Disqualified
by digby
I’m sure you’ve heard that Newtie and Perry couldn’t get their acts together enough to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, which pretty much disqualifies all of them for president as far as I’m concerned. Seriously, if you can’t even get on the ballot in all the primary states you’re running in … well.
But they’re not the only people who are disqualified today. The very handsome Niall Ferguson has made a total cake of himself as well:
I get that self-avowed “neo-imperialist” historian Niall Ferguson relishes his gig as academia’s most celebrated colonial nostalgic/conservative reactionary. But this is too much:
I just read the transcripts of some lectures [Newt Gingrich] gave in the 1990s on “Renewing American Civilization.” They positively fizz with historical insights and brilliant brain waves. They make the case against big government as vividly as anything you’ll ever read.
This nugget of praise, apparently written in all seriousness, appeared in the December 19th edition of Newsweek, where Ferguson writes a weekly column. I too read these transcripts as part of an assignment for The New Republic (learn all about it here if you’re a print subscriber) and they simply don’t warrant this level of praise.
Here’s an example of the “brilliant brainwaves”
I would assert that no civilization can survive with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year- olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS, and 18-year- olds getting diplomas they can’t read.
They’re nothing more than typical 90s era GOPAC cartoon agit-prop.
I think Ferguson’s disqualification may be worse than Gingrich’s. After all, he can’t lay blame for it on his bad staff or mismanagement. Those silly words of praise are his and his alone.
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