Words? What Do They Mean?

RNC spokesman Spicer: Trump "has made clear he was not trying to speak to the judge's heritage"

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) June 10, 2016

To impress your Liberals friends at parties (and cause your Conseravative friends to stuff cocktail weinies in their ears and run screaming "Benghaaaazi" into the night) Fusion has helpfully cataloged six different occasions when Donald J. Trump literally used the words "Mexican heritage" during his attempts to intimidate and under,mine federal judge Gonzalo Curiel.

Here is but one example (emphasis added):

Pirro: Why did you refer to his ethnicity, Donald?

Trump: Well, because his heritage is Mexican.

Pirro: So what?

Trump: Well, because I want to build a wall. And I’m getting along great, I think, with Hispanics but I want to build a wall. There are some people who don’t like that.

Pirro: Yeah but some of the numbers don’t indicate that. Do you think you have to dial it back?

Trump: Look I have to be what I have to be. I mean, I have to tell the truth… He’s of Mexican heritage. I hope he’s gonna be fair. But he’s treated me very unfairly.

This is one more reason why I am more and more sure that Neutron Don will tap Newton Leroy Gingrich for vice president.

After all, Gingrich was the man who taught an entire generation of Republicans to seize and hold political power by simply lying loudly and constantly and yelling "Traitor!" into every camera and microphone they can lay their hands on. Gingrich was the Prime Mover behind deliberately destroying political comity in United States congress in order to advance his depraved agenda.   

How Newt Gingrich Crippled Congress 

No single person bears more responsibility for how much Americans hate Congress than Newt Gingrich. Here’s what he did to it.

This Definer Of Civilization's Rules And Leader (Perhaps) Of The Civilizing Forces pioneered working hand-in-glove with Hate Radio to turn the power of Congressional investigation into a tool to cripple a Democratic president by witch-hunting his administration to death.

The disgraced former speaker is also a prolific adulterer and successful con man in his own right, so he and Trump will have plenty to talk about on the campaign trail.

However, the special magic Gingrich bring to the table are the Gingrich rules which I have documented to the point of tedium on this blog over the years. But for you newcomers...

In the game of professional punditry there also clearly exists a special set of rules designed with one person on mind.  Or, rather, one sort of person: Conservatism's parade of bomb-throwing, hate-mongering, race-baiting bottom feeders.  That breed which makes their daily bread from grifting the Pig People by generating an endless flood of books, magazine articles, broadcasts, speeches and videos all telling the GOP base over and over again that their bigotries are noble and their paranoia is patriotic.

Of course, part of the downside of wallowing in the wingnut sewer and trafficking in slander and lies is that, sooner or later, you become a toxic mess.  Your stink becomes unacceptable to the general public, which s where the Sunday morning talk shows -- the Mouse Circus -- comes in.   Because despite having long ago devolved into a sinkhole of Beltway centrist twaddle, it is still viewed by altogether too many people as a bastion of Very Serious people -- it's the strip-mall of political opinion where casual shoppers go to feel smart and validated.

And so a bargain is struck; the bottom feeders deliver a temporary hike in the only thing these show's owners really care about -- audience share -- and, in exchange for being teevee friendly and keeping the worst of their batshit crazy on a leash for a few minutes, their Mouse Circus deburrs the bottom feeders' public image, replates and burnishes their credibility and temporarily transfuses them with Seriousness, which can then be redeemed at ten times its face value back among the Pig People.

And in the key to that bargain we find "The Gingrich Rules":

...an agreement that the moderator will never, ever ask the bomb-throwing, hate-mongering, race-baiting goon sitting directly across from them a single question about their bomb-throwing, hate-mongering or race-baiting activities.  Instead they will be represented to the public merely as a Conservative commentator or talk radio host or pundit who, at worst, might be known for some "controversial" opinions, which the moderator will never bother to explicate.

And who better to play Frank Nitti to Trump's Al Capone than America's favorite  bomb-throwing, hate-mongering, race-baiting goon who the Beltway in incapable as treating as anything less than a lodge brother and visiting prince?