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The Keyesian Trap……”Moreover, [his] self-assuredness disabled in him the instincts for self-censorship that allow most people to navigate the world without getting into constant fistfights. [He] said whatever popped into his mind, and with dogged logic would follow over a cliff just about any idea that came to him.

These words describe almost perfectly the intellectual and rhetorical bearing and style of Newt Gingrich. Only they weren't written about Gingrich. They are Barack Obama's words -- from The Audacity of Hope -- about former Ambassador Alan Keyes, Obama's Republican opponent in the 2004 election for Illinois' open Senate seat.

I was struck by two things as I recently watched old footage of the 2004 Obama-Keyes debates. First, Keyes comes across as a better debater than Obama. He seems more polished, smarter, and more confident than Obama. Keyes' verbal fluency makes Obama's use of verbal fillers and stutters, his repeated words and incomplete and restarted sentences, all the more noticeable.

The second thing I noticed were the striking similarities between Keyes and Gingrich. Keyes is more theatrical than Gingrich, while Gingrich is more overtly egoistic and self-reverential. (He has at various moments called himself "the most serious, systematic revolutionary of modern times" and a "definer of civilization.")

But the two share many characteristics. For one thing, they both hold Ph.D.s (Keyes in government, Gingrich in history). Perhaps this helps explain why both Keyes and Gingrich have a tendency to talk down to opponents and debate moderators. Keyes was antagonistic toward the Illinois journalists who moderated the Senate debates, cutting off questioners and reacting harshly when moderators told him his time was up.”…..

Newt has accomplished a great deal for the conservative movement in the 1980s -1990s.

He is not a great my choice for the highest office in the nation.

I am not surprised at this revelation about his prior policy positions.

His crybaby tirades and condescending tone in the debates as well as his 'mistakes' have taken him out of serious contention.

I hadn't thought about that comparison. Ph.D smart guy, admired for his oratory and his many references to first principles and the founding fathers, but with an unusual personal back story leaps into the fray to take on the One. And blows up spectacularly, losing 70 to 27 in the general. I'm not sure how well the comparisons apply, but those enamored of Newt and the "beat him in the debates" strategy may wish to think it through. Obama has at least some applicable experience here and the Rats have a fat old, eventually successful, playbook with Newt's name on it.

As I keep telling anyone who will listen, Gingrich has a green stripe eighteen inches wide running up his back just like Arnold Schwartzenegger!!!

He would give this country as big a case of GANG-GREEN as did Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, George Herbert Walker Bush and all the Demonicrats since TR!!! They didn't seem to want to understand that ours is a government of, for and by the PEOPLE! (not affirmative action for fish and plants and welfare for wildlife!)

He talks like a big bad conservative just like Schwartzenrenegger and it warms the cockles of conservatives hearts but California conservatives, even many FReepers wouldn't go to Arnold's website to see his statements and those of his inlaw Robert Kennedy, Jr. to use the force of government to stomp on all sorts of property rights with things like the Sierra-Nevada Conservancy to match the tyranny of the CA Coastal Commission, etc., etc., etc...

He really believes in GANG-GREEN and that it is for our own good and "for the good of all!" I'm thrilled to see him nosediving once again and sincerely hope both he and Romney, (in other words "Newt Romney") never become President. I know my opinion doesn't match up with the site owner's and for that I am sincerely sorry. I just hate to see so many people being decieved by his not so easily camoflaged green streak that he wants to share with all of us.