Posted on 11/13/2011 6:54:05 PM PST by fightinJAG
[snip]Gingrich is perhaps best-known for his foibles, including his spectacular fall from power in the late 1990s. ... Gingrich also holds some views that do not fit the conservative mold. He has partnered with Hillary Clinton to advocate health-care IT legislation, with Al Sharpton and Arne Duncan to promote President Barack Obama's education reforms, and with Nancy Pelosi in an ad stressing the importance of taking action on climate change.
Gingrich angered Republicans by criticizing Paul Ryan's plan to reform Medicare, prompting the American Conservative to accuse him of never really having been a conservative in the first place. [snip]
A self-described "ideas man," Gingrich is the author of 23 books....His earlier books are filled with rapid-fire streams of ideas for bettering society, often without details about how to implement them.
"Gingrich's vagueness was always a problem," wrote Ferguson. "But the books show something more: a near-total lack of interest in the political implementation of his grand ideas—a lack of interest, finally, in politics at its most mundane and consequential level."[snip]
Gingrich is also known for having had a six-year affair with his now-wife, then-House staffer Callista Bisek, while he was married to his second wife, Marianne Ginther. Esquire has an interesting profile of Gingrich based on interviews with his second wife. Ginther describes how Gingrich told her about the affair right after giving speeches about family values, and says that he initially asked her if she could just tolerate the affair.
Gingrich also runs the Center for Health Transformation, a for-profit group whose members are health insurers and drug companies. According to the Wall Street Journal, the companies pay big membership fees, and "in return, they get access to Mr. Gingrich, interaction with other group members, and marketing and research support."
(Excerpt) Read more at alaska-native-news.com ...
You are the people who formed the firing squad. Don't pout now that people are shooting back
Uh huh.
He basically said the individual mandate was okay. That was not what puzzled me; I "know" Gingrich could come up with some college professor reasoning to get there on the mandate.
What puzzled me was how in Hell's Bells did Gingrich miss the fact that the American people, in particular all conservatives, absolutely hated Obamacare and especially the individual mandate?
As I posted upthread, the whole set-up of the Center for Health Transformation sounds a little fishy from what the WSJ says. Newt has name-dropped this organization he started several times in the debates. I assumed it was a think tank on health care reform. But with insurers, etc. paying big membership fees . . . well, it starts to look like something else.
Interesting that which ever Republican candidate rises to the top or close to it the smear machines go into high gear. During the off-season the target of the smear machine was Sarah Palin.
I don’t see anything to be skeptical about here, as far as the media stories go. (And, btw, this one was written well before Gingrich was anything but deaderthanadoornail.)
No one is going to write stories about a candidate who is not popular or not in the hunt. Mainly because it’s an indication that no one will read them.
And I don’t see this as the media telling you how bad Newt it. His record is what it is. It’s up to each person to evaluate if he thinks his record, personal and professional, is bad or not. But a person can’t do that if he won’t read what is being said about the candidate’s record.
Yes, it is what it is.
As you said, what would be really helpful is for people to focus on the substantive points of the article.
If the author claims Newt’s record in one way and there’s information that that is not correct, then by all means get the truth out there.
If Newt’s record is stated accurately, but there are different ways to view whether or not a particular thing he did or has supported, then by all means get those analyses out there for discussion.
To simply claim that a particular candidate cannot be scrutinized is absurd.
What's your thinking on this point?
How cowardly.
It makes sense. No one is going to write stories about a candidate that has no chance or that no one is interested in.
That said, this story was written in mid-September and Newt was still a dead man walking then.
The article states that Newt partnered with "Al Sharpton and Arne Duncan to promote President Barack Obama's education reforms."
What are your thoughts on that and how it will play to (1) the conservative base and (2) in the general election?
uh huh.
What's your take on this?
Why, thank you.
Instead of engaging in that schtick, how about answering the legitimate questions I posed to you? I’m sincerely interested in your answers.
Potential VP or cabinet member as he is excellent speaker who can defend policies of a conservative president.
We need good and inspirational speakers. We must win media war, too.
Paul Ryan’s plan had a mandate in it. Newt was against any mandate, even one from the right and that is what he addressed. Voting for Newt, sending money to Newt, working for Newt.
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