The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Remembering Newt’s Awfulness

Posted on | November 15, 2011 | 100 Comments

Just now, I called Dan Collins to talk about the grim prospect that threatens to destroy all hope of carrying forward the Tea Party momentum of the 2010 midterms: Mitt vs. Newt as the final showdown for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. Dan was saying that this has provided him an occasion to remember all the reasons he can’t stand Newt Gingrich.

The idea that Newt could fill the role of a champion of grassroots conservatism against the Republican Establishment is so absurd as to be laughable, if the situation were not so tragic.

“The limits of Newt Gingrich’s staying power” is the Washington Post headline expressing what is perhaps the only hopeful aspect of the most recent polls: The Newt Bubble can’t possibly last, and eventually some other Not Romney will emerge as the leading alternative. However, viewing the situation as it stands now — seven weeks before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses — by the time the Newt Bubble ends, there will be little time for any other Not Romney to raise the big money needed to fund a campaign against Romney in Florida.

Gingrich Said Paid by Freddie Mac to Win Allies
— Bloomberg News

Gingrich needs to explain what
he did for Freddie and Fannie
— Jennifer Rubin

Yeah, a bit more attention to that kind of stuff would be helpful. This whole “Second look at Gingrich” nonsense — I’m looking at you, Ed Morrissey — is almost as much a waste of time as the Jon Huntsman campaign, and the sooner people wake up and realize it, the better.

 Da Tech Guy has excoriated me for my anti-Gingrich attitude, but I’m serious and will repeat what I said yesterday: To support Newt is tantamount to advocating the re-election of Barack Obama.

Anyone who thinks Newt can beat Obama is delusional. As bad as Romney is, he’s not worse than Gingrich, and if this Newt Bubble isn’t deflated PDQ, I fear that I might be stuck making that argument next February, a profoundly depressing prospect.

UPDATE: My friend Jeffrey Lord has taken leave of his senses. Comparing Gingrich to Winston Churchill? The most obvious difference is that the latter was a man of action, who understood that deeds counted more than words.

Churchill’s disrepute among his political rivals can be attributed chiefly to their envy of his superior qualities. The way Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, became the scapegoat for the failure of the Gallipoli campaign is one episode that must be studied to see how Churchill was damaged by this resentment. He had won early fame in the Boer War and self-interested rivals, concerned mainly with their own status, viewed Churchill’s success as likely to result in their own eclipse — as of course it ultimately did, but only after their had kept him in the wilderness during the years of appeasement in the 1930s.

Category: Election 2012, Newt Gingrich

Comments

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  • http://profiles.google.com/deanl.can Dean L

    I’m not super thrilled about Newt, but he has admitted the Pelosi couch was a mistake, that the Scozzafava incident was a mistake and said that he was taken out of context on the Ryan budget.  I think he can be kept honest by a grassroots effort whenever he goes of the conservative rails. He realizes when he makes a mistake.

    If there are a number of debates between Obama and the GOP candidate is anyone more equipped than Newt to argue circles around an Obama without a teleprompter?  To say Newt can’t beat Obama is like saying Romney (who the Dems are seemingly single-mindedly gearing up to face) can.

    To say conservatives won’t back him is to imply that they’d back someone else more fervently.  That’s a stretch.  Obama is so disliked by the Tea Party they’d back Newt as much as they’d back Perry, Cain, Bachmann or anyone else.

  • Joe

    Well…yeah.  I guess it does.  I would like to be all positive and put happy faces over all the i and under all the ! and ?, but it is difficult to do so. 

  • Anonymous

    Newt may have problems winning.  I’ve said from the beginning he wasn’t going to get past the baggage.

    But Romney is a guaranteed Obama win. Fayt A Comp-LEE.

    We have to look at other candidates. Cain isn’t out (no?  then point to the election result proving it).  Neither are any of the others, so sukk it up, people.  The long slog is still a-sloggin’.

  • Anonymous

    “Why settle for the lesser of two evils?”

  • Joe

    That is like embracing the suck?

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Short memory there, Grasshopper.  Newt’s antics were every bit as much responsible for reelecting Clinton as Dole’s mediocre campaign.

    His inability to focus and be consistently competent led us to Speaker Hastert, who was no movement conservative.

  • Joe

    Gingrich is more of a French Bulldog. 

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Don’t say that.  Newt, low as he is, would still pick much better judges than Obama, and there will be hundreds named to life terms in the next President’s term of office.  He wouldn’t veto the repeal of ObamaCare.  He wouldn’t let the regulatory bureaucracy continue to strangle the economy.

    When FDR helped install the dictator Somoza (Sr.) in Nicaragua, his close adviser Harold Ickes (Sr.) exploded in protest:  “But he’s a SOB!”

    FDR replied, “Of course he is, Harold – but he is our SOB.”

  • Anonymous

    Killing GoDaffy was it’s own virtue and I’m not too particular how that happened. Going to the UN instead of Congress was unacceptable. Getting involved using humanitarianism as a cover was OK I suppose but I think our leaders fell for their own gambit!

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Because the alternative is the greater evil.

  • Anonymous

    I have a hot tip for all of you here.  All the navel-gazing, gnashing of teeth and promoting of favorites that we do matters not one whit.  The Rep nominee will not be decided by Reps but by Dems who, released of the need to cast primary votes for Teh Messiah, will cheerfully cross over to nominate the candidate they think most easy to defeat.

    It’s just that simple.  We are screwed.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    He also said he didn’t lobby for Freddie Mac, either – that he was just paid $300,000 for historical perspective and advice.  Uh-huh.

    Freddie Mac says he was paid to “win allies” among Republicans.  IOW, to lobby.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    The difference between Churchill and Newt is that Churchill always hewed to his convictions even in the Wilderness Years.  What conviction exactly has Newt clung to?

  • http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/ Dave C

    For such a smart guy he sure seems to make a lot of obvious blunders.. 

     

  • Joe

    http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/15/limbaugh-comes-to-cains-defense/

    Rush defends Cain today…Newt not so much. 

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    Romney was 47th in the nation at job creation as Governor.  BLUE STATES created more jobs than Mitt Romney.  What’s not to like?

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    Spiro Agnew with a thesaurus.

  • Anonymous

    Yeah but the smart play is a short position on civilization.

  • Guest

    Dunno. Newt’s the guy who believed Dede Scorfezza was a republican, because “she told him so”.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    So far nobody has ever been able to control Newt – including Newt.

  • Joe

    http://nldfrenchbulldogs.com/images_dorsey/100_0225.jpg

    Newt is fierce!  Look at how he savaged Pelosi and Gore.  With a tongue bath. 

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    I don’t believe Newt can beat Obama.  That’s an opinion.  But I’m damned sure he can ‘t govern once he has power, either the nation or himself.  That’s historical fact.

  • Anonymous

    Kinda.

    See, this is the best batch of candidates for President I’ve seen in my lifetime.  I believe that all of them are qualified to BE President.

    I also believe that any one of them is at least “marginally” better than Obama.

    However, based on past history, at least two of them are not significantly better than Obama (Romney, Huntsman). Paul is a non-factor. So to me, it means which of the group composed of Cain, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, and Santorum sucks the least.

    I still think Cain, Bachmann, and Santorum suck the least as potential Candidates, and also as potential President.

    (I wish Perry was better.  I really wish he hadn’t said what he said at the 2001 Border Summit.)

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    I agree. The saddest words of tongue or pen are the words ‘I might have penned’.

  • Anonymous

    Well played sir.
    You do realize I’m just barely joking, right?

  • http://twitter.com/marriedrambler Andrew Patrick

    You know, when everyone was saying that Hermann Cain Couldn’t Possibly Win, I began to wonder if they had reason for saying so.

    Why the same rule doesn’t apply here, I cannot say.

    When Jesus Christ announces his candidacy, lemme know. ‘Till then, this all looks like ground preparation for Stacy’s Long, Hard, Clothespinned Second Smell of Mittens.

  • Tattmaster

    Santorum has all the backbone, has stood on his principles and fought for them.  I do think we have a great field to choose from, all qualified, each one better than obama…then again my pup would make a better WH resident.  All kidding aside, we have 2 left leaning repubs, Huntsmen..nice man…but teeters between R/L , just barely a Republican.  Romney, again nice man, but not a strong Conservative, and not sure he can beat O.  Republicans loose when they run “Dem light” candidates.  We have a platform, a beautiful platform, run on it, and live it, that is how we turn this around:  Not by capitulation, not by playing to the “vanilla ice cream crowd”. We need to stand on values and principles, rember what is engraved on the top of our Washington Monument:  Laus Deo, Praise Be To God.

  • Anonymous

    This is exactly what I’ve been saying: open primaries mean we’ve never picked our own candidate.

  • CalMark

    Easy on the Churchill worship.  Churchill was even more flawed than Gingrich. 

    The mythical “Wartime Leader” spent the most terrible months of World War II outside Britain, at summit conferences or vacationing comfortably between them.   His biographers keep that very quiet with fancy, even dishonest, sleight of hand lest truth tarnish legend.

    Your Gingrich-hate is very strange.  Gingrich has done some very stupid stuff.  But he has also done some very good stuff.  Then his own party ran him off on trumped-up charges, the “Ruling Class” on full and obscene display.

    Gingrich would be superior to Romney.  Romney can be counted on to sell out constantly, just like Bush, in the name of “bipartisanship.”  Gingrich at least delivers sometimes.

  • CalMark

    WRONG.

    Dole was utterly incompetent.  The idea that Gingrich got Clinton re-elected is Ruling Class conventional wisdom.

  • CalMark

    Your nickname says it all.

    If you think we’re doomed, pack your bags and leave the country.  We don’t need your kind of negativity here.  Keep fighting, and maybe you’ll win.

    Or was 2010 a big, fat fluke?

  • http://therepublicanmother.blogspot.com Republicanmother

    I was reflecting at the awfulness of Newt and I discovered that he was handsomely paid by the ethanol lobby, which partially explains his Pelosi global warming ad.

    What really explains Newt is that he is a globalist through and through and is totally down with the struggle to end American sovereignty, that’s what his voting records screams. (NAFTA, GATT, Federal land grabs, UN bullcrap, etc.)

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    I knew it!  Smitty’s bad to the bone!

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    That’s why I like ye.

  • Pingback: Newt Gingrich and Freddie Mac | The Lonely Conservative()

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    …and his hair was perfect…ahh ooo, Romney of Boston…

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Threaten to take away Calista’s Tiffany Card!

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    He’s in love with the sound of his own ideas.

  • Anonymous

    And your assumption that there is something sinister about my screen name says every bit as much.  That moniker comes from our original net computer…a 286 running Windows 3.1 on dialup.

    2010 was not a presidential election.  Ergo no primaries, which is what I was addressing in my post.  Did not not bother to read it before you attacked me?

  • http://profiles.google.com/rob5136 Rob Crawford

    “To support Newt is tantamount to advocating the re-election of Barack Obama.”

    To support ANY of the candidates they people have been doing is advocating the re-election of Barack Obama.

    You really think the party is going to come back together after this slash-and-burn pre-primary season?

  • http://profiles.google.com/rob5136 Rob Crawford

    “Also, I don’t think Romney is as sociopathic as Newt.”

    He’s worse. He worked with the Olympic committee.

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  • Anonymous

    Leaving oil is not just about global warming.  OIL FUNDS TERROR and our enemies in the War on Terror.  Oil crashes our economy.  And yes oil harms the environment, including in ways totally irrelevant to global warming like smog (which kills 40,000 Americans a year according to Bush’s EPA).   That’s why Bush said “we must break our addiction to oil” – if even a Texas oilman could wake the heck up, what’s you excuse for clinging to that filthy jihad juice barrel?

    There are plenty of Republicans who support ethanol and other ways of
    getting off oil, who are not doing so for mercenary reasons.  Read
    “Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free from Oil” by
    aerospace and nuclear engineer Dr. Robert Zubrin, who was written on
    this topic often for the Washington Times and National Review and at EnergyVictory dot net.  

    Ronald
    Reagan’s former National Security Advisor Adm. Bud McFarlane, Center for Security Policy head Frank Gaffney, and many other staunch conservatives back Zubrin’s basic idea of making sure cars can run on something other than jihad juice (only a $130 per new car modification for the automakers).  See OpenFuelStandard dot org

    And domestic drilling is a fairy tale.  According to the CIA we have less than 2% of world oil reserves while OPEC has more than 78%. When economic non-intervention clashes with protection our national security, national security should win.  Right?

  • Anonymous

    We promise, wel’ll end our “addiction” to oil just as soon as we finish eating these unicorn ribs…

  • Anonymous

    Romney is not “left leaning”.  He strode into the skeleton littered dragon’s cave to take on Ted Kennedy, running on a balanced budget amendment, cracking down on illegal immigration, and welfare reform (before it was enacted and while it was still hugely controversial with libs screaming about starving kids).  Yes he has become more socially conservative in his political stances since then – that’s a GOOD thing.

    Google “Reagan Truman” for a broadcast a younger Reagan did for the Dems, trashing the GOP with class warfare rhetoric.  At his least conservative Romney was never a Dem, never did class warfare.

    As governor, Reagan signed a sweeping abortion legalization and a divorce liberalization into law in CA.  Romney vetoed every bill the MA legislature sent him to expand abortion, and fought gay marriage against uphill odds.

    As for “capitulation”, when the entire political, media, business, educational, and religious establishment of his state across the spectrum was intensely pressuring him to sign in-state tuition for illegals into law, Romney vetoed it.

    Finally, the most conservative imaginable candidate CANNOT WIN.  Instead we have to pick the most conservative candidate who CAN win.   You have to be able to win the middle of the road voters.  Barry Goldwater couldn’t – didn’t even try.  Reagan could and did.

  • Anonymous

    It’s actually not that hard. Methanol (not the same as ethanol) can be made from natural gas or coal (which we have in abundance, unlike oil) or any biomass at all. It’s higher octane than gasoline and cheaper than gasoline without subsidies and even after taking mileage into account. It costs only $130 per new car at the factory for automakers to add compatibility with methanol, ethanol, and all other alcohol fuels to gasoline cars. While they have dragged their feet and played “you go first” games for 20 years rather than do that, there is a surprisingly broad-based support from right to left to require full flex fuel as a standard feature like seat belts. It just needs a push from Americans tired of economic crashes and oil-enabled terror.

    See SetAmericaFree dot org and OpenFuelStandard dot org

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