The Toad And The Vulture

I’m in a bit of a quandary. I can’t decide who I dislike most, Newt Gringrich or Mitt Romney. They are both exquisitely loathsome in their own unique ways. They each represent different facets of the same repulsive id. Gingrich is Gingrich, a poisonous reptile who is a hypocrite by conviction: “People want to hear what I say. It doesn’t matter what I do.” He is a bona fide scourge to our democracy, a genuine menace who will bring disaster upon us if he ever makes it to the White House. The dude is cracked. That he fancies himself the savior of civilization is laughably grotesque. It’s like Hitler insisting he was a man of peace or hearing Mussolini extol the virtues of a free press. That nasty little toad is partly responsible for making our politics as low and reprehensible as they are.

But hardly a day passes that we aren’t given a fresh new glimpse into the multidimensional world of Mitt Romney’s assholianism:

A ThinkProgress examination of Mitt Romney’s presidential personal financial disclosures from May 2011 reveal that the former Massachusetts governor and his wife own or owned millions of dollars worth of a Goldman Sachs investment fund invested heavily in mortgage-backed obligations. And the current owners of those mortgage debts began foreclosure proceedings against thousands of Floridians.

Along with his investments in Bain Capital funds linked to offshore tax havens, the Romneys have large investments in the Goldman Sachs Strategic Income Fund (institutional class). The firm’s March 2011 annual report for the fund notes that about 8 percent of the fund is invested in banks and 24.5 percent is invested in mortgage-backed obligations. Romney’s form says he has invested between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 in the fund and his wife Ann has invested an additional $1 million-plus. Since the 2008 economic meltdown and the enactment of the Troubled Asset Relief Fund, this fund has done quite well, growing 7.88 percent between April 2010 and March 2011.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, he is a vulture, a despicable carrion bird who makes money by inflicting misery on others. Even his ‘successes’ are dubious: Dominoes Pizza? As I said, he makes money inflicting pain …

So who is worse, the slimily repellent Gingrich — backstabbing moral reprobate and self-appointed savior of America’s values, cough, gag, chuckle — or the coldly venal Mitt Romney, fake Galtian capitalist hero and dog abuser?

(I don’t know if slimily is a word, but I’m sticking to it. Call it my own little contribution to the English language.)

What’ll it be, folks? This:

Or this:

(The Gingrich picture is a fake, to be sure, but I think it accurately depicts his soul.)