Which ones are the “bad quotes”? They all seem reasonable to me.
Ditto.
I don’t know. I believe the argument has moved from “the quotes are false” to “the quotes are fine, and they don’t say anything like what the story claims”.
I would disagree with both arguments, although I’m willing to be persuaded that the 2nd is true. I do believe that if he wanted to say the House should “stand firm”, Newt knows how to use those words, or other words like it, and his actual quote doesn’t sound ANYTHING like it. He could have used the word “but” if he wanted to “President’s are powerful, BUT the House should do that right thing.”
Using the word “And” suggests that the following clause is a response to the predicate; the predicate being the president has the upper hand, so the response being don’t fight this fight now.
If nothing else, Gingrich worded his response in a way that invited misinterpretation, as can be seen from the 4 or 5 articles that came out that all suggested he was telling them to give in.
Later articles based on his e-mail suggest otherwise — good for Gingrich to act quickly, although I am not convinced he is “clarifying” rather than “backtracking”.