This plush interior will not stand

The Cordoba put an end to the chain of signification, John, precisely by filling up every lack. And that 360 V-8 engine (180 hp) could take you from zero to the metaphysics of presence in just under 12 seconds.

But if we fill up every lack, what will happen to advertising and consumption? It’s Don Draper’s worst nightmare. Those Islamomexicanians are crafty! Because we all know that if we don’t go shopping, the terrorists will have won.

„This rug really tied the room together.“

Right, Newt. Nothing is more un-American than Chrysler.

Didn’t they have to pay Fernando Lamas extra for putting the accent on the wrong syllable when advertizing what should have been the Córdoba?

No and no, because (a) Fernando Lamas was a foreign kind of Argentininian man, whereas the Mexicanistanian Ricardo Montalbán was the Cordoba spokesman, and (b) Cordóba is actually the historically correct seekrit Islamicistic pronunciation.

Thanks, Chris. Actually, Carl Pyrdum (click on the first link) does a fine job of taking Newt to the historical woodshed on this. I’m just coming along in his wake, trying to make the most of the fact that an ignorant jackass like Gingrich has the ignorant-jackass temerity to speak of “the historic ignorance of American elites.”

Also, just on a personal note, I wanted to add that the Chrysler Cordoba gives me great confidence, for which there can be no price.

I thought Cordoba House was in honor of Armando Cordoba the Panamanian boxer known as El Policia, so it’s really named in honor of the police first responders that died.

One of the most short-lived moments of happiness at public events I’ve ever had was at Newt and his (almost immediate!) return to the public forum after he resigned from the house. I was so glad that I wouldn’t have to hear any more of his little bogus lectures about history, wouldn’t have to spend a moment imagining what a horrendously bad professor he must have been, and just generally was glad Newt was over.

Then he came back around as a Fox News guy, and I thought– well, I don’t watch Fox anyway, so maybe I won’t hear this crap from him, but that didn’t work out– other networks would give him time, and I’d turn on the tv and there he’d be. We have to have balance! We have one sane person, so we have to find an insane person who can talk, and Newt (who may not be insane but can certainly act the part) got the slot.

I honestly can decide if I’d be more upset to face more time listening to him or to Sarah Palin. But I’m pretty sure that of all the politicians I remember in my lifetime (and I’m in Mississippi! I remember Ross Barnett! and, right next door in Alabama, George Wallace!) those two may be the most unbearable of my lifetime.

I think Newt needs to worry about more important issues, like whether it will be possible to resurrect the “Match Game” yet again so he can be on the panel with other withered has-beens like Bert Convy and Charles Nelson Reilly. Oh wait a minute, they are both dead. Well, maybe they can use the Genesis Device to resurrect them, like they did Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Speaking of which, I have a question for historian Gingrich.

So, Mr. Gingrich, when the Reliant visits Ceti Alpha 6 thinking it is Ceti Alpha 5, they didn’t notice that a planet was missing? I mean, they have all sorts of sophisticated navigation devices and techniques in the 23rd century, they couldn’t do something like count the planets out from the star? And didn’t Kirk leave a log entry that they marooned Ricardo, I mean Khan, there? This is an important movie continuity issue, and seems to be ranks much higher than whether Sharia Law will be instituted in lower Manhattan.

And, Mr. Gingrich, are you aware there is not only a Gedi Temple in lower Manahhattan, but a monthly meeting og Klingons as well? Shouldn’t those issues rank just a bit higher than paranoid delusion? Thanks!

I assume this is actually a Double Meta Level joke on Newt’s part.

He’s making shit up, then referencing one of the best-known made-up marketing concepts in the history of advertising: “corinthian leather.”

No such thing, doesn’t exist, specifically made up to sell mid-70s Chryslers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnZdMeEfG1Y

As Ricardo Montalban himself describes the leather: “very soft, very pliable”. Like Newt’s core audience, really.

Is that a mosque in the background of this ad? It’s all coming clear now .. soft Corinthian leather–introduced to serve mankind.

And per MB, go read the gotmedieval blog post–a nice bit of history. Most of the comments not so much, I’m afraid (I’m wondering where it got linked).

Yes, in 19 Dave, that would be “can’t”

Next thing they’ll be teaching “Muslim math” in schools.

Only slightly seriously, I’ve always wondered how many loonies you could get standing up to oppose the teaching of “al-jebra”…

Check out the Islamomexicanian accent and music

Since nobody has followed up, I’ll point out that this is Rodrigo, the familiar Concierto de Aranjuez (though something sketchy superposes itself at the end). And to the extent that Rodrigo has a political valence (not a serious extent, as far as I know, but since we’re dredging here), it’s Franquist.

Go easy on Newt, he is merely preparing Geert Wilders’ speech of acceptance for the Oscar for non-US wignuttery at ground zero. I heard he is going to be airdropped in using only his hair to ensure a soft landing thereby showing no Islamist will ever be able to hurt him.

Do your worst, Gingrich. You will not come between me and the sublime and funky upholstery that I crave.

@Vance Maverick, full marks on identifying the well-known Concierto de Aranjuez, but can we please know in what sense Joaquín Rodrigo was “Franquist”? In the sense that he was of Spanish nationality and alive at the time of Franco’s dictatorship? The same sense in which Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Nazi?

36: hardly Bonhoeffer. He wrote articles for Falangist newspapers during the war, pushing a fairly Fascist line on the importance of German music being authentically German, etc. His music was very popular with the Franquists. He wasn’t a fervent Franquist by any means, as far as I can tell, but he wasn’t noticeably anti-Franco.

mds- just as long as they don’t come for the alcohol, which I need to survive this era of craziness. (But maybe if we rename it Spirit of Freedom they won’t take it away!)

And the cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir and merlot all sound a bit, you know, French.

I was going to point out that rich, crushed velour might provide a suitable alternative to the inherent dhimmitude of soft Corinthian leather. But then I realized that it runs into the same problem: just too damn French. Maybe if we call it “Reagan velvet”…

ajay, I didn’t know all of that — just that Rodrigo returned to Spain after the Civil War, and became a kind of national symbol (so that regardless of what politics he had, to choose his music was to choose the public Spain of his time). FWIW, over the past couple of years, I’ve come to admire his music quite a bit; very conservative, obvs, but showing an acute assimilation of the modernism of the teens and ’20s, esp. Stravinsky/Ravel.

If young Jesus of Nazareth didn’t need it, why do we?

Jesus of Nazareth did need algebra. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to exploit the Banach-Tarski Paradox to multiply those loaves and fishes.

I turned off On Point this morning after they had the woman from the bigot brigade explaining why the 14th Amendment does not guarantee birthright citizenship as the movers of the amendment clearly intended.

This sudden upswing in bigotry is explained by one single factor, there are elections in November and the Republican party has nothing to run on other than bigotry and fear. They can’t run on their economic policy because their policies got us into this mess. They can’t run on tax cuts as their ‘tax cut’ plan gives 117% of the benefit to the top 1% of tax payers. Guess how you get 117% – yep, everyone else will see their taxes rise. So all they have left to run on is hate.

They say ‘illegals’ but what they mean is ‘latinos’.

Bigotry has been a defining characteristic of politics here since the Pilgrims landed. Then the bigotry was directed against different denominations. My church being one of the ones that was targeted. There is a memorial to Mary Dyer, one of the four Quaker martyrs next to the state capitol.

The target changes from time to time, but not the tactic. Newt Gingrich’s behavior is explained by the fact that he is a bigot. Rudy Giuliani’s behavior is explained by the fact that he is a bigot and a panderer to any ethnic group that will give him votes. He has give peace prizes to terrorists and helped them raise money when it suits his electoral advantage.

The decision to turn up the anti-Latino and anti-muslim bigotry most recently seems to have come as the Tea Party movement has begun to lose momentum. They only managed a few hundred at their last national rally. Fox News has also halted its rise in the ratings and has started to decline. Glenn Beck has also clearly peaked.

This has nothing to do with the facts or the issues, it is all Rupert Murdoch’s bigotry and greed that is the driving force here. The Republicans must know that as well, they work for him.

This plush interior will not stand

This headline actually evokes the elder Bush who, for all his faults, wasn’t a nut.

I predict that sometime this week someone will link up the Michelle Obama’s Spain trip and Cordoba House (not sure where she flew in and out of, I think the resort was ~120 miles from Cordoba).

According to commenter R. Porrofatto at alicublog (see comments here), you’re behind the curve, JP:

“If you do a Google to Cordoba, it’s only 2 hrs away, due north. Someone from that Cordoba Institute, which is so much in the news now for the Ground Zero Mosque, may be having private meetings with Michelle. I think it’s just a little too coincidental. ”

You just can’t get out in front of these people.

At what point is it legitimate to point out that giving Germans people to hate was the way Hitler got started?

Long since. At least since Nixon’s Southern Strategy.

Parsimon, you might want to follow the link to check the quote.

As a historian, I am naturally infuriated by Newt’s vicious idiocy, but my feelings probably pale in comparison to what Tony Judt would have experienced. Given the timing, it might be appropriate to remember what Judt told Terry Gross in his last radio interview:

“On whether history matters to him as much:
I think it does. It really does. I know that sounds funny, but I believe the reason is this: that all I ever wanted to do in life professionally [and] occupationally was teach history and read and write it. There are times when I’ve thought, ‘My God, you’re a dull man, Judt. When you were 13, you wanted the same thing, and now you’re 62 and you still want it.’ And the upside of that is that I get as angry at bad history writing, or the abuse of history for political purposes, as I ever did.”
(see also http://atthispoint.org/2010/03/30/tony-judt/)

But it looks mahvelous. and so do you!

The Cordoba in that commercial is obviously pointed toward Mecca.

God forbid someone one drives a Cordoba to the Flight 93 memorial.

Arabic numerals are really Indian numerals the Muslims took from them.

So we really just taking them back, being aryans like those Indians etc.

Have modern sensibilities changed so much that imagery from a ‘70s car ad has become meaningless to us, or is it just me?

Heck, I think even imagery from some modern-day car ads is meaningless to me. There’s a billboard I drive past to go to work that says, “travel AVELON class!” And apparently the reader is supposed to be telling a mustachioed and liveried driver, “Thanks for the SMOOTH ride!” This billboard seems hopelessly tacky and nonsensical to me, but also seems like what the billboard version of the Cordoba ad would be.

Also, you are all so behind the curve. My more wittily whiny high school students were cracking wise about “Iraqi math” and “terrorist math” way back in 2005. (Granted, they got the origins of geometry confused with the origins of algebra, but this is easily forgiven. It’s all Greek to them. And I guess they think of Greeks as being Arabic…)

I wonder if they had a bunch of reactionary arseholes accusing them of dhimmitude and undermining democracy while they wrote it down?

I bet they did…

…Then they came for the ones, but I didn’t speak up, because I didn’t like the Matrix and Ayn Rand fans are insufferable

…

Then they came for e, but we didn’t speak up, because nobody wanted to admit to a predilection for the irrational

Then they came for i, but i did not speak up, because i thought i was not real

But then they came for the pi, and there was no getting around it any longer: they were gathering us up for something profoundly negative…

(Hopefully someone in the audience noticed and appreciated the e^iÏ€^ = -1 joke; I don’t know how to make it not obscure)

Yeah, it’s rough when you have to be the exponent of your own gag

Seriously. It’s best if others do the real analysis.

The bits that aren’t imaginary are irrational.

Don’t worry, there’ll be Ï€ in the sky by and by.

You have to admit, though, that this is the least square group of commenters to be found on any blog.

You guys may think of Islam when you hear Cordoba, but I think of Seneca and Lucan and the possible corruption of our public rhetoric.

I’m not sure I qualify for membership in the liberal American elite, but doing some study of the field currently known as late antiquity gives me the sense that (a) while I may know slightly more than the average guy about Islam I’m frightfully ignorant, and (b) the world that Islam came out of, and a whole lot of other things from French nationalism to Benedictine monasticism to Gregorian chant, is a rather appealing world with which everyone has lost even the faint touch that I had growing up in the American Catholic 50’s. Peter Brown has a remarkable tribute to it that is inaccessibly buried in a symposium in Symbolae Osloenses dating back to the pre-9/11 days of Islam bashing.

a lot of people don’t seem to get that prof berube is making a joke…here is the actual quote for those morbidly curious
http://www.torenewamerica.com/gingrich-ground-zero-mosque

(Hopefully someone in the audience noticed and appreciated the eiπ = -1 joke; I don’t know how to make it not obscure)
well, it was a bit formulaic…
;- )

I was going to point out that rich, crushed velour might provide a suitable alternative to the inherent dhimmitude of soft Corinthian leather.
Discretion is the better part of velour…

…as a first time poster, I have to say what a welcome relief it is to find a great blog with such intelligent, good natured and humorous commenters – hope for humanity soars!