionaire) Americans bitterly inhabiting the unhinged right wing.

Giving Newt money so he can satisfy his anti-Romney bloodlust: Amusing.

Giving Newt money so he can win the nomination and thus assure that Obama will coast to victory: Priceless (or more accurately, $10 million so far).

It goes without saying but just as a reminder -- nobody tell Republicans that Gingrich is unelectable until after he wins the nomination. That goes double here in Nevada, because if Gingrich beats Romney here, where Romney is expected to win easily, it  could go a long way toward assuring that the centrist in the White House gets a second term.

History proves no one will win GOP nomination this year

Your political-media-industrial complex has sagely and solemnly informed everyone that since 1980, no one has won the Republican presidential nomination without winning the South Carolina primary.

Guess that's that for Willard.

But did you know that since 1976, no one has won the Republican nomination without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire? Media personality Newt Gingrich finished laughably far back in both.

The evidence is indisputable. There will be no Republican presidential nominee in 2012.

Area TV executives stun middle-aged blogger by giving him even MORE air time

Yes, in fact your Gleaner has several things to say about the cheating elitist bigoted narcissistic one-percenters competing in the 2012 Hootenanny, Dog Whistle and Nimrod Squeal, or as the media insists on calling it, the Republican presidential race.

But I'm saying most of those things, and other things too, on the magic lantern these days.

A recent representative sample? But of course:

 

Windy, ain't he?

And yes, it is an actual honest-to-betsy half-hour "show" now, called "The Agenda." (Weekdays at 12:30 on MyNews3, as they might say on, well, TV.)

Thursdays I host alone. Elizabeth Crum hosts on Tuesdays, and we co-host each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Ms. Crum is a pleasure to work with, btw, her conservative views notwithstanding, and she seems to actually know how to make the TV go, as opposed to your Gleaner who naturally finds a new way to break the TV every time he's on it.

Thanks Willard, you've done enough already

Sez yer Gleaner in CityLife:

Bain called itself a "venture capital" firm. But the sort of capitalism it was practicing had nothing to do with attracting capital to increase America's industrial capacity, finance emerging technologies, develop innovative new products or otherwise create jobs and economic growth and add value to society and improve the quality of life for the nation and its citizenry.

The only thing remotely innovative about Bain was that it reflected a then fast-growing leveraged-buyout trend. And the type of capitalism, if it can even be called that, practiced by Romney didn't add wealth to the economy but rather skimmed wealth from it.

...

Eroding wages, dwindling or nonexistent benefits and an overall decline in job quality have bedeviled American workers for decades. That is not the fault of one person. But Mitt Romney arguably bears as much responsibility for the collapse of the middle class as any individual American.

Oh, and yes, the Bain documentary is indeed must-see TV. Two thumbs way up.

In other news about insufferable Republicans and their unbreakable identity with the 1 percent, ICYMI, here's Romney apologist John Sununu suggesting Las Vegas's very own bitchy little area megalomaniac, Sheldon Adelson, is "not so bright."

 

Eh, Sununu's the one who's not so bright. The elite investment community takes one and only one factor under consideration when measuring an investment decision: How much money can they steal from everybody else?

You'd think if anybody would appreciate that, it would be a Willard mouthpiece. Jeesh.

Why won't the Newtronium dirty bomb properly explode?

Newt Gingrich's much-touted fatwa against Mittens has thus far frankly failed to meet your Gleaner's hopes and expectations. Gingrich has more or less called Romney a stinky poophead, which is fine, s'pose, but the basis for Newt's conclusion vis-a-vis the fecal characteristics of the Willardian cranium has mostly been confined to the complaint that Willard is not conservative enough.

With one foot already in the general election campaign, Romney probably isn't crying much over allegations that he is insufficiently wingnutty.

Gingrich's super PAC is making noises indicating that it could come through with a loving tribute to Romney's tenure as a job destroyer at Bain Capital. That's the good stuff -- that and the fact that quarter-billionaire Willard Romney pays a tax rate lower than yours. (More on why Nevada should remember that Romney knows lots about the economy, but only its bad parts, in your Gleaner's next CityLife column, btw.)

But Gingrich's super PAC may or may not put the Bain stuff on the teevee. Ditherers. And Newt says Mittens is timid. Sheesh.

First Newt says he's going to be nice, and that's a lie. Then he says he's going to be mean. Will that be a lie too? Is Gingrich such a liar that we can't even believe he is lying when he is lying?

Sandoval & Co. should apologize for wimping out, depriving Nevada of Newt

At least Newtron's going out as old Newt, for the ratings. But just look at the sort of thing poor forgotten Nevada is missing:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose support in Iowa has withered after riding on top of the polls, on Tuesday called former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney a liar who would mislead the American people if elected to the White House - but added that he would still vote for him if Romney won the GOP nomination.

Makes sense. If Republicans refused to vote for liars, no Republican candidate would ever be elected to anything ever again.

Anyway, if the Nevada Republicans hadn't decided to basically cancel their caucus as a going concern because some tinpot career politician in a lightly populated Boston exurb told them to, fun discussions such as the following about America's future could have been happening right here in Nevada:

CBS's Norah O'Donnell:"You scolded Mitt Romney, his friends who are running this Super PAC that has funded that, and you said of Mitt Romney, 'Someone who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to you when they are president.' I have to ask you, are you calling Mitt Romney a liar?"

Gingrich: ""Yes."

O'Donnell: "You're calling Mitt Romney a liar?"

Gingrich: "Well, you seem shocked by it. Yes."

Damn you, Nevada Republicans! Who knows if Newt or any of the other loons and twerps running for the GOP nomination will still be standing by the time they slog through South Carolina and Florida and the freak show finally makes it to Nevada next month, if it comes at all?

Sure, Willard will likely grace us with his presence. And so will doctor, congressman and erstwhile publisher of Racism, Homophobia and You, Ron Paul, presumably, since he'll try to stay in the race forever "for the cause." But no matter how entertaining any prospective attacks on Romney from Paul, a contest between just those guys would be a mere curiosity greeted by the nation and its media with a collective "meh."

And -- and! -- Newt and other hopeful anti-Romneys are focusing on South Carolina and more or less taking a pass on New Hampshire in the belief that Mittens has the latter nailed down. But if Gov. Brian Sandoval and Nevada's Republicans had demonstrated even a glimmer of pride in their state and refused to move their caucuses back to February, Nevada, not South Carolina, could have been the next place where Newt, frothy Santorum and the rest take it to Willard.

But no.

Nevada Republican National Committeeman Bob List, Jerry Tarkanian's daughter-in-law, who also chairs the state Republican Party, and especially the wildly overrated Sandoval, along with any and all other Republicans who bear responsibilitiy for this fiasco, should issue a formal apology to all of Nevada for letting their state down in such an ignominious and cowardly fashion. Losers.

Sigh. Since there is every chance that the Nevada Republican caucus will be both boring and pointless, maybe Harry Reid should fire up The Machine so everybody can have some fun.Secretly get tens of thousands (it shouldn't take that many) of Nevada Democrats to switch parties and caucus on the GOP side for ... oh, I don't know, Sharron Angle. Or The Wayner. Or Carrot Top, who is always a good suggestion for this sort of thing. "Carrot Top edges Romney in NV GOP caucuses." Who doesn't want to see that headline on Politico?

Gingrich greatly relieved by collapse of Gingrich campaign

"Romney would buy the election if he could," Newt Gingrich said while milking the very last bit of attention out of a months-long book tour and marketing push that succeeded far more than he ever might have hoped.

It is of course absolutely true that Willard would buy the White House and move in if he could. And that's a key difference between Mitt and Newt. Were it possible to buy the presidency (in total and all at once, as opposed to the traditional piecemeal form of purchase and possession exercised by the likes of Goldman Sachs and Citigroup), Willard would buy it. In stark contrast, Gingrich would have Nevada megalomaniac Sheldon Adelson buy it for him.

But that assumes Gingrich was running for president.

He launched a non-serious campaign as a stunt to attract attention to himself and his assorted revenue streams, and to soften up gullible wingnut marks for whatever fly-by-night send-money-to-Newt scam he cooks up as soon as he's officially out of the presidential race.

Idle speculation!!!!: Gingrich refrained from going negative in Iowa not because he's not a negative person (he is) and not because he couldn't afford it (his super PAC could have fought back, but ran puff pieces instead), and not even because he thought it was a winning strategy (he's not that naive).

The reason Gingrich and his PAC didn't run negative ads in Iowa is because when he found himself at the top of the polls for a few minutes there, he was terrified that desperate and paranoid Republican voters were such nimrods that they may actually nominate him for the presidency. That was never part of the plan, and more work and pressure than Gingrich would ever care to endure. When Gingrich saw that the rest of the candidates and their super PAC ads were successfully explaining (some of the reasons) why the last person they would want to nominate for president is Gingrich, no one was more relieved than Newton Leroy Gingrich.

And maybe NOW Roger Ailes will let Gingrich have his own show.

Brian Sandoval hopes Rick Perry is the new Rick Santorum

To reiterate... Jones Vargas government affairs representative Brian Sandoval, who moonlights as Nevada's governor, knew Rick Perry before the rest of America was exposed to the Texas governor's childish yammering, idiotic blithering and retrograde bigotry. And yet Sandoval endorsed him anyway.

Alas, Republican judgment is an oxymoron -- even with respect to a former judge like Sandoval, evidently -- and a potentially significant smattering of low-information wingnutted hawkeyes (an endangered species only in their own minds) may be on the verge of echoing Sandoval's reckless conclusion: A critical mass of American media, convening in Des Moines to ring in the New Year and obsess about horserace horseshit, are collectively moving toward the consensus that Perry could shockingly finish third in Tuesday's caucuses.

Nothing could be finer for Nevada and the nation than for Mousse in Boots to translate an Iowa surprise into a respectable New Hampshire finish and build enough momentum to actually win in South Carolina.

If Romney is allowed to wrap up the nomination early, his production team can immediately pivot to designing and manufacturing General Election Mittens, which is bad. But as long as Romney's right flank is potentially vulnerable to an assault from Perry's relentless Sharron Angle impersonation, Willard, too, has to bring The Crazy. Which is good.

Of course, even if Perry actually wins Iowa, the New Hampshire primary is a full week later, and seven days is far too long for Perry to be in the spotlight without catastrophically imploding yet again. So never mind. The most overrated thing in Nevada is still Brian Sandoval. And the next truly interesting development in the 2012 presidential campaign will not be the results of some caucus or primary, but the release of Mitt Romney's tax returns.

UPDATE (irrelevant): Mousse in Boots announced over the weekend that he'll skip New Hampshire no matter what happens in Iowa, but the supecalifragilistic Des Moines Register poll suggests there is no last gasp for Perry after all anyway. So it's all moot -- except of course for the part where the governor of Nevada thought a simple-minded bigot should be president.

The best counter-factual stories of 2011

In Nevada as in the nation, the public policy storylines of 2011 ranged from the predictably disheartening (yet another inept Nevada legislative session) to the profoundly nauseating (the misguided obsession with the federal debt while totally ignoring the economy).

So instead of dwelling on deranged, incompetent and/or cynical elected officials and their comprehensive failure to address a single significant issue in a productive let alone meaningful way -- the stuff of a standard year-in-review column -- your Gleaner (just like Newt Gingrich!) has taken refuge in counter-factual narratives of things that might have been. In CityLife.

They'll start more dumb wars, your future they'll screw, it's Megalomaniac One and Megalomaniac Two

Sheldon Adelson is not just a bitchy little area megalomaniac whose lavish funding and garrish McCasinos provide aide, comfort and sustenance to Nevada's professional right-wing extremists. He's also the 16th or whatever richest person in the solar system. According to America's officially accepted system of weights and measures, that makes him A Great Man.

Newt Gingrich, meantime, is the only being on earth who possesses the integrity, character, wisdom and vision necessary to save Western civilization from the secular left or creeping socialism or schools without urchin janitors or whatever it is that the narcissistic grifter has proclaimed the greatest existential threat to the human race on any given day. Just ask him.

So naturally these two puffed up roly-polies love to cuddle, as McClatchy reported the other day...

Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future, which he shuttered in July, shelled out at least $8 million for the chartered jets in which he hop-scotched the nation for public appearances while weighing whether to enter the 2008 and 2012 presidential races.

The committee's acceptance of huge cash donations — including $7.65 million from Sheldon Adelson, a pro-Israel, billionaire Las Vegas casino owner, and more than $2 million from five energy companies — has sewn concerns that Gingrich would be beholden to his benefactors if he won the White House.

The phrase "sewn concerns" is objectionable, in that it suggests there is still some doubt as to whether Gingrich would sell America's nuclear launch codes and his third wife to North Korea if the price was right.

Anyway, the McClatchy story goes on to explain how Adelson is probably the most extremist pro-Israel jillionaire in the history of ever who sort of makes Netanyahu look like an appeaser.

Then McClatchy reporter Greg Gordon followed up in an appearance on the venerable Amy Goodman's show, and connected a couple of the more obvious dots.

"And perhaps it is no surprise, after all these donations from Adelson, totaling $7.65 million, that Gingrich has recently spoken against a—he talked about the Palestinian people as an 'invented people,' and he talked about moving the embassy on his first day in office, the U.S. embassy to Israel, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would be an extremely provocative move to make in the Middle East."

So your Gleaner apologizes. For months, maybe a year, I don't know, I've been chortling at Nevada Republicans for being totally ignored by their presidential candidates and having no impact whatsoever on GOP presidential politics.

But it turns out that if it wasn't for Sheldon Adelson, Super Nevadan, there wouldn't even be a Newt Gingrich presidential campaign.

In the unfathomable event that Gingrich actually wins the Republican nomination, Democrats should move their national convention to Las Vegas, to the non-union Venetian, in recognition of all that Adelson will have done to assure Barack Obama's reelection.

UPDATE (important): The phrase "sewn concerns" has violated the sensibilities of several (well, at least three) readers, who have commented or emailed to note that the correct word should be "sown." McClatchy wrote "sewn" but your typically inattentive Gleaner should have caught it, and didn't. Ergo, the offending mistake will now stand for time immemorial as a reminder of the dangers inherent in just cold cutting and pasting willy-nilly without so much as a a by your leave. Diligence!

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/12/19/133526/did-gingrich-bend-campaign-laws.html#storylink=cpy

Heller declares Nevada a blue state, himself unelectable in it

Unelected Sen. Dean Heller, in a departure from the cookie-cutter knee-jerk wingnuttery he has so carefully cultivated in recent years, has joined with Scott Brown, Richard Luger and Olympia Snowe (who pass for moderates in today's GOP) to call House teabaggers a bunch of stinky poopheads.

Heller is but newly appointed to his undeserving exaltedness, but even long-time megalomaniacs in the U.S. Senate are clearly under the impression that once they pass something 89 to 10 -- the vote to temporarily extend the payroll tax cut -- reason and sense might suggest that House Republicans would go along.

Of course, the problem here is that the words "reason," "sense" and "House Republicans" were just used in the same sentence.

Anyway "What is playing out in Washington, D.C. this week is about political leverage, not about what’s good for the American people,” Heller said. His statement could be seen to belittle Nevada GOP Reps. Mark Amodei and Joe Heck, except to be belittled one (or two, in this case) must possess some stature to begin with.

Roll Call sums up Heller's head (a thankless task for an intern if ever there was one), in a piece all about him trying to falsely position himself as something other than a prettier version of Sharron Angle. Heller would have better luck if he wasn't the only person in this quadrant of the galaxy who voted to privatize Medicare not just once but twice.

But rather than pretending Heller is driven by a discernibly consistent ideology instead of simple political opportunism and situational principles, let's move on to the more trenchant aspect of Heller's centrist noises: Dash Riprock's polling clearly suggests that Nevada is not as teabaggery as the state's noisy and tiresome right-wing extremist echo chamber would like everyone to believe.

You know what would be good for democracy and fun to watch? Heller getting forced to charge right by a primary challenge from Nevada's aforementioned Queen of Whack-a-Doodle-Doo. Time to take Angle down from the shelf, mix up a batch of of those pharmacological cocktails that allow her to feign sentience for brief periods, and trot her out on the campaign trail, no?

Republicans celebrate the season with intellectual inconsistency, manufactured outrage

Sad drunk John Boehner and the rest of the GOP House elves are having some sort of cow over ... let's see, what are they harrumphing about now?... oh right, how to offset the cost of payroll tax cuts for all the girls and boys.

To which I humbly ask, Why?

When Republicans clamor for cutting taxes on big business and millionaires, they don't demand that the tax cuts be paid for by spending cuts elsewhere.

On the contrary, Republicans argue, vehemently, that tax cuts pay for themselves by stimulating the economy and creating more, not less, federal revenue. The belief that tax cuts generate more revenue is the "fundamental" -- to use Gingrich's favorite word -- premise underlying the right's beloved trickle-down economic theory.

Plus, Dean Heller should observe Santa's birth in the manger by endorsing Obama, your Gleaner explains in CityLife.

GOP frontrunners are actually sleazy fat cat con artists, GOP frontrunners say

Finally, the Republican hog call contest and dogwhistle tournament -- or presidential race, as the media insists on calling it -- may be transitioning from the mere lunacy that has entertained but mostly disgusted onlookers to the consequential -- and even more entertaining -- spectacle of the grand old circular firing squad:

Romney ... called on Gingrich to return the more than $1.6 million he earned from consulting for Freddie Mac...

Gingrich ... would consider returning his Freddie Mac earnings “if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he’s earned bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years...”

For most of the race thus far, the weirdo-on-weirdo salvos have appealed to the party's anger-crazed idiot base, as the candidates accuse each other of not being racist enough, not being homophobic enough, not hating poor people enough, etc. So accusing each other of being crooked chiseling scumbags is a big improvement, s'all I'm saying.

There's never a wingnut around when you need one

If someone proposed taking a quarter billion dollars from Nevadans to send to an "insatiable big government," Brian Sandoval, Chuck Muth, Heidi Harris, NPRI, the Tea Party, the Review-Journal and the rest of Nevada's highly excitable right-wing infrastructure would be fully mobilized, relentlessly warning anyone who would listen that raising taxes is the worst possible thing to do in this economy.

And yet a proposal to take a quarter billion dollars from Nevadans to send to an insatiable investor class is met mostly with a respectful silence from those who believe religiously that the private sector always knows best.

Your Gleaner here is referring to the local electric monopoly's rapacious plot to jack up your power bill, and the Nevada right's faith-based commitment to obediently look the other way.

Dr. Paul has had quite enough of the pathological flim-flam man with no moral compass, thank you

While we await Jon Huntsman's emergence as the next Republican that Republicans don't hate as much as Republicans hate Willard, please enjoy this video about the current Republican that Republicans don't hate as much as Republicans hate Willard, courtesy of the nice Dr. Paul (who could himself be the next Republican who Republicans don't hate as much as Republicans hate Willard, except that he doesn't hate Muslims enough).

 

Unwitting local tools of corporate overlords hire a lawyer

Our area teabaggerish "think tank" gave the matter some "thought," and concluded that the biggest problem facing Nevadans today is the constant danger posed by some guy serving in the Legislature while holding a state government job failing to fix email accounts and doing all the other stuff that the IT priesthood does/doesn't do.

As far as remedying the harsh injustices inflicted on the citizenry when corrupt lawmakers serve interests other than the public's, it's probably not where your Gleaner would have started. But different strokes.

Still, to reiterate something I've (sort of) said before: If the pretend-eggheads cloistered in their "institute" and knowingly or not doing the bidding of corporate masters while worshiping the most prominent economic thinkers the Austro-Hungarian Empire ever produced are really so keen to valiantly protect people from "big government," why don't they go somewhere where there is some?

Trigger-happy cops can and will shoot whoever they want, area newspaper helpfully explains

Over the years, your Gleaner has mocked and belittled the Las Vegas Review-Journal -- the phrase "right-wing masturbatorium" may have surfaced once or twice. And rest assured the R-J will be mocked again.

But credit where credit's due. The R-J's series on area law enforcement's shoot-first-ask-questions-later culture is exactly the type of enterprising and investigative reporting that the penny-pinching paper traditionally has shied away from, probably because it's too expensive.

This time the paper went all in, and the result may be the best thing the R-J has ever published.

Yes, yes, the R-J's interest in police gunning down the citizenry wasn't truly spiked until cops shot that white middle class guy at Costco. The victim had a concealed weapons permit, and the R-J brain trust won't be happy until all good Americans are packing at all times, so you can see why that particular shooting raised eyebrows at the paper.

And yes, it being the R-J, there is a distinct possibility that the series will conclude by blaming law enforcement's trigger-happiness on Obamacare and the onerous tax and regulatory burdens shouldered by "job creators."

But if Sunday's first installments are any indication, the series is as fascinating yet troubling as the issue itself, exhaustively detailing

...an insular department that is slow to weed out problem cops and is slower still to adopt policies and procedures that protect both its own officers and the citizens they serve. It is an agency that celebrates a hard-charging police culture while often failing to learn from its mistakes.

It's a devastating look, and of course one hopes the series sparks a public outcry that is so loud and so strong that even county commissioners, whose relationship with Metro is characterized chiefly by fawning approval, can't ignore it, and finally we'll get some genuine, meaningful reform.

So, since who knows when the opportunity will again present itself, if ever, without further ado: Hooray, R-J.

GOP gives thanks for President-elect Gingrich

T'was by no means the most morally repugnant moment of the so very many morally repugnant moments that have characterized the publicity stunt masquerading as Newton Leroy Gingrich's presidential campaign. But now that the ethically obtuse and generally repulsive Gingrich is atop the GOP presidential polls, your Gleaner would like to elaborate on an exchange between Willard and Gingrich from last month's debate in Las Vegas.

During the debate, Willard was under attack for that one time he was sane and got on board some modest health care reforms in Massachusetts. Gingrich, arrogance and condescension dialed to his default "turbo" setting, was all "your plan essentially is one more big government bureaucratic high-cost snort gurgle blahbity-blah-blah-blah pffft" etc. Then Mittles was all Hey Pugsley we got the individual mandate idea from you, so neener neener. And Moob Gingrich said nuh-uh.

Lots of Mitt said-It said ensued, and at one point a sanctimonious Gingrich (is there any other kind?) pretended to become agitated and basically called Willard a liar. Ooh, tense. But Willard had Gingrich at a disadvantage because Willard actually is running for president and so he prepares for debates. Long story short, Gingrich was forced to admit that yes, he championed the individual mandate back in the day, and so when he mustered all the high dudgeon and called Mitt a liar, he, pissy Newt Gingrich, was the one who was lying.

And all the stern indignation the insufferable windbag had displayed mere seconds before just washed away, as Gingrich smiled the smile of a man who has no intention of ever being president and in fact finds the idea ludicrous, but who is allowed to use the presidential selection process to make money and satisfy his lust for attention, so goodness what a wonderful country -- American exceptionalism! -- for a reprehensible cad to fulfill his tawdry goals. That's what Gingrich's smile said to me, anyway.

Watch the exchange, if you like.

All flash and self-aggrandizement, a flim-flam man driven by his own bottom line and harboring no serious concern for what might actually befall people as a result of the policies he purports to prefer ... Gingrich might have been a natural favorite among Nevada's Republican leaders.

Alas, Romney will win Nevada's profoundly irrelevant Republican caucuses, so Joe Heck, Mark Amodei, Brian Krolicki (whoever he is) and eight of ten GOP state senators are backing Willard, because they're hacks, and that's what hacks do. Jones Vargas government affairs representative Brian Sandoval's endorsement of Mousse in Boots, btw, is generally chalked up to a personal relationship but it also reflects the fact that the most overrated commodity in Nevada politics is Sandoval's competence.

Anyway, congratulations Republicans in Nevada and nationwide. Sure, Gingrich is laughing at you, not with you -- all the way to the bank. But you certainly have the presidential frontrunner you deserve.

One last little thing about the creepy pizza whosit

Republicans love to belittle, cheapen and mangle America's history by oversimplifying it, ignoring the inconvenient parts and of course, whether through historical illiteracy or deliberate rejection of the facts, just cold getting it wrong.

Tiresome pathetic flim-flam man Herman Cain is not now and never will be in danger of getting elected to anything anywhere. But his "genocide" conspiracy-theory claptrap about Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger is of a piece with the right wing's typical disregard and willing distortion of the historical record.

Plus, since everyone was focused on the sexual harassment allegations that will even overshadow his general incompetence to stand as the only thing anyone ever remembers about Herman Cain, his historical interpretive exotica had sort of gone under the radar. And so in this week's CityLife column, your Gleaner writes about Herman Cain, presumably for the last time -- unless local Republicans heed my admonition and the bungling nutjob wins the Nevada caucus.