Posted on 05/19/2011 7:22:57 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I don’t know, guys. We’ve reached the point where the “Newt implosion” narrative has crystallized so thoroughly that every new story about him ends up being refracted through that prism. I don’t trust my own judgment at this point. Is this new bit genuinely toxic, as Ace’s co-blogger Gabe seems to think, or is it much ado about nothing?
Newt Gingrich, whose campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination has gotten off to a rocky start, risked fresh controversy on Thursday by suggesting that some illegal immigrants living in the United States “may have earned the right to become legal.”…
Gingrich recounted how World War Two-era U.S. draft boards chose who would serve in the military, saying a similar system might help deal with the millions of immigrants living in the United States illegally.
“Because I think we are going to want to find some way to deal with the people who are here to distinguish between those who have no ties to the United States, and therefore you can deport them at minimum human cost, and those who, in fact, may have earned the right to become legal, but not citizens,” Gingrich said.
Here’s the complete quote via Radio Iowa:
This is, at the risk of as I do on occasion of getting into trouble with the news media, Gingrich said, in answering the question, and a few people in the audience chuckled. Im looking seriously at the way the Selective Service Act used to work in the 1940s and World War II where a local Selective Service board who knew the local people made the decisions because I think we are going to want to find some way to deal with the people who are here to distinguish between those who have no ties to the United States and therefore you can deport them at minimum human cost, and those who, in fact, may have earned the right to become legal, but not citizens.
That’s not totally alienating to the conservative base, right? You can imagine local amnesty draft boards designating illegals who’ve served in the military for special legalization privileges. (We already do it, kinda sorta.) As well as anyone else who has “ties to the United States,” which, er … could be millions of people.
Seriously, am I misreading this? Or does Newt know something about the imminent zombie apocalypse, leaving him willing to antagonize grassroots righties at every turn knowing that none of it will matter come Sunday? Exit quotation: “My reaction is if youre the candidate of very dramatic change, it youre the candidate of really new ideas, you have to assume theres a certain amount of clutter and confusion and it takes a while to sort it all out, because you are doing something different.”
Update: Greenroomer Patrick Ishmael e-mails to say that Newt made these comments in Waterloo, Iowa. And he is, apparently, a big Abba fan. So I guess this is obligatory…
I guess us common folk just can't think like Newt.
Good job, Newt! LOL
OMG! Quick! Someone call 911! Newt is ODing on Stupid pills! On second thought, it’s probably too late. I think the dose is terminal. RIP, Newt!
Was it not Gingrich who claimed "The era of Reagan is over"?
Seems to me The Era of Gingrich lasted about 27-and-a-half hours before it self-destructed.
Someone memo Newt and let him now that he needs to STHU, kkthx. =.=
Newt just does not understand who he is. Newt is the guy who sat on the couch with Nancy Pelosi promoting a hoax. He does not see himself that way, but that is who he is and how we see him.
Thus, his past has made us suspicious of Newt and made him the wrong guy to offer up novel solutions in this campaign. Had he not sat on the couch with Pelosi there would not have been a big a storm about his Meet the Press answers.
Certainly a candidate who could speak to both the pro-business part of the GOP and the strong borders part of the GOP would be a good candidate. This is Newt’s attempt to offer a novel solution to immigration, but every time Newt offers a novel approach to a problem we see the guy sitting on the couch withe Pelosi.
No, he's getting encouragement from RINOs and the GOP. Hard to believe with his supposed intelligence that he cannot comprehend his globalist, overzealous efforts to compromise with democrats and his anti-conservative views and bashing are despicable and at the very least, very questionable.
It isn't funny. It's a very real -- and deadly --problem.
That indeed is the main problem.
Newt is still more conservative than Barack Obama. If he wins the nomination, he has my vote.
Why don’t you just follow the law instead of trying to get around it?
There was once a time years back where I thought I wanted a guy like Newt to run for president....
Now I just want him to shut the frick up and go away.
Amnesty by any other name, still stinks.
I am 72 years old, freep mail me if you want to know why circumcision is a bad idea, unless it is for religious reasons.
Newt is way past his shelf life.
Well they HAVE already shared a LOVESEAT.
(I'm going to spare everybody by not posting that picture again)
I wonder how many would be rejected in the Los Angeles local boards....
may have earned the right to become legal, but not citizens
Whoever thinks that they would not eventually become voters is a fool.
I see a parallel here. Israel gave Gaza to Palestine, and got a promise from the PLO that Israel had a right to exist. In 1986, congress promised that amnesty would fix illegal immigration forever.
How many betrayals does it take for these buffoons to learn?
They are talking to short term current Hispanic voters who may very well make things tough for Republicans in 2012. Republicans need a Hispanic election strategy different than amnesty or government spending their standard methods.
There is always a political angle with this.
AIDS dementia?
No, we don't do it kinda sorta. You must be in a legal status to join the US military. Illegals cannot join the US military.
Newt is insane.
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