Today on the Dish, Newt opened up a bigger lead in the early states, he took up the fundamentalist's war against secularism, and he acted "exactly like one of those obnoxious elitist intellectual know-it-alls that the right-wing no-nothings think is the hallmark of an intellectual" (more on Newt's appeal here). Andrew embraced Gingrich's proposal for a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates, we placed the former speaker in the recent history of improbable candidates, and the GOP field erupted into negative attacks. Greater Israel is at the core of the GOP base, Santorum once gave an award to Jerry Sandusky, and Romney self-consciously ducked class warfare. The debates have been a disaster for the GOP (further reax to the $10,000-bet debate here), the headline unemployment rate could actually rise next year, and a 15-year-old boy spent his entire adolescence imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.
We tracked developments in Syria, Stephen Walt warned against covert war in Iran, and Marty Peretz stood up to right-wing Israelis. A former AIPAC spokesman introduced a campaign to target several critics of Netanyahu as anti-Semites over a list-serv, Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical, Britain resisted European integration, and the British coalition showed worrying signs of fracture.
In our AAA video, Andrew discussed his opposition to infant circumcision, Xeni Jardin Instagrammed her mammogram, and Roland Fryer measured school culture. Molten lava is nothing like water, fungi grow toward their food, and Facebook is keeping tabs. We continued the debate over emergency contraception for teens, addressed the first rule of blogging, and the Army invented a sandwich that stays fresh for two years. We shouldn't require "sparks" on the first date, cremation powered electricity in England, birds see things humans cannot, and there's a theory that only someone who has had a twin in utero can be "truly left-handed."
Quote for the day here, hathos alert here, chart of the day here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.
— M.A.
(Photo: Republican Presidential Candidate former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich arrives for a Lincoln-Douglas style debate with Jon Huntsman at Saint Anselm College on December 12, 2011 in Manchester, New Hampshire. By Matthew Cavanaugh/Getty Images.)
