Posted on 04/17/2007 5:40:35 AM PDT by shortstop
Forget Newt Gingrich.
Before you can be a good president, you have to be a good man, and Newt Gingrich is not that. In fact, Newt Gingrich is a snake, a man without honor or ability.
And that’s hard for me to say.
For years, I was a big Newt supporter. I had a copy of the Contract With America and a picture of all the folks pledging themselves to it on the steps of the Capitol. The Republican Revolution of 1994 was a great thing.
But at the end of the day, you’ve got to do more than just agree with my philosophy, you have to be a worthy and worthwhile person. And experience has shown that Newt Gingrich, while a brilliant conservative, was fundamentally lacking in the traits necessary to be a political or moral leader.
Let’s start with his girlfriend.
While Bill Clinton was doing the Texas two-step trying to avoid responsibility for playing the flugelhorn with Harmonica Lewinsky, Newt Gingrich was raking him over the coals for having semi-sex with a subordinate. Newt told us over and over again just how morally bankrupt Clinton was.
With Newt it wasn’t just the lying under oath, it was the almost doing of the deed. He vigorously condemned Clinton for the sex.
Which is interesting, because at the exact same time Newt was boffing his own subordinate. Only it wasn’t part way and it wasn’t just once or twice. It was ongoing for months and months, running into years. While she was on the government payroll under him.
Which makes Newt Gingrich the biggest kind of hypocrite. Now, none of us is sin free, and during that episode most of us tried to focus on the lying under oath and leave the sex alone, but Newt was all about the sex – even though he was doing the same thing only 10 times worse.
That’s strike one.
Strike two was Newt’s inability to run the Republican caucus when he was Speaker of the House. Though he was good at articulating a philosophy and enthusing supporters, when push came to shove he didn’t know how to manage the couple hundred Republicans who made him speaker. He really muffed it, and you’ve got to figure that a guy who can’t keep 200 people happy is not going to do well running the administration, much less the free world.
So poorly did he lead the caucus that unrest began almost immediately. New members believed that he blew them off, older members exploited his idiosyncrasies in a back-stabbing effort to curry favor with him and increase their personal power.
Chief among his idiosyncrasies was his arrogance and its twin brother – his insecurity. When he ran the House it was Newt’s way or the highway, and that was very galling to the Republican congressmen whose votes gave Newt his position. Most noteworthy about Newt’s temperament and ability as a leader is the fact that almost all of those who served under him detest him.
And ticking people off is not a good trait for a president.
Neither is disloyalty.
And that’s strike three. Specifically, one spectacular act of disloyalty.
Remember this name: Bill Paxon. Bill Paxon was my congressman. He was the nuts-and-bolts guy behind the Republican Revolution. While Newt gave talks, Bill Paxon ran the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and funded and directed the various elections around the country that gave the Republicans the House majority.
Bill Paxon was a golden boy. Only he was for real. He was an honest, decent, moral man. A Boy Scout type who did things because they were right and he believed in them. Also, he was young and dynamic and it wasn’t a stretch to see him as speaker himself one day and, in a couple of decades, president of the United States. He was a noble and patriotic man.
And Newt gutted him.
See, upset with Newt’s incompetence as a leader was so great that young Republican House members decided to have a coup. They decided to kick him out of leadership. Among them were J.C. Watts and Steve Largent who, in addition to being former football players, were some of the brightest young lights in the House. But they couldn’t stand Newt and what they saw as his unreliability, so they wanted his scalp.
And Bill Paxon tried to calm them down. Going to a meeting of disgruntled Republicans, Bill Paxon tried to soothe them and encouraged an outreach to Newt Gingrich that would leave him in power but make him aware of the discontent among his colleagues. Bill Paxon, as a member of Newt Gingrich’s leadership team, worked hard to support Newt Gingrich.
And it might have worked.
Except that while Paxon was being a good scout, one of the climbers who knew how to manipulate Newt – aptly named Dick Armey – whispered to Newt that Paxon was a turncoat. Even though just the opposite was true, Armey was able to trigger Newt’s jealousy and turn it to his own benefit. With a little coaxing from Armey, Newt was livid at Paxon.
It was completely unjustified, and showed a fundamental ignorance as well as limitations of character and capability. But Newt was certain the lie he had been told was true, and he savagely waylaid Bill Paxon, making vile accusations against him.
By the end of the meeting Paxon was out of the leadership and by the end of the week he was on his way out of the Congress. He was essentially destroyed by Newt Gingrich. The irony of that is that Bill Paxon is a far better and more capable man than Newt Gingrich. It was a clear example of the smaller man destroying the nobler man out of cattiness and jealousy.
And I don’t want that kind of person as my president.
Certainly, there are no conservatives vying for the Republican nomination. Certainly, Newt is a great scholar of how this country should be. Certainly, a man with Newt’s intellect would make a great president.
But not a man with Newt’s character.
So early in this campaign, as some are in and some are toying with the idea of announcing, let’s throw one out.
Newt’s day is done. He asked for the House and we gave it to him. And though his philosophical strength was and is admirable, his moral strength is lacking and unsatisfactory.
Maybe Fred Thompson will get into the race. Or maybe we conservatives will just have to sit this one out.
But I’m not voting for Newt Gingrich.
He’s not man enough for the job.
PRO ABORTION...NO
PRO HOMOSEXUAL...NO
PRO CUT AND RUN...HELL NO!
First, we ignore all the fake conservatives...
Upstate New York. He's married to Susan Molinari, who was the representative from Staten Island after her dad, Guy, had it. Although Susan is a pro-abort, both are better than most of the people we have in Congress now. Paxon would be a great person for teh NY Republicans to run for Governor or Senator, but he is too conservative for the Rockefeller Republican Establishment and besides, I think both of them burned out on public office.
Nix to Newt the fakeroot.
I have continued to believe that Newt’s best contribution to the party remains as a political strategist.
He would make a good national campaign manager for someone.
p> People keep saying this, but my recollection is very different. I recall Newt tepidly mentioning it on a few occasions, and then doing everything he could to avoid it. Yet this was all Republicans wanted to hear about. Thus they did not turn out to vote, Republicans lost, and Newt quit before he could be unseated as Speaker.
It’s not about divorce. It’s about adultery and hypocracy.
Said the beautiful Magda Lupescu,
As she came to Roumania’s rescue,
“It’s a wonderful thing
To live under a King—
Is democracy better, I esk you?”— Anonymous.
I remember his name well. Susan Molinari was MY congresswoman and the scandal surrounding his disloyalty to her destroyed her career too. As I recall, he turned out to be gay and he left her with two children to raise on her own. If Newt helped get rid of Mr. Paxon, I say "Way to go, Newt>"
I like listening to Bob...will read later.
Lonsberry is playing fast and loose with facts. Paxon had other issues that literally drove him out of office. I don’t want to be the one to spread rumors, so I’m not going to repeat them. Plus, Paxon was my congressman and I adored him and his adorable wife, Susan Molinari. I miss them both and wish that they had both stayed in public office.
But, Lonsberry is way off on the reasons why Paxon has retreated into the background. Maybe Lonsberry doesn’t know or maybe he’s just doing what he frequently does - shooting from the lip with blank ammunition. I’m no big fan of Lonsberry. He’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. And in this case, he’s unfairly smearing Newt.
So, are Susan Molinari and Bill Paxon still married or not?
I don’t know how accurate this is, but I do know that Newt started going back on his promises toward the end of his time in congress. He did a great job getting the Republicans into power, and they did some great work in the early days, but it was downhill from there. I was thoroughly disillusioned with him by the end, and that disillusionment was completely apart from his marital problems. Clinton hammered him and he caved in, to put it briefly.
“I remember his name well. Susan Molinari was MY congresswoman and the scandal surrounding his disloyalty to her destroyed her career too. As I recall, he turned out to be gay and he left her with two children to raise on her own. “
Try Googling Molinari, Paxon, divorce, gay and a few other words. What you will find is that the only mention of Paxon being gay are from left wing whacko gay blogs. The only mention of divorce is that Molinari was divorced once before. Looks like they are still married and have two kids. Other than the whackos, do you have info to the contrary, or are you spreading hearsay?
Personally, I avoid the DU when looking for reliable information.
No, that was his first wife. He then married his mistress, and dumped HER after she got MS by calling her at her mother’s 84th birthday party.
Accrding to Wikipedia they are. Not the best source in the world, but it’s something.
Divorce isn't the issue. Infidelity is. How importantly someone considers oaths is pretty damn important in choosing a president.
Reagan divorced Jane Wyman in 1948 and met Nancy Davis in 1951. Ron and Nancy remained married, and by all accounts very much in love, for a half-century.
Newt, on the other hand, had wife #2 lined up long before he left #1, and #3 lined up long before he left #2. Callista would be well-advised to remember the words of Oscar Wilde: "When a man marries his mistress, he creates a vacancy,"
Divorce isn't much of an issue any more. Folks sometimes marry too young and hastily, so I'm inclined -- as I believe most Americans are --to let them take a Mulligan on a first marriage. But a pattern of hopping from one bed to another raises serious questions of character, and that's one issue Newt (and Rudy Giuliani) won't shake easily.
Fine, you specified “the right way”. I hope it made you feel better.
I'm sure it was fully intentional. With phrases like "playing the flugelhorn with Harmonica Lewinsky" and "the aptly-named Dick Armey," it's clear that Lonsberry likes his zingers, and there's no way that one snuck in by accident.
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