Four disgusting old men: Newt, Arnold, Trump, and Strauss-Kahn

Blogging at the Nation the other day, Leslie Savan zings the gallivanting foursome of Newt, Arnold, Trump, and Strauss-Kahn at the get go by referring to them as “bad grandpas” and not so subtly portraying each one as hopelessly out of touch with today’s culture.

She first nails Newt:

 

Newt is old. That's one way to explain why Gingrich fell so hard so fast. Chris Matthews was struck by Newt's Nixon-era dog whistles, like "food stamps, Detroit, all the codes," saying they reminded him of his grandfather’s “language of yesteryear.” "You know, my grand pop used to call Connie Mack Stadium ‘Shibe Park’ 30 years after they changed the name," Matthews said Wednesday. "I don't know, who is the last politician you heard ragging on food stamps? Last time you heard somebody talking about food stamps? A while ago. Reagan, maybe?"

And then our sassy blogger effectively portrays the bungling grandpa as right in step with the Republican Party:

Just seeing Newt on the stage tells you the GOP has slipped over the event horizon. Gingrich hasn't run for office since 1998, so he doesn't get, as John Heilemann told Matthews, that in "the age of blogs and twitters and tweets and Facebook… you can't play some of the kinds of games that you could play as recently as 10 years ago. You get called out now."

Savan points out the flaw common to her four hapless, aging subjects:

In each case, the tragic flaw that led to the pol’s quick demise had been obvious for a long time: All four suffered from an outsized ego that made them feel bulletproof. Trump's extreme narcissism was played as polo field hijinks by the tabloids for decades; Gingrich's self-aggrandizing recklessness has destroyed his political career twice already; in France, DSK’s well-known womanizing even earned him a chapter in a bestselling book, Sexus Politicus (Albin Michel, 2006); and Arnold's penchant for groping women erupted into headlines during the final days of his first campaign for governor in 2003.

Yep, Leslie’s got it right. Newt, Arnold, Trump, and DSK are four disgusting old men. Eww.

For more details – if you can stand it – go here.