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Impeaching Gingrich, Right and Left
Thinking about Newt is exhausting—-all those policy reversals, all that profiteering from disguised lobbying, all that adultery while impeaching Clinton, all those crackpot gimmicks posing as intellect. Yet, there are many hands on both sides of the political spectrum to do the heavy lifting of deconstructing him.
Maureen Dowd takes a whack at it: “His mind is a jumble, an amateurish mess lacking impulse control. He plays air guitar with ideas, producing air ideas. He ejaculates concepts, notions and theories that are as inconsistent as his behavior.
“He didn’t get whiplash being a serial adulterer while impeaching another serial adulterer, a lobbyist for Freddie Mac while attacking Freddie Mac, a self-professed fiscal conservative with a whopping Tiffany’s credit line, and an anti-Communist Army brat who supported the Vietnam War but dodged it.”
From the other side, GOP Sen. Tom Coburn weighs in: “I am not inclined to be a supporter of Newt Gingrich’s having served under him for four years and experienced his leadership. Because I found it lacking often times…
“There’s all kind of leaders that have one standard for the people that they are leading and a different standard for themselves. I will have difficulty supporting him for president of the United States.”
Conservative columnist George Will hits harder, noting that Newt “embodies the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive. And there is his anti-conservative confidence that he has a comprehensive explanation of, and plan to perfect, everything…
“There is almost artistic vulgarity in Gingrich’s unrepented role as a hired larynx for interests profiting from such government follies as ethanol and cheap mortgages. His Olympian sense of exemption from standards and logic allowed him, fresh from pocketing $1.6 million from Freddie Mac (for services as a ‘historian’), to say, ‘If you want to put people in jail,’ look at ‘the politicians who profited from’ Washington’s environment.”
From the center, Times columnist Frank Bruni notes that “Romney seems newly shaken, Newt-ly spooked. It must be wearing on him to stand as long as he has with his chest thrust out, waiting for his corsage while the electorate casts around for some better date to the prom…”
10 Responses to “Impeaching Gingrich, Right and Left”
Newt Gingrich is wholly unworthy of the office of the President. That is what you all are saying, but is Newt basterd enough to make the “hard” choices Tea Partiers believe needs to be made to save America…is what others are apparently saying.
It’s so easy to turn away from those whom will pay the ultimate price for daring to be the lowest among the richest people in the world. We must become, say these whom love Newt, a nation of the rich half, and, the starving half, with little in between. They say this because they BELIEVE there is no other choice to make without sacrificing of themselves even in a small taxable way.
Who are these people? Where are they? They cannot be the people I talk to everyday. Nobody I know would dare say such utterances in public.
Tom for president………………..
I tried to learn more about Tom Coburn. In some respects, a seriously amazing guy with a lot of experience and tenacity. He doesn’t mince words or ideas, many I agree with.
There is one (among a few) important reason I can’t support him: “The Family.” I think it’s what’s fundamentally wrong in the mix of politics and evangelical power-play, and does immeasurable damage to our system of democracy. It’s unchecked power within a democratically elected government, and I would support any and all efforts to rid our government of religious power in all it’s manifestations.
JeffP-
Oh I disagree. The Family is paramount above all things human. All other social concerns must remain submissive and subordinate in priority, either self-imposed or government enforced. Without such overwhelming priority for the family, the human race quickly dies.
Allen, I don’t think that Jeff was referring to the family in its broad sense but rather “The Family”, the Christian lobbying group that runs a boarding house for conservative Congressmen and Senators, at much reduced rents.
I am an atheist, so religion to me is less relevant. Tom speaks straight and I’d like to see more of that. That being said, when you are a candidate, you get twisted into a pretzel and have to do too much pandering. The trick is to get elected and then do what you want. (See Obama and every other president, probably.)
All of this flip flopping is just the candidates attempting to realign themselves with the latest conservative orthodoxy, which, I presume is the current Tea Party one.
Isn’t this pretty much the essence of Representative Democracy, the politicians bending to the will of the electorate?
The Republican party has become so narrow in view and moving so far right so fast that any politician who has been around for more than a few years is going to be caught out on some part of it and will have to flip flop. The exception is only the newcomers, the Trumps and Cains.
This is only a problem for the Republicans if this latest orthodoxy is too far right for the general election’s electorate or if it proves to be unworkable as policies for actually governing. Say if it produces huge deficits or the largest recession since the Great Depression like the last conservative orthodoxy did.
@ Allen–
These people are our neighbors, friends, relatives and co-workers– the ones who may not admit to supporting him, may not want to support him, but who in the end WILL support him against Obama– because they believe he will leave the Bush tax cuts in place.
Clarifications-
Allen believes that of course the Bush tax cuts must be, in essence, repealed. Herman Cain’s ideas were fun but folly. Newt Gingrich is an SOB and must be made to realize his own inferiority. That Honor is superior to Business of any kind. That race can never be a consideration for conservative or liberal support or denial of any support. That sex is irrelevant in politics as well as life. That religion is used by some to justify their greed for power politically, but not by all religious people by a long shot, not even most.
Allen is an humanitarian who’s very educated hero still abides in the darkest regions of Africa where he found him more than two decades ago risking all to save the simplest of people, and, that, it is that person whom should be our president, but Allen understands that improbability. However Allen has continuously looked for that golden leader but realizes that, more than ever after his Osawatomie speech today, that leader is Barrack Hussein Obama.
I have never been more proud of you Mr. President or of ANY President! Your leadership is inspiring beyond bounds.
@Merkin Have you considered what would happen if:
1) The EPA was abolished
2) The FDA was abolished or emasculated
3) The SEC was actually made LESS effective (if this is even possible)
4) The United States allowed all countries to use mercantilism against us
5) Habius Corpus and right to trial by jury get officially obliterated
6) All safety standards on products were repealed
7) All dumping regulations were repealed/ignored
8 ) The Post Office (created by the First Continental Congress and specifically chartered by the Constitution) were obliterated
9) Government supported student loans were eliminated
10) Public schools were eliminated
11) People were left to die either in the streets or on hospital gurneys because they could not provide proof of insurance
12) Abortion was abolished without the consent of most of the women
13) Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and other ‘entitlements’ were eliminated or unfunded
14) Water purity standards were eliminated
15) Department of Commerce was eliminated (thus allowing all sorts of nefarious activities to go on undetected)
16) The internet and airwaves were censored by unknown people to ensure ‘decency’ (at the censors’ definition, of course)
The list goes on. The above appear to be significant parts of the GOP platform. Do these things appear to be a little too far to the right? Do they ‘appear’ workable?
Note: I may support some things above, but certainly not all of them…