Sure, Kasich hates the ACA and the Iran deal

I, Democrat, think John Kasich is the Republican presidential candidate best qualified to be president. Ergo, he's doomed.

It's become a cliche that Kasich is this cycle's Jon Huntsman, a GOP candidate who seems borderline sane to Democrats and hence is a total political anaphrodisiac to Republicans. Kasich is more formidable than Huntsman and getting a better response from GOP audiences, at least in New Hampshire. But the principle does apply.

I'm not the closest observer in the political audience but that's why I'm so sure. In a year, I've sopped up two subtexts from Kasich: the ACA is okay, and so is the Iran deal. He'd deny both, but he's pricked my political pituitary twice. First, on the ACA. Last October Kasich told the AP:

By Romney Rules, Romney likes to fire people

One point about Romney's last debate performance that I buried in a footnote deserves, I think, a spotlight of its own:

Last November, Romney's campaign cut an ad that quoted Obama in '08 saying "if we talk about the economy, we'll lose"-- conveniently leaving out the fact that Obama was quoting (and mocking) the McCain camp talking about its own prospects. When called out, Romney's aides doubled down, suggesting that all's fair in love and political war:

Struggling to justify a recent television spot that reached new heights of deception, a top operative in Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign put it plainly, while insisting on anonymity:

“First of all, ads are propaganda by definition. We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business…. Ads are agitprop…. Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing. It’s ludicrous for them to say that an ad is taking something out of context…. All ads do that. They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art.”

In other words, because various political ads mislead to varying degrees, we're serving notice that we will distort the truth without any inhibitions.

In the CNN debate in Florida on January 26,  Romney showed that he agrees with his aides in principle. Gingrich called him out for an attack ad claiming that Gingrich called Spanish "the language of the ghetto." Romney, shamefully, claimed not to have seen the ad -- which, unlike the Super Pac attack ads he claimed not to have seen a couple of weeks ago, was created by his campaign and had his "I approved this message" imprimatur. On top of that dishonesty, Romney added the 'fuck context' defense:

Go tell the Democrats: the golden Newt-goose is dead

Newt was tamed and shamed tonight -- not only by Romney but by Wolf Blitzer. It was fascinating to see him reach for an old trick -- one that brought him glory just a week ago -- and find his hypocrisy stripped so bare that an attentive eight year old could catch it.

Immediately after attacking Romney's investments, Gingrich was asked by Wolf Blitzer if he was satisfied by Romney's release of his tax returns (for 2010, with 2011 promised). Gingrich's response, according to a partial transcript:

Newt blames everyone but himself for his troubles (HUGE CHEERS)

Well, we really do judge these debates like American Idol. Newt's little show of high moral dudgeon when asked at the opening gun about his ex-wife's allegations of cruel, self-serving betrayal is getting rave reviews as performance art. And it was an astounding display of the Audacity of Hubris. In the space of a minute or two, Gingrich managed to blame or condemn questioner John King, the news media, his ex-wife and Barack Obama for his being forced to address the consequences of his serial adultery. Let's consider the substance:

I will respond. I think that the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country and get decent people to run for office. I am appalled you would begin a presidential debate with a topic like that. (HUGE CHEERS). Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone go through personal things. To take an ex wife and make it two days before the primary is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine. My two daughters wrote the head of ABC and made the point that it was wrong, they should pull it, and I am astounded that CNN would take trash like that and open a presidential debate. Don’t try to blame someone else, YOU chose to start this debate with this. The story is false, personal friends attest it is false, ABC is not interested because the media just wants to protect Barack Obama and attack Republicans.  I am tired of the elite media doing this. (HUGE CHEERS)

We begin with projection. The question is whether Newt is a decent person: the evidence is overwhelming that he's not. Confronted with that evidence, it's the media's job to raise the question.And "destructive, vicious, negative nature" is a pitch-perfect description of Newt and the way he's conducted political warfare for thirty years, and the way he's taught his party to conduct it.

Every person here knows personal pain. Right -- the question is how much of it they've inflicted on others. I am astounded that CNN would take trash like that and open a presidential debate. Trash = the allegations of his second wife, strikingly similar to the allegations of his first wife. Unchallenged: that he left both for women he had been carrying on affairs with (one of whom was his second wife). Trash to the trash!  ABC is not interested because the media just wants to protect Barack Obama and attack Republicans.  Gather round me, fellow Republicans!  And they did -- no one had stomach to press the attack.  

Bulletin,  Newt:  Barack Obama protected himself -- by not exposing himself to his wife and the world as the most self-serving deceptive, treacherous and cruel cad on the national stage.

All those pieties about forgiveness with which Newt's rivals dodged confronting him on this front are just so much Christianist crap.  Newt's ex-wife can forgive him if she will -- and his daughters, as they claim to. The rest of us have nothing to forgive because he did us no harm (excepting his Republican colleagues, whose crusade against Clinton he undermined).  But at our peril would we forbear to judge his character and fail to recognize him for the treacherous fraud he is.