Full Massage...

...but no Happy Ending

This was David Brooks nine months ago, back when Newton Leroy Gingrich's stock was not so much "rising" as it was "laughing":

"I wouldn't let [Newt Gingrich] run a, you know, 7-Eleven, let alone a country.

And now that Newt is within striking distance of being the nominee of Mr. Brooks' Loony Party?

David Brooks today:

"Of all the major Republicans, the one who comes closest to my worldview is Newt Gingrich."

Of course, Our Mr. Brooks has not yet completely reversed himself --

So why am I not more excited by the Gingrich surge?

In the first place, Gingrich loves government more than I do.
...

-- as history has shown, that will take at least 1,600 more words and special ointments. But now that Baron Grifthausen

bids fair to put himself in a position where he can stomp very hard on Mr. Brooks' balls, Bobo has scampered back to his files and -- presto! -- suddenly found enough Gingrich plaudits to fill fully half of his New York Times column:

Though his ideas stray, his most common theme is that government should intervene in crucial ways to create a dynamic, decentralized, low-tax society.

And even delivers his criticisms in Tiffany boxes:

He seems to have understood that a moderate Republican like himself can win so long as he adopts a bombastic style when taking on the liberal elites. Most people just want somebody who can articulate their hatreds, and Gingrich is demagogically happy to play the role.

That's Newt alright: just another "moderate" forced to lob Molotov cocktails in the cause of beating those damned Liberal Elites.

Still, in the end, Mr. Brooks must reluctantly demure -- "It’s really too bad" -- and stand by his Steady Eddie robot pleasure unit.

Has Our Mr. Brooks' been terminally off-put by Gingrich's racism? His casual, profligate and monstrous lies? His distinction as the founding father of mass-produced virulent political hate-speech?

His visible lack of a soul?

Oh goodness no: Mr. Brooks learned long ago to cauterize his gag reflex and tunnel his vision against the many, unpleasantly ugly, fascistic aspects of his Conservative movement. Instead, after oh-so gently faulting Gingrich for his "unconservative faith in his own innocence" and his "rhetorical style", Mr. Brooks' objections apparently boil down to Gingrich's weakness for big NASA projects:

For example, he has called for “a massive new program to build a permanent lunar colony to exploit the Moon’s resources.” He has suggested that “a mirror system in space could provide the light equivalent of many full moons so that there would be no need for nighttime lighting of the highways.”

I’m for national greatness conservatism, but this is a little too great.

And -- I kid you not -- Gingrich's Dirty Fucking Hippie excesses:

In the two main Republican contenders, we have one man, Romney, who seems to have walked straight out of the 1950s, and another, Gingrich, who seems to have walked straight out of the 1960s. He has every negative character trait that conservatives associate with ’60s excess: narcissism, self-righteousness, self-indulgence and intemperance. He just has those traits in Republican form.

(Brooks finds a way to take completely false, gratuitous shots at "the 1960s" so often that I have come to believe that the estate of William Buckley pays him a bounty every time he does it.)

So what, in the end, is Mr. Brooks' real fear?

That Newt Gingrich

"...would severely damage conservatism and the Republican Party if nominated."

Which is certainly true, in exactly the same sense that carrion beetles might be characterized as threatening to "severely damage" the long dead horses that Mr. Brooks makes a fabulous living beating.

Over.

And over.

And over again.

(And yes, in response to emailer "JR", I did crank the bulk of this column out 90 minutes after after Mr. Brooks' column appeared in the NYT. Crown molding and a 2nd coat of semi-gloss around the window sills were added early this AM.)