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Videos: Newt’s latest greatest hits
Hot Air ^ | 11/21/2011 | Tina Korbe

Posted on 11/21/2011 12:49:44 PM PST by TBBT

At our sister site Townhall.com, Greg Hengler has curated a series of stand-out responses from newfound frontrunner Newt Gingrich at this weekend’s Thanksgiving Family Forum, a non-debate discussion that elicited refreshingly thoughtful and unexpectedly revealing answers from all the candidates in attendance (i.e. the field minus Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman).

Of Gingrich’s answers replayed in Hengler’s videos, this is my favorite, an elegant differentiation of the general ideas of the Enlightenment and the specific (and damaging) ideas of the French Revolution:

I knew it was about to be a brilliant answer as soon as Gingrich mentioned Arthur Brooks, whose book The Battle profoundly confirms capitalism and conservatism as the optimal means to human flourishing. But when he addressed Ron Paul by his first name and proceeded to say, “I don’t think liberty means ‘libertine,’” I sat up a little straighter in my seat. This answer is full of the fruit of Gingrich’s meticulous study of history — but also of his personal conversion.

To that topic, Newt also spoke eloquently when moderator Frank Luntz asked the candidates to expound on their greatest failures:

“I had to recognize how limited I was and how much I had to depend on Him,” Gingrich said before he admitted that he would be uncomfortable with a president who didn’t believe in God. “If you said to me we were electing somebody who believed that they by themselves were strong enough to be president of the United States, I would tell you that person terrifies me because they completely misunderstand how weak and how limited any human being is.”

Gingrich clearly and keenly grasps that the presidency is a repository of resplendent power and authority, but not the source of it. At the very least, the source is “the people,” those who give their consent to be governed. At the very most, the source is Thomas Aquinas’ First Cause. That helps Gingrich to understand that anyone who seeks the power of the presidency for himself in some way disqualifies himself from possessing it. So, he seeks to just be a vessel for it.

All of this should be reassuring to anyone who wonders why the GOP field is “so weak.” It’s weak because it’s made up of imperfect and flawed human beings. Our only choices are human: What we seek in a president, then, is not a savior, but a servant. Humility has to be among our criteria — and that, at least, many of our candidates — Gingrich among them — seem to possess.


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: newt; newtgingrich
Something useful came out of that non-debate debate?
1 posted on 11/21/2011 12:49:48 PM PST by TBBT
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To: TBBT

Yeah, the realization Newt is our Bill Clinton. Don’t look at the substance of Newt, just worship his style.


2 posted on 11/21/2011 12:53:25 PM PST by MNJohnnie (Giving more money to DC to fix the Debt is like giving free drugs to addicts think it will cure them)
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To: TBBT

Newts hog slopping ego leaves no room for humility, or humanity either. A man of humility does not go to the hospital to talk about his divorce with his wife just having an operation..


3 posted on 11/21/2011 12:57:15 PM PST by org.whodat (Just another heartless American, hated by "AMNESTY" Perry and his fellow demorats.)
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To: TBBT

Cain-hater Tina Korbe now worshiping Newt. “Latest greatest” clips, while of course ignoring his not-so-old worst hits which show his ridiculous lies and hypocrisy.


4 posted on 11/21/2011 1:02:59 PM PST by montag813
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To: org.whodat
Newts hog slopping ego leaves no room for humility, or humanity either. A man of humility does not go to the hospital to talk about his divorce with his wife just having an operation.. It's unbecoming to keep peddling this falsehood. Ignorance is no excuse...
5 posted on 11/21/2011 1:03:58 PM PST by TBBT
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To: TBBT

Sorry, newt admits he went to the hospital to talk to her about the divorce and also that he refused to make support payment to her and the children. The so called lie was her on her death bed, she lived, but newt could have cared less.


6 posted on 11/21/2011 1:08:56 PM PST by org.whodat (Just another heartless American, hated by "AMNESTY" Perry and his fellow demorats.)
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To: org.whodat

http://www.creators.com/conservative/jackie-gingrich-cushman/setting-the-record-straight.html

You might read this if you seek the truth, but I doubt you do. You would rather believe the BS put out.

The real truth is that today Gingrich’s ex wife would probably be in jail.

When they married he was 18, just out of High school and she was 26 his school teacher.
As a high school student — precocious, lonely, overweight — Newt secretly romanced his geometry teacher, a buxom, matronly woman named Jackie Battley. The furtive romance with his 24-year-old teacher included nighttime sessions in the back of a car in remote areas of Fort Benning, Ga.

Once, Newt and Jackie were so worked up, they got their car caught in a tank trap on the military base and had to call his best friend to rescue them before a daylight exposé, according to the friend’s widow, Linda Tilton. Defying his stepfather, a stern Army colonel, Newt pursued Jackie, married her and promptly had two children.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/newt-gingrich-really-married-his-high-school-math-teacher/

Before you attack something you don’t know about maybe you should look it up.


7 posted on 11/21/2011 1:09:27 PM PST by Venturer
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To: TBBT
Newt is a compromiser as most Rino’s are, they think compromise is the way to get things done, you get a little of what you want I get a little of what I want and everybody is happy.

I am a compromiser too...after I have completely subdued and beaten my opponent...I will offer compromise, if you stay out of my way and out of my face, I will stop beating on you. Win Win...I will be happy and you will heal.

8 posted on 11/21/2011 1:15:44 PM PST by PoloSec ( Believe how that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again for our justification)
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To: MNJohnnie

You can NOT listen to those two clips and say there is no substance.


9 posted on 11/21/2011 1:17:37 PM PST by Reagan69 (I supported Sarah Palin and all I got was a lousy DVD !)
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To: Venturer
Duh, that has no one thing to do with anything, the sixties were a different time and place. He. Married her, he knocked he up so he could avoid the draft and he got a free education off her back, and her working is where he got his money to run for office, since the so called history teacher, he was not a professor, was only part time. And he had the poor woman thousands of dollars in debt. You could say it was newt using a gullible older lady, actually that was what it was. He wasted no time trading her off when he won office.
10 posted on 11/21/2011 1:19:34 PM PST by org.whodat (Just another heartless American, hated by "AMNESTY" Perry and his fellow demorats.)
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To: org.whodat

LMAO!


11 posted on 11/21/2011 1:22:19 PM PST by SgtHooper (The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.)
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To: TBBT

News flash................there aint no Jesus candidate so we will have to take it down a notch!


12 posted on 11/21/2011 1:24:52 PM PST by ronnie raygun (V)
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To: org.whodat

How’s the weather up there on your high horse?


13 posted on 11/21/2011 1:29:03 PM PST by RockinRight (The circular firing squad among conservatives has Romney smiling.)
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To: org.whodat

Hahaha...It doesn’t take long does it? Everytime someone posts an excellent one on Newt, that is profound and clearly defines an issue, we have someone like yourself who throws something totally mischaracterized out of left field to dump on the man.

Newt has taken hits. Clinton took hits. So did Nixon and others who in my mind can lead.

I think the more thrown at Newt the more he will respond in a way where we will learn from him.

I learned nothing from the man in office now. Nothing from Bush either for that matter other than he was good and descent man who protected us, but he didn’t know how to deal with the left.

We need someone strong, who has been there and done it. Newt is not perfect, but he is the most perfect for our country now.


14 posted on 11/21/2011 1:39:01 PM PST by nikos1121 (Stand up is hard if you're not funny.)
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To: PoloSec

Go back and look at your history. He got the entire Contract With America through and didn’t compromise with anybody. The problem was that after that, the Dems had their knives out for him and the GOP head honchos simply didn’t support him. They could hardly wait to get him out the door on trumped up insinuations, not even charges (about a class he taught and a book he wrote). He was then replaced by some truly worthless RINOs.

Gingrich doesn’t bluster, doesn’t alienate unnecessarily - but he does have a plan and he does get his way (until the RINOs attack).


15 posted on 11/21/2011 1:45:23 PM PST by livius
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To: org.whodat

I suppose if you have your mind made up to hate Newt that is one way of putting it. LMAO

No sense in beating a dead horse.


16 posted on 11/21/2011 1:46:28 PM PST by Venturer
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To: TBBT

Newt is entertaining. The debates are more interesting with his remarks.


17 posted on 11/21/2011 2:53:08 PM PST by FreedBird
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To: livius
“Go back and look at your history”

The contract with America was not the be all and end all of Newt.

Go back and look at Newts history, you will find that for Newt the contract with America was the exception not the rule.

Don't be fooled by good words and fair speeches my friend.

18 posted on 11/21/2011 3:09:32 PM PST by PoloSec ( Believe how that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again for our justification)
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To: TBBT
Both videos were interesting and informative. Thanks for posting.

However, I still have some major reservations about Gingrich. I watched the L-D style debate between Cain and Gingrich and am severely troubled by one of his responses during that discussion. He was talking about social security, and what troubled me about his response, is that he was taking the party line that there is some kind of account full of cash that is contained in the social security 'trust fund'. He didn't put it in exactly those words, but that's what is response boiled down to. He flatly refused to admit that the social security trust fund contains nothing more or less than the sweat of our children and grandchildren. The absolute lie that this 'trust fund' contains something more than the ability of the government to continue to increase the level of taxation levied on our posterity is reprehensible in my not so humble opinion. It illustrates to me that he isn't up to the challenge that we are faced with, and that is disappointing because there are many things I like about Newt. I'm finding it difficult though, to overcome his obvious fundamental difference in worldview from mine.

19 posted on 11/21/2011 4:00:43 PM PST by zeugma (Those of us who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.)
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To: nikos1121

Free Republic is essentially a parody in this particular window...i pray it changes back to normalcy

A cadre of a few ...some of whom were very ugly on behalf of Palin are now very angry Cain and Perry have collapsed

And are basically having a temper tantrum in a vacuum of irrelevance


20 posted on 11/21/2011 11:43:22 PM PST by wardaddy (Ethnonationalist...I'll cop to that....Suicide of a Superpower...I've decided for Newt)
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