Whenever I take one of those quizzes comparing my views to that of a political figure it always comes out as more or less identical to Gingrich.
That being said, I seem to recall a fair amount of Newt "trashing" at FR at the time of the Scozzafava debacle, not to mention at the time of the global warming ad with Pelosi. And, more recently, I recall Freepers being very anti-Newt when he attacked Paul Ryan.
Those "trashings" were not only tolerated by the site they were recognized as legitimate concerns--not from RINOs but from the right--that Gingrich had perhaps lost his way.
And, while I've got problems with Romney for obvious reasons I've also got problems with some of Newt's comments about Romney's wealth that are, basically, Newt running to Romney's left on that particular issue. When did FR ever support a GOP candidate attacking people for being capitalists?
If the point is simply "stop Romney" and therefore we have to now ignore Newts own RINOish moments, so be it. But if FR intends to remain a principled conservative site, then we need to be able to be honest about the good and the bad of all of our potential nominees.
I don’t much care what people think of Free Republic or purity or whatever. This is a freaking rebellion already!!
We’re in it to smash and demolish the freaking corrupt liberal establishment before they crush us, and Newt is the man who can do it. This ain’t bean bag and Newt is no boy scout!! War is hell!! Get used to it!!
No Romney!! No way!!
We are no longer involved in a primary where we are still vetting and examining candidates, we have already decided on a candidate and are focused on his campaign.
Gingrich has two campaigns to run, first, replace Romney, then replace Obama.
We don’t need to list and discuss his imperfections at this point, we need to give him all the help that we can.