I think these Sunday shows would be serve a more useful function if they were in front of a live audience, with heckling and throwing of tomatoes not only allowed, but encouraged. Because the properly deferential handmaidens and footmen of the corporate media so rarely contradict the inanities and contradictions that burble from the mouths of such masters of cognitive dissonance as Newt Gingrich. Witness this exchange from today’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour:
AMANPOUR: You talked about the Muslim Brotherhood. And, clearly, many people are worried about the future. Now, they’ve made statements that they’re not interested in the presidential position right now. You said under no circumstances should the United States be willing to support a government in Egypt that lifts this ban against the Muslim Brotherhood.
Well, already the Egyptian authorities have de facto, because they’ve been talking to them. So, “under no circumstances.” What does that mean? Pull aid?
GINGRICH: Well, I think — I think we should — I think we should be very — we should try every way we can to ensure — the two things the Muslim Brotherhood will ultimately want are the Interior Ministry and — and education.
AMANPOUR: But they haven’t said that.
GINGRICH: No, but I’m just saying. If you watch them with Hamas, if you watch them — everywhere in the region, they understand that if they can get control of the schools — they’re very patient. They have — they have a 20- or 30-year strategy. So this is not an overnight group.
AMANPOUR: So let me ask you. The logical denouement of democracy is that they may elect people who you don’t like. You’re not able to control democracy. So how do you thread that needle?
GINGRICH: This is a huge challenge. It’s not a question of liking or disliking. I mean, I’m perfectly — we have lots of governments…
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: No, but, still, how do you try to control democracy…
(CROSSTALK)
GINGRICH: Every society has to come to grips with the fact that there are some elements who would create a dictatorship, so you’d have one last vote. It wouldn’t be a democracy; it would be one last vote. And whether it is Lenin replacing Kerensky, whether it is Hitler taking over in Germany, whether it is the Ayatollah running Iran, you have to be very cautious about the idea that — that every — that you can automatically accept a group if, in fact, you have pretty good reason to believe that their goal is a dictatorship.
It’s the challenge — it’s the tragedy of Zimbabwe, where you have a kind — a government which clearly is totally illegitimate.
Wow. Newt Gingrich, the man who engineered the “very patient” strategy of the Republican right wing by which they infiltrated school boards all over the country with extremists and fundamentalists, is worried that Egyptian Muslims might do the same thing.
The man who’s a founding father of the extreme right wing, the one that wants to impose a social dictatorship of overturning gay marriage rights, abortion rights, and even the right to use birth control, is worried that Egyptian Muslims might follow his template.
Apparently the similarities simply eluded Amanpour.
