There are thousands of volunteers who meet that standard. It is not sufficient to make a President or a Party Chair.
He expected them to keep their word. Is that his fault ?
Absolutely it is. It is unethical to trust an untrustworthy person.
What you're asking here is for him to have gone ahead and acted in a similarly deceitful and arbitrary way as Chairman.
Not at all, indeed, quite the contrary. Reflect upon that before you react.
He possesses no guile.
I don't really know that and neither do you. Nor does managing a claque of compulsive liars for what they are have anything to do with deceitfulness or guile. It is a matter of honesty to treat the situation as it is and speak forthrightly about it.
No, again, he expected them to live up to their word.
Fool me once... fool me twice...
Since Fred wasn't elected to such an executive position, we cannot assess how he would've reacted.
Sure we can, else no one can be assessed for higher office. This is a red herring unworthy of you.
Gingrich acted in a more ruthless manner to get us a majority, however he also left under a cloud (whereas Fred didn't), and has demonstrated occasionally squishiness and poor judgment.
I agree completely and had considered that. He is still far more effective than Fred Thompson, and possibly less of a poseur. IMO, he may in fact be a pied piper who took the fall at exactly the right time.
All I can say is that he is honest, he's done yeoman work for the party, ISN'T lazy, and is well-respected.
As to honest, there has been many a deep plant throughout history who was regarded as such, so I am withholding that accolade considering what happened with Chinagate and the primary. As to hard working for Republicans, that is doubtless. It is not sufficient for me to want him in that position.
Not the be all and end all, but an important characteristic. But I think you'll agree that a lot of our best and brightest aren't in the running for key offices today for obvious reasons (the Palin family gynecological probe by the media being the quintessential example).
"Absolutely it is. It is unethical to trust an untrustworthy person."
That being IF they demonstrated such behavior towards him beforehand.
"Not at all, indeed, quite the contrary. Reflect upon that before you react."
I'll reiterate again, he was expecting bipartisan cooperation. You know and I know how deceitful the Democrats tend to be, but when you're having to actually work with people up close and personal, sometimes the equation can be a bit different. Should he have known they were going to be deceitful based upon their usual behavior ? Perhaps so. But what he was hoping to achieve was a bipartisan investigation to get to the bottom of the facts of the matter. I still believe legitimately he was dumbfounded at the audaciousness of their deceit in agreeing to cooperate and doing nothing but running out the clock and calling it a partisan witch hunt when it was anything but. I'm not Sen. Thompson. Were it me, I would've read every last one of them the riot act on national television, telling them and the American public precisely what they were covering up and as a nice parting shot, telling Glenn right to his face that he sold out his country and his soul for a ride into space to cover for the most corrupt administration to date. That's what you and I would've liked to see, but he's not that kind of person to do that. Perhaps serving in that body as such makes it very, indeed, extremely difficult to savage your fellow members when you have to serve alongside them for years at a time. It was why McCain was virtually hamstrung to go after the False Messiah hammer and tongs...
"I don't really know that and neither do you. Nor does managing a claque of compulsive liars for what they are have anything to do with deceitfulness or guile. It is a matter of honesty to treat the situation as it is and speak forthrightly about it."
No, as a fairly good judge of character, there really are some people that are a cut above, however few, these days. I stand by saying he really is without guile. He doesn't reek of the bullcrap so many others do. But, yes, as I stated in my above paragraph, I personally wish he had gone after them all in a ruthless fashion, but it's not his style... although it is my style.
"Sure we can, else no one can be assessed for higher office. This is a red herring unworthy of you."
I think what you're asking here is the difference between how you or I think he would've reacted on a given situation vs. how he actually would've reacted. We can speculate all day on the former, but we'll never definitively know the latter. Fred never had to face down the Soviets, but Reagan never had to chair a Senate committee full of deceitful obstructionists hell bent on running out the clock. They both very well might've ended up with the same outcome.
"I agree completely and had considered that. He is still far more effective than Fred Thompson, and possibly less of a poseur. IMO, he may in fact be a pied piper who took the fall at exactly the right time."
I think Gingrich WAS effective at one point. That remains to be seen now. Some of us still view him through the prism of 1994, but I view him from the prism of 1995-99 and onwards where he really goofed. He had a good run as leader really for only less than an entire year. Once Clinton got the upper hand on him with the government "shutdown" standoff at the end of 1995, that was the point at which Clinton was rescued from losing reelection and Gingrich and indeed, the entire GOP majority, became neutered. Frankly, we've been coasting effectively from that point on and never got back on our game. It's amazing we effectively held a majority (excluding the Senate break) for 12 years. I would tend to regard Gingrich as a riskier bet than Fred. But again, we shouldn't be exclusively limited to those two for potential RNC chair, and even if neither is chosen, that they shouldn't play some sort of role in the rebuilding effort if they have something to offer.
"As to honest, there has been many a deep plant throughout history who was regarded as such, so I am withholding that accolade considering what happened with Chinagate and the primary. As to hard working for Republicans, that is doubtless. It is not sufficient for me to want him in that position."
Given that Fred has never at any point set out to deliberately and vindictively sandbag Republican fortunes (as has Huckster, Slick Willard, McCain, and early in his career, Giuliani), I would never accuse him of being a plant as some of the other Presidential candidates were very well guilty of.