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One shouldn't laugh at other people's misfortunes but sometimes it's hard not to smile. As, for instance, when a former Republican sheriff in Colorado, Patrick Sullivan, was arrested for trying to trade methamphetamine for sex with a man, and put behind bars in a jail that is named after him, the Patrick J Sullivan Jr Correctional Facility. A former Sheriff of the Year, and a national expert on cyberterrorism, he was being investigated for his role in allegedly distributing controlled substances. And when they caught him, they knew just where to put him.
Then there was Michele Bachmann, who the other day, in recommending herself for the presidency, claimed to have conducted a gaffe-free campaign.
Shortly afterwards, commenting on events at the British Embassy in Tehran, she said that, if President, she would close down the US embassy in Iran. But the US does not have an embassy in Iran - hasn't had one for decades. Bachmann's staff were forced on to the defensive, saying that she had been arguing a hypothetical case: that if she was President of the United States and the United States happened to have an embassy in Iran - then she would have done exactly what the British did.
Bachmann cannot have been paying close attention to the media if she thinks she has run a gaffe-free campaign. She's the one who, among many other incidents, failed to distinguish between John Wayne, the iconic Hollywood actor, and John Wayne Gacy, a mass murderer of the Seventies, one of whose more than 30 victims was finally identified a fortnight ago.
And then there's Herman Cain, once good for a laugh, today rather less good for a laugh because he's due home and has said that he will sit down with his wife and reassess his campaign over the weekend. He has some explaining to do since the appearance on the scene of Ginger White, who claims to have had a 13-year-long on-and-off affair with him. And Herman is a Baptist preacher, so he really shouldn't have been messing around on the side. If he has. Which he denies.
Nobody's perfect, though, as Newt Gingrich, a Catholic, reminded us this week. Nobody's perfect, he said, except Jesus. (I thought the Virgin Mary was perfect as well.) And the point of reminding us that nobody's perfect was, of course, to prepare us for a new and rather alarming situation that has arisen in the past few days, since the sudden rise of Gingrich in the polls.
It had been assumed that the Republican party faithful, who begin the primary season early next month, having searched exhaustively for a presidential candidate other than Mitt Romney, would in due course bow to the inevitable. What, after all, is wrong with Romney? He's good-looking (he used to be seriously good-looking), an experienced politician, a wealthy and successful businessman and … and a Mormon bishop. Actually he has been three times a bishop - bishop of Cambridge, bishop of Belmont and president of the Boston area stake, which, we are told, is the Mormon equivalent to a diocese.
People who think that there is something creepy about Mormons - that they are members of a cult - will have a hard time ever voting for Bishop Romney. But who else are they going to vote for, other than the current incumbent of the White House?
They could vote for Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman who is strikingly capable of saying the things nobody else will say, such as, for instance, that the US government does not have the right to kill its citizens without trial. One rather doubts, however, that a candidate who believes the US should cut off all aid to Israel is actually going to get very far.
Who then are the Romney reluctants to turn to? In the past few days the answer has been clear that, like him or not, they are prepared to turn to Gingrich, and to turn to him in large numbers.
And the implication here is striking. The Romney reluctants want a conservative, but if it comes to it they seem prepared to turn to a thoroughly compromised conservative.
Ron Paul, who has just launched a passionate ad attacking Gingrich for his compromised past, clearly thinks it is worth pointing out yet again that Gingrich is politically soiled goods. But what if that doesn't matter? What if repentance and redemption have already done their work - the candidate is scandalous, yes, but he asks to be given the benefit of the doubt. And if it turns out that electors are happy to give him that benefit - what then?
We see it throughout public life, that there are certain characters who get where they get by huffing and puffing and saying the striking thing - whether or not the striking thing happens to be true. And over time the public comes to expect them to come up with one of these striking, usually entertaining pronouncements, and it really doesn't matter that the pronouncement turns out to be false. Nobody was expecting it to be both entertaining and true.
Gingrich, for instance, has been maintaining a fiction that, since his last political fall from grace, after occupying the position of Speaker of the House (1994-98), he has been a consultant rather than what critics of Washington despise, a lobbyist. Indeed he claimed the other day that he had been paid by one state mortgage conglomerate as a "historian".
Everyone understands that this is a kind of joke. They admire the chutz-pah. They know the man as an influence peddler. They know that Gingrich had a marital fidelity problem. They know that, taken all in all, he has been a political catastrophe.
They know that he comes with baggage - they can see it thundering down the chute onto the carousel! They don't care. Or rather, the people who have to choose between him and Romney seem well in the mood for an irresponsible gesture. And it seems hard for Romney to get them to snap out of this mood, before it is too late.
Reader views (7)
Edward..give me the "Israel lobby" over any other! They are the only free democracy in the whole of the middle east and have stayed strong despite the fasions of these sad times to hate them. The world is messed up not because of Israel but because of the likes of those who threaten it.
- Paul, London, 05/12/2011 13:10
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Ah, Mr. Fenton! Your hypocricy is showing. I remember you writing with great praise upon William Jefferson Clinton! Newt isn't close to being a Bill Clinton in either moral terpitude or immorality. You, Sir, need to get your commentary act together. It's called in-credible.
- Paul Savko, Lake Charles, USA, 03/12/2011 16:49
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All or nothing opponents - ya gotta love 'em! So droll. So obvious.
- Rogan, Irving, 03/12/2011 08:55
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Let's see...Newt the Sinner or Obama the Liar, Divider, Campaigner in Chief. Hmmmm. Yup....tough choice.
- denise thompson, USA, 02/12/2011 17:51
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Hmmm - Newt starting to garner support. Must be time for James Fenton to make sneering atttack ad for the Obama campaign.
- Rogan, Irving, 02/12/2011 17:42
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You massively underestimate Ron Paul, along with the rest of the media. A principled constitutionalist and libertarian, he runs rings around all the other candidates in debate, and he's already placed in the top three, and gaining ground. The US media have given very little coverage to his campaign, but even they are starting to take notice now.
- Peter, Canada, 02/12/2011 16:33
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The 'Israel lobby' in the USA is even stronger than it is here, but like here, I suspect increasing numbers of ordinary people disbelieve their propaganda. That said, Ron Paul appears to have great appeal to regular folk who are sick and tired of 'one view' politics. He comes top in the Republican polls but the US media would rather not mention it. I hope he runs as an independent if the GOP is not allowed to pick him.
- Edward, redhill, 02/12/2011 14:57
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