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NEWT NOT WORTHY OF THE PRESIDENCY
boblonsberry.com ^ | 04/17/07 | bob Lonsberry

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.


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: elections; gingrich; lonsberry
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To: shortstop
Lonsberry: 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.

Me too.

I still looked at him favorably until his recent global hotting flirtation with sKerry. That was it for me.
61 posted on 04/17/2007 9:00:29 AM PDT by George W. Bush
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To: exit82

I still am boiling over Newt’s defending Jefferson’s right to privacy and slapping the FBI in face regarding going into Jefferson’s freezer during the Louisiana fiasco.

They had a warrant and Jefferson is a scumbag, IMHO.

Makes me wonder what Newt is trying to hide in his own freezer!

Newt is not Presidential material. He the GOP’s version of John Kerry.


62 posted on 04/17/2007 9:01:46 AM PDT by not2worry ( What goes around comes around!)
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To: shortstop
There's lots of things Newt can do:

- Write books
- Radio / TV Show
- RNC Strategist

What he shouldn't be allowed to do is have direct access to the handles of power. Character matters, and in that department, just like the Xlinton's, he is sorely lacking.
63 posted on 04/17/2007 9:07:20 AM PDT by indthkr
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To: Midtowngirl
I thought Paxon resigned because he was outed as being gay. He was married to Congresswoman Susan Molinari at the time and they subsequently divorced.

Cite?

Paxon and Molinari were still married when they left Congress, and as far as I can tell, they still are. There were rumors that Paxon was gay, and involved in a relationship with Sandy Hume, so he had to have him killed and make it look like a suicide. It's that kind of rumor.

64 posted on 04/17/2007 9:11:09 AM PDT by ReignOfError (`)
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To: rhombus
Fine, you specified “the right way”. I hope it made you feel better.

If you believe that a) screwing around on your wife for years and then summarily dumping her vs. b) realizing that things aren't working out and making a split is just a matter of getting divorced "the right way" or "the wrong way" -- if you believe that they're morally equivalent -- then I can't help you.

65 posted on 04/17/2007 9:17:05 AM PDT by ReignOfError (`)
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To: not2worry
I still am boiling over Newt’s defending Jefferson’s right to privacy and slapping the FBI in face regarding going into Jefferson’s freezer during the Louisiana fiasco.

When did Newt slap the FBI in the face for going into Jefferson's freezer? It's not a loaded question -- I just didn't see it. What I have seen is Newt objecting to the search of his Congressional office.

66 posted on 04/17/2007 9:19:30 AM PDT by ReignOfError (`)
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To: ReignOfError

Um... what I believe is that both Newt and Reagan served their country well. And, by the way, I didn’t ask for your help thank you very much.


67 posted on 04/17/2007 9:23:53 AM PDT by rhombus
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To: Politicalmom

Wow, it’s even worse than I recall. Thanks for the facts.


68 posted on 04/17/2007 6:48:23 PM PDT by exit82 (2008 Dem Campaign Slogan: "Vote Democrat-Hate America First!")
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To: not2worry

The GOP’s version of John Kerry.

Has a nice ring to it.


69 posted on 04/17/2007 6:49:37 PM PDT by exit82 (2008 Dem Campaign Slogan: "Vote Democrat-Hate America First!")
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To: ken5050

Ok lets get the 5% wrong part out of the way. Both Newt and Kerry agreed that the current warming goes back 400 years. It only goes back about 200. Current reseach shows that there was a cooling period or mini ice age from the early 1400’s to the early 1800’s. Up until about 1810 the Thames River in England froze over sufficiently for London to have fairs on the river annually. After about 1810 those fairs ended. The ice was not solid enough to support the people.

Both Kerry and Newt agreed that carbon dioxide has gone up since the first industrial revolution which began in the 1830’s. Both seemed to suggest that man burning coal oil & wood was the principle reason for the upsurge. Scientists are saying these days that since Mars is currently warming its more likely that the reason the earth is warming has more to do with the suns radience.

More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is an effect rather than a cause.

Still the earth is warming on average and carbon dioxide may be one the reasons for the warming.

So why did Newt agree with Kerry and say not only that there is a problem but that the problem is so urgent that it calls for immediate and dramatic action right now.

Environmental concerns over carbon dioxide and national security concerns over oil dependence on regimes that wish US ill and monetary concerns over the current accounts deficits are three sides of the same problem.

The faster the USA can get out from under dependence on foreign oil the better all around.

The center of the arguement was how to drop carbon dioxide use the fastest and most cost effectively. Kerry was argueing for what he referred to as cap in trade or the Europeans call carbon credits. Cap in trade or carbon credits are disincentives in the form of taxes for carbon dioxide emmissions. Newt was arguing for tax breaks and more federal spending on research. Tax breaks and federal dollars for research are incentives for creating new technologies.

I agree with Newt’s line of reasoning. His arguement that any regime that doesn’t include the indians and the chinese won’t be effective in cutting world wide carbon dioxide emissions. He said the way for India and China to cut their carbon dioxide emissions and — also their dependence on mid east oil was to create the technologies that precluded the need for such things as oil.

He concluded his remarks by mentioning that 100 years ago no on could have imagined the LA that we know today. There simply is no water in the area. There is an amazing amount of technological adaptability at our disposal.

Newt didn’t say so but I think one thing that will happen in the next decade will be that the cost of water desalination will collapse to 1/10 current costs thereby making it possible to turn the deserts of the world green and doubling the size of the habitable planet and reversing the carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere.


70 posted on 04/18/2007 11:29:02 AM PDT by ckilmer
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