Posted on 01/05/2013 6:36:51 AM PST by Kaslin
This time I should’ve been the one listening.
But listening can be tough sometimes when you’re an analyst and a commentator, and people around the country – listeners, readers, media, candidates, causes, businesses, etc. – come to you to find out why things are happening and what may happen next. Analysis and commentary is one of the few things in life I’m really good at. My car expertise begins and ends with changing a tire. Any toy that comes with the phrase “some assembly required” my kids immediately take to my wife. And when that much-anticipated Zombie apocalypse finally happens I’m going to have to heavily rely upon my gun-toting “doomsday prepper” friends to survive.
But analysis and commentary I can do. It’s how I provide for my family, and since it puts food on my kids’ table regularly somebody must think I’m pretty decent at it. Yet this time I swung and missed.
I am 39-years old so a little young for the Reagan era. I wasn’t legally able to obtain a driver’s license yet when Reagan left office. Like many my age, my conservatism was actually honed by listening to Rush Limbaugh and cheering on Newt Gingrich and the Republican Revolution of 1994. In my era, Gingrich is a transformative figure. He’s still the only man alive to win a national election on conservative principles. He played a part in establishing much of the conservative infrastructure we take for granted nowadays. There are only two authors I ever sought autographed books from: Bo Schembechler and Gingrich.
Yet despite my fan boy crush, I am well aware of his peccadilloes. He’s on his third marriage. He lost the Speaker’s gavel because of a caucus revolt against his leadership. He inexcusably backed Dede Scozzafava. He rightly stood up against the TARP, and then reversed course and backed what I believe may be the most criminal legislation in American history. These are just some of the reasons why several people close to me told me I was making a mistake when I endorsed him for president during the 2012 primary.
Yet I pointed to the fact he is one of the few national figures in the GOP that has the wit and knowledge to effectively communicate what we believe in today’s short-attention-span-society, which I believe is very important to our movement going forward. He was the only candidate last year that was really speaking to what I believe is the biggest threat to liberty and morality in America—judicial supremacy (which is really the judicial oligarchy Jefferson warned us about). And I was also impressed with the way Gingrich was willing to speak openly about his past moral transgressions, including one very blunt joint appearance on my radio show with Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association. As a Christian I’m a sucker for a good redemption story.
However, there’s a reason I have often compared Gingrich to King David in the Bible, beyond the marriage infidelity both have in common. Both were also extraordinarily God-gifted leaders whose legacies were tarnished by their slack of self-discipline. Both were often at their best when pursuing power and at their worse once they obtained it.
While on vacation I was reminded of that comparison when I saw Gingrich say that Republicans should accept the destruction of marriage as “inevitable.” As a historian Gingrich should know better. He should know that marriage and free market economics are the essential societal bedrock components of western civilization, without which liberty isn’t possible. I know firsthand he should know that, because he has communicated right to my face that he does.
In a letter to The Family Leader just 13 months ago, Gingrich said:
“As president I will vigorously enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. I will aggressively defend the constitutionality of DOMA in state and federal courts. I will support a federal constitutional amendment (defending marriage). I will oppose any judicial, bureaucratic, or legislative effort to redefine marriage.”
So which is it, Newt? Do you want to defend marriage or not? Those words do not read like someone who thought destroying marriage was “inevitable?” Did you mean them?
For the past week Gingrich has been rightly urging conservatives to fight the fiscal cliff tax increase. Maybe Gingrich should be urging us to surrender instead, being that our slide towards bankrupt statism seems “inevitable” after all. As a father with three small children at home, I’m looking for leaders who will fight to stop our “inevitable” destruction as a free republic, not come to grips with it. Especially on an issue like marriage, that is 31-4 (89%) at the ballot box.
Gingrich was arguably the most gifted political figure of his era. He could’ve been an American Churchill. Check that, he should have been. Despite all that he has accomplished (which I’m thankful for) his legacy still includes a waste of potential. He could’ve led us out of the wilderness. Instead we’re still circling the mountain (or the drain).
Several of you warned me about this, which is why despite his obvious gifts Gingrich failed not once but twice to coalesce conservatives when he was the presidential frontrunner. Some of you were once bitten and twice shy. Now I get it.
I still have a soft spot for Newt, and he’s still one of the few politicians I’ve met whose intellect I actually respect. But that’s not enough to believe he should hold the highest office of this land. If someone won’t defend marriage, the oldest institution in God’s created order, then what can you count on them to defend when it’s hard?
Those of you that warned me were right. I was wrong. This time I should’ve listened to your analysis.
For the record, Noot never balanced the budget. The Clinton lies about balancing the budget are just as untrue as when Noot tells them.
“He could’ve been an American Churchill.”
To utter “Churchill” and “Gingrich” in the same article makes this a ridiculous article, with the quoted line being the utmost in hilarity.
LLS
Newt ping. He was the best of times and the worst of times .....
Newt just didn’t finish the sentence, that gay marriage IS assuredly inevitable, if Democrats get their way and if Republicans can’t win elections.
But, yes, Newt does have a half dozen or so, bloopers in his career.
An astounding number, in a man of consequence and controversy. /s
Can someone explain to me why Churchill goes to war when the Nazis invade Poland but acquiesces to the Stalinist takeover of Poland in 1945? Is the explanation related to Churchill’s being defeated as prime minister in 1945? Socialists made their biggest gains in England against Churchill that year.
Deace admits he was wrong this one time? Gee, thanks, Steve. I'll forget all about the other times you helped screw things up. Now get lost... and take Newt with you while you're at it.
That shows just how putrid the republican bench was in this past election.
Nobody - and I mean NOBODY - who was on said bench in 2012 should even be allowed anywhere near it in 2016. I extend the same warning with regard to the con/neocon/paleocon punditry who made the modern CIA look like absolute clairvoyants by comparison.
(Keep Dick Morris... but do the exact opposite of what he recommends. Works great.)
Mr. niteowl77
I remember Newt proposing the elimination of the PBS. Not in 2012, but back in the 90’s. He was right, then, and now, about a great many things. I think that he is virtually alone in Federal politics in understanding the intended function of the Federal Government, and completely alone in having even the tiniest interest in seeing that it function as intended.
You can say “He’s a show-boater!” or whatever. I think he has little else to do, now.
In 1994, I think he was a real revolutionary. You can believe what you want, but I think he intended to keep the Contract with America. He was in over his head, however, and undone in the end by the likes of Boner (sp) in Congress who were only interested in the power.
Oh, and you can spare me the re-telling of his marital problems (as if they are unknown). I think it is completely appropriate to judge a person for their personal failings, and I count his against him. I just think he was the only person at the time (1994 / 2012) with even some of the right ideas to solve America’s most pressing problems, and that outweighs his marital failings with me.
Yea, he has his warts but his strengths outweigh them, especially against the other Pubbies. Just imagine if we had Newt as Speaker of the House right now.
Churchill was not PM when GB went to war to honor their pact with Poland.
At the conferences for conclusion the US was influenced by Communists like Hiss and the Brits had much less influence.
In 1945 Churchill/Atlee did not have a vote. Britain was broke and in the process of turning free her colonies. FDR made the decision to hold Patten west of Berlin, thus allowing the Soviets their fill of rape and pillage.
Roosevelt absolutely did not want to fight another war. Truman inherited this position and didn’t have the nerve or weight within the Democratic party to do anything other.
FDR gave us the post-war world. Unless you were in Eastern Europe, in the long run it worked out.
Newt is an attention ho. Period. He was on Morning Joe last week, yukking it up with all the libs on the show and generally agreeing with everything they said. Newt is out for Newt. He is Clinton lite. Finger in the wind.
In 20/20 hindsight, I think he would have fared far worse than Romney, as would have the entire conservative bench.
*Dons flame proof underwear*
Who did accomplish stuff.
A lot of stuff, as many Freepers already know.
Here's just one that's not talked about much: He was the chief figure who killed the 90's version of ObamaCare, HillaryCare. Here's Gingrich & his allies on the House floor in 1994, demolishing the Dems on this subject: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/55279-1
For some reason my link didn’t link. Let me try again:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/55279-1
Don’t leave Karl Rove out!!! He was every bit as accurate as Dick Morris!!
that’s not enough to believe he should hold the highest office of this land. If someone won’t defend marriage, the oldest institution in God’s created order, then what can you count on them to defend when it’s hard?
___________________________________________________
Is this about Willard ???
Willard the father of gay marriage in MASS...
Willard the guy who was silent about the gays attacking Chik-Fil-A and refused to participate in the Chick-Fil-A Day...
Willard the guy who pushed for gays in the military...
Willard the guy who employeed a gay to head up part of his 2012 campaign for POTUS
and then fired him when Conservatives objected he found it might not be as politically expediant as he first thought...
Sigh. We will never know. While I agree that if Newt wasn't able to best Romney in the primary, his odds in the general were long. However, I tend to think his bold, passionate, unashamed and articulate defense of conservatism would have won the day and made 0bama crazy. He certainly would have brought all of the important issues out and challenged 0bama on all of them with force, unlike Mitty who played rope-a-dope after the first debate, thinking, and being advised, that was a good strategy. Meh.
I don’t think Newt would have fared worse, but it would have been totally different. In the very least, it would have been a knock down drag out ideological and philosophical campaign, because it was the “good Newt” that was campaigning (at least until the Florida debates) and it would have been the “good Newt” that got the nomination.
Of course, he’s back to the “bad Newt” now at times. That’s Newt.
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