Forget the Primaries . . . Newt's Running for King

The primary season is over. You can unpack your knives, light the fires and start cooking the feast.

Newt Gingrich is no longer running for President. He is running for King of the United States.

And if you don’t think that’s scary, consider the former Speaker’s off-the-deep-end stand on judges and courts: He’d close courts and arrest judges for decisions he considered outside the mainstream, which one presumes is outside his way of thinking. I’m not sure Newt even knows where the mainstream is, and the thought of the government rounding up judges and holding them to some arbitrary political ideal is scary indeed.

As of now, there is no truth to the rumors he has commissioned plans for constructing a moat around the White House.

Let’s ignore for a moment that our judicial system has all kinds of checks and balances within itself . . . an appeals process . .  a Supreme Court. Certainly the system isn’t perfect, but gosh, it sure beats throwing judges into some kind of judge jail on a whim.

And while Gingrich rails the most about decisions involving school prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance and the like, clearly if he feels a decision goes against his grain, he’d round up the judge. He’d like this judicial oversight to be handled by both himself and the Congress. Yikes.

Now I happen to think that some of these school issues are rather silly. I managed to say the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord’s Prayer every day in school. I think those things can enhance our educations as we grow and I don’t think they turn us into flag-waving, bayonet-wielding zombies. The courts have said that much of this religion/school/flag stuff shouldn’t take place in public schools.

Ok . . . I can pray at home or church and Pledge Allegiance to the flag pretty much anywhere but a school. People are smart and while these things are often divisive in the public court, we often figure out a reasonable way to deal with them. We always have. The key I guess is reasonable . . . some people just aren’t.

So hail to the man who would be King, and kiss the judges goodbye.