I Don't Want/I Want

I Don't Want
to read 100 pages of letters Hernan Cortes wrote.  Thanks a lot, you pompous conquistador. Not only did you decimate the Aztec, centuries later, you're making poor Hispanic Studies students like me have to read your overblown, Eurocentric, gold-obsessed ramblings.  Did you have to write that much?  

I Want
Newt Gingrich to win the Republican nomination.  Not because I think he'll be disastrous to the Republican party and Obama will be a shoo-in.  Naw.  No matter who the Republican nominee is, Obama is going to have to campaign as well as or better than he did the first time around.  He doesn't have the same enthusiasm propelling him forward like he did in 2008, and swing voters are always finicky.  I want Newt Gingrich to win because I want Obama to shut him down.  I would enjoy seeing Obama just poke a tiny hole in him and watch him utterly deflate.  I want Obama to slice and dice him with such skill and precision that he doesn't even feel it and doesn't realize he's been cut completely up until he tries to take a step forward and just falls to pieces.  It's because I have zero sympathy for him, in part because he is resorting to the worst tactics ever to whip up a frenzy of support.  And so far (in South Carolina, at least) it's working.

Like, last time, even though John McCain was an old, unexciting, erratic curmudgeon and went from being a buck-the-system maverick to a dyed-in-the-wool establishment proponent, I still had a smidgen of sympathy for him.  Poor old guy, you know?  His party did him dirty back in 2000.  Old boy was just trying to make his mark.

Even Romney, robotic, awkward, political chameleon, I have sympathy for.  At least he's a faithful family man.  I wouldn't enjoy seeing him get owned by Obama.  It would be embarrassing and awkward and just uncomfortable.  I'm not the type that gets enjoyment out of uncomfortable, embarrassing things.  Like, when Rick Perry had his "oops" moment, it was unbelievable, but not funny.  Like, I couldn't laugh because it was so sad.  That's how I would feel during an Obama/Romney debate, for example.

But Gingrich.  He's got such an amazing amount of audacity, it's mind-boggling.  I would love to see him go head to head with Obama and see how fast the bluster gets knocked out of him.  I would say that he needs to go saddown somewhere, but he's going to need someone to sit him down.  Yup.