Posted on 04/14/2012 4:35:57 PM PDT by CutePuppy
He was rubbing it in everybody's face that an old coot like him could get somebody like her. No matter how God awful she looked.
This doesn't make any sense. If Callista really looked "God awful," how would it be that "he was rubbing it in everybody's face"? And do you suggest he should not have appeared with his wife at the political events but rather should have left her behind? And for which particular reason - being "God awful" or being "too young and too beautiful"?
I think your statement is, at the very least, subjective, projective, unworthy and, by accounts of most people who know and have met Callista, simply untrue and offensive.
Newt would bring the ever Lurking Calista with him and she was the cause of divorce # 2.
Are you really so blinded by hate that you have no compunctions about repeating and even magnifying the thoroughly disproved, debunked, refuted old lies sprung by the vile liberal media and propagated by the sclerotic GOP establishment?
If you really want to educate yourself on the facts, let's separate them from hateful fiction.
First, Callista is no more "Lurking" near her husband at the events than any other candidate's wife, be it Ann Romney or Karen Santorum.
Second, Newt met Callista for the first time and started dating her in 1993, 6 years after he was legally separated in 1987 from his estranged runaway wife #2, Marianne Ginther Gingrich (who chose to keep that name after the divorce) so Callista could not possibly have been the reason or cause for their separation and eventual divorce. Gingrich has been with Callista for more than 18 years, and happily married to her since 1999, after he resigned from Congress and finalized the bitter drawn-out divorce from Marianne, which she wouldn't grant him in 1994 when he was busy executing the Second Republican Revolution / Gingrich Revolution working to take over the Congress and pushing through the Congress and the vetoes the Contract With America. Callista, not Marianne, was with him through the trials and tribulations of that exciting and turbulent time, and 18 years together with her (more than 12 years in marriage) is much longer and happier than so many marriages are today. For the sake of the family Newt later converted to life-long faith of Callista, Catholicism.
Details / Refs:
Gingrich: If it comes to a shutdown, the GOP should stick to its principles - FR post #104, 2012 February 12
Gingrich admits ABC claim was false - FR post #32 / WSJ, No-Fault Newt, by James Taranto, 2012 January 20
The Inner Quest of Newt Gingrich (1995: Marianne Promised To "Undermine Everything" For Newt) - FR post #143, 2012 January 18 / PBS/VF, by Gail Sheehy, 1995 September
Romney Must Get Personal Over Bain Capital Attacks - FR, posts #21, #36, #42, #3, 2012 January 12
Gingrich, he said, came back to Georgia to find his home emptied out. Browning said the pair maintained separate residences for six years ..... < snip >
Things happen in marriage, it doesn't always work out between two people, no matter how wonderful or horrible they might otherwise be. Rush Limbaugh is on his fourth marriage, to a much younger woman from a prominent Democratic family, he has no children, yet how many would question his conservative credentials, including being pro-life, pro-family and pro-marriage? Reagan was divorced and remarried when he became President, yet he's been one of the best pro-life and pro-family Presidents.
Newt has good relationship with his first wife Jackie (who wasn't dying from cancer and wasn't served divorce papers when she was in the hospital - another debunked liberal lie, picked up by Newt's detractors) and he and Callista have great relationship with his daughters and grandchildren. Instead of being bitter about this, we should be happy for them, just like we are for Karen Santorum who made her share of mistakes in her youth, but found a good path and good marriage.
Also notice that some of the most ardent supporters of Newt on FR are women. So much for the "gender gap" that many so-called "conservatives" keep warning us about Newt becoming a nominee... How is this "gender gap" working out for Mitt Romney so far in national polling? Never overestimate the "well-meaning warnings" as usually they are just a case of "reverse psychology" in action.
He was delusional to think he could get the evangelicals with that approach.
Also completely inaccurate.
In reality, the evangelical "leaders" have been very split about Newt and Rick, and then, as usual, chose poorly, in favor of "wear it on the sleeve" but poorly prepared, underfunded and unorganized candidate who had no chance to win but possibly get just enough support to either get "promoted" himself to VP slot or (if he becomes unviable as campaign unfolds) to push Romney to choose an evangelical "family values" candidate, à la Bush-Quayle ticket. Grassroots evangelical support can sometimes provide the margin of victory (slim, near miss Electoral College victories by George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004) but, in itself, is not enough to win national elections or elect a candidate that does not meet "GOPe Seal of Approval."
Bob Vander Plaats of Iowa, just like he did with Huckabee in 2008, endorsed Santorum, who was then polling at 2%, despite Newt providing Plaats' organization with $150K that were crucial to the successful ousting of three pro-gay-marriage Iowa Justices. And while Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer and James Dobson also endorsed Santorum, it took three rounds of voting to decide the "official endorsement" between Newt and Rick, with many other evangelical leaders either absent or openly individually endorsing Newt after this "consensus vote" at the Pressler Ranch near Houston, just before SC primary. Tim and Beverly LaHaye (Chair of Concerned Women of America), Jim Garlow, Don Wildmon and others also endorsed Newt, although they didn't actively campaign for him the way Dobson, Plaats, Perkins and Bauer did for Santorum.
From Gingrich: Christian Conservatives on My Side - RC, by Janie Lorber, 2012 January 17
"We think it's unfortunate that, for whatever reason, that it got labeled an endorsement," former Rep. J.C. Watts (Okla.) said. "Those who went in supporting Newt Gingrich came out supporting him more strongly." One Gingrich supporter at the meeting called the process a "hatchet job," and several attendees described scathing personal attacks, including references to the bad optics of a potential first lady — Callista Gingrich — who had once been the ex-Speaker's mistress. Others said several Gingrich supporters mistakenly left before the final round of voting. ..... < snip > < snip > ..... When presented with a choice between two candidates in the final round of voting, 85 of the participants voted for Santorum and 29 voted for Gingrich, a victory that Tony Perkins, head of the conservative Family Research Council, initially described as a "strong consensus." He walked back that characterization after a group of Gingrich supporters went public with concerns that it was not a consensus at all.
Look where Dobson, Perkins, Plaats and Bauer are now - they are reduced to going hat in hand to Romney camp / GOPe who will most likely treat them like Clinton did Sister Souldja.
The unprecedented amount of money and extraordinary lies and ruined "conservative" reputations, that it took to assault Gingrich in Florida, by entire GOPe, when they / Romney were on the verge of losing to the only representative Tea Party conservative remaining there showed that GOPe wants Tea Party to occupy the same place within the GOP structure that the social / "family values" conservatives do now - a reliable vote by a "minority" that "has nowhere else to go" - basically the same exact role that the blacks, Jews, GLBT, "women" and other "minorities" represent for the establishment of the Democrat party. It was a fight for survival for GOPe, against a small(er) government, Reagan conservatives Tea Party movement.
If we don't unite behind Newt, the Tea Party will be just like evangelicals - a few minority "local" groups that are only paid a lip service by GOPe on the national level. That may be just fine with some evangelical "leaders" - just like the blacks got the "first black President" Bill Clinton and now the first African-American (literally, Kenyan-American) President, the evangelicals might get another "compassionate conservative" like Bush-43. Where does it leave the country and the rest of us?
Evangelicals have simply been used by the GOPe to split the Tea Party vote, by providing them a "true conservative" alternative in the form of Santorum. For instance, there was never an attempt to intimidate or negotiate a cut off of Foster Friess' SuperPAC funds that provided just enough of a lifeline for Santorum's campaign, unlike pulling all stops to get Sheldon Adelson stop donations to SuperPAC for Gingrich, or planting various false stories about the funds cut just before the states' primaries (thus diverting votes of supposedly "strategic" voters from Gingrich to Romney or Santorum).
(BTW, as an aside, the reason for Adelson not favoring Rick has nothing to do with his religious or social views - Vegas is a union town, casinos and restaurants there have had problems with several unions for decades, so the record of historically cozy relations of Santorum with unions is anathema to Vegas businessmen. There are large patches of prime real estate off the Strip in Vegas that have been for sale for a long time that nobody wants to buy and develop, but Adelson's Las Vegas Sands and Sands Cotai Central is opening another $5B casino in Macau, and plans to spend $35B over 9 years to build casinos and resorts in Spain, Macau and elsewhere in Asia - sales and profits are substantially higher per square foot overseas than in the unionized and overregulated U.S. / Vegas casinos).
Unfortunately, the entire Santorum's / evangelicals campaign plan was based entirely on trying to get Newt's votes and Newt out of the race, even though everybody understood that he would be crushed by Romney immediately after, one on one, even as Gingrich kept nearly publicly saying (to no avail for mathematically challenged) that he sees this as a fight to deny Romney most delegates rather than just "winning" the states while ceding delegates to Romney because Santorum didn't even have the required delegates in several states:
From Santorum, Paul look past Nevada caucuses - WPVI-TV, 2012 February 04
..... Santorum's strategy has been to bloody Gingrich, outlast his one-time ally and then emerge as the eventual alternative to front-runner Romney. He also looked to have a strong showing Tuesday in Missouri, which is having a non-binding primary that lacks Gingrich's name on the ballot. Santorum said he hoped the head-to-head matchup with Romney would change the narrative of his sagging fortunes. ..... < snip > MONTROSE, Colo. (AP) - February 4, 2012 (WPVI) -- Rick Santorum said Saturday he wants to "endanger" rival Newt Gingrich while presidential rival Ron Paul claimed to have "reason to be optimistic" heading into Tuesday's contests as both Republican hopefuls peered ahead past the Nevada caucuses that handed both defeat. ..... < snip >
From Santorum refuses to bow despite another loss - WPVI-TV, 2012 February 05
He no longer has a national campaign headquarters; technically, he calls a post office box in Pennsylvania his base camp. His inner circle is seldom in the same location. His campaign manager is a New Hampshire consultant. His deputy campaign manager is Iowa-based and was only recently named to that role in an official capacity. His senior political adviser runs a firm in South Carolina and calls it home. ..... < snip >
Santorum is banking on Gingrich collapsing under Romney's withering criticism, leaving Santorum in the coveted and fluid role of the leading conservative alternative to Romney. ..... < snip > < snip > ..... Santorum has little money and virtually no momentum. He's trailing badly in national polls. He's had trouble getting on ballots in Virginia and Indiana. And he has essentially no staff in upcoming states - much less anything resembling the national operations his rivals are running.
Whoever thought that this may be a winning strategy against GOPe was nuts and had not learned the lessons of Huckabee 2008 run, when there wasn't even a fraction of money and the entire GOPe machine deployed against him like there was against Gingrich this year. Evangelicals played right into Romney / GOPe hands by insisting on "endorsing" and actively working for the "more perfect" single issue conservative as opposed to the supposedly "flawed" conservative.
To the delight of GOPe, it finally gave them an alternative to Newt - the race has turned from Anybody-But-Romney into Anybody-But-Gingrich. (Alinsky's rule #12 - "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.")
"The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy" - Friedrich Nietzsche
All they had to do now was keep Santorum's campaign on "life support" and ignore Gingrich as if he didn't exist in the race, except for ratcheting up the pressure on Adelson to cut off the funds to SPAC and keeping to mock Gingrich within the media and only repeatedly asking him when he is going to drop out (Alinsky's Rule #13 - "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.") to shut down his message and antagonize the voters against him within the party, similar to what they've done to Newt ever since he became the Speaker and to Palin since she became a VP candidate.
Newt has always been pro-life, unlike Mitt Romney who has been [s]electively pro-choice or pro-life when it suited him politically, or even Rick Santorum who has been pro-choice earlier in his life, before he married and ran for Congress (apparently, some early mistakes in life but not the life circumstances of the others could be forgiven by some evangelical leaders).
Newt was also an adopted child, an Army brat, having to move from place to place often, not experiencing or knowing much about love in his youth, and marrying very young and having two children in his 19 years long first marriage, yet at that time he also accomplished getting Master and PhD degrees in history and becoming a college professor. Yet he never plays up his humble and difficult upbringing. In contrast, Rick Santorum's stump speech starts with his grandfather in the "Pennsylvania mining town" while he conveniently avoids mentioning that he was basically a child of relative privilege (his father was a chief of psychology department, mother a chief of nurses in the local Butler, PA, VA hospital) so getting him a good education (MBA and JD) was not such a burden for his family.
I am not trying to dump on Rick, who is a good family man, and whose family has seen their share of tragedy and disappointments. But many of the people who were voting for Santorum or Romney somehow allowed themselves to be taken in by lies about Newt and not question them, progressing to hating Newt with a passion. I am just trying to show that if, in their minds, Rick and his family are deserving of Christian or human forgiveness for their transgressions, then certainly, by all means, so does Newt and his family.
Nobody gave Newt anything in life, he had to work very hard for everything he achieved in life, and despite all the hardship, he has a record of conservative accomplishments that very few people can boast or even dream about, both in public life and post-public entrepreneurial life. That's why he is hated, envied and, just like Ronald Reagan, reviled by the lunatic left and the comfortable establishment right.
"If you have no enemies, you are not important enough to have made any" - Alexandre Dumas
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit" - Ronald Reagan
Hume is just another excuse for Newt in a long line of excuse's.
As far as the old and tired meme of "excuses" and "whining" by Gingrich goes, if you ask for and are given an explanation of certain facts, you can always label anything you don't like an "excuse" or "whine" to ignore and avoid dealing with the substance of an explanation. That, in itself, is a poor, childish excuse for attempting to "win" the argument the substance of which you are unable to refute but unwilling to accept.
I believe you were in a coma. If you notice, most of the primary voters must agree with me.
Got it? I am done taking the insults. So what? I don’t
agree.
I have never taken drugs and I have taken very few pills most of my life. So I don’t appreciate what you said.
:)
You see those posts about Newt going to CNN now?
It seems that he is saying that FNC lost the primary for him even after all the times he assured us that he would win it.
He has two modes : 1) overconfidence, and 2) sore loser, at least recently anyway. Lots of silly ideas too.
Newt is the establishment??? Good grief. No wonder our country is messed up.
Mitt Romney was opposed to best conservative politics in the last 30 years: he was against President Reagan politics in the 80ies and against the Republican Congress majority politics and the Contract with America in the 90ies.
Romney had been a lifelong independent before he decided to run for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts in 1994, the Boston Globe reported at the time.
After Romney entered the 1994 Senate race, his wife Ann said: “We didn’t know a single Republican when we jumped in.”
When House Speaker Newt Gingrich was promoting his “Contract with America” in 1994, Romney “had not read the document and had no plans to support it,” the Boston Globe reported.
Brent Bozell’s Conservative Victory Committee said that Romney in 1994 “was running away from conservative Republican themes and espousing a left-wing agenda.”
David Broder observed during the 1994 Senate campaign: “Eager to show that he is a moderate independent and no ideologue, Romney stressed his support for universal health insurance and abortion rights, criticized the Republican ‘Contract with America,’ and was more outspoken than Kennedy in arguing that the Boy Scouts should not exclude homosexual youths.”
Romney donated to the 1992 campaign of U.S. Rep. Dick Swett, a New Hampshire Democrat; Rep. John LaFalce, a New York Democrat; and Democrat Doug Anderson, who was running for the Senate from Utah.
“OK Einstein, who ya gonna vote for in November?”
Newt won’t be on the ballot.
I’ll be voting for the nominee whoever it is. see my tag line.
People like you and dforest are the reason we are stuck with pro abortion pro gay marriage Romney. The damage of both are to under mind civilization and morality as we know. You people are either slow or Romney supporters. No conservative would throw off on Gingrich this deep to help a person as Romney-you have been busted.
What about the transformative, cleansing power of Jesus Christ - who Newt confesses as his Savior. Aren't old things passed away and all things become new in Him, aren't we ALL new creatures in Christ Jesus?
I wrote the following to explain how I see the claims, usually from Santorum supporters, that Newt is ineligible because of his past..
If that is the case, then not only is Newt still exactly who he was back then, then Callista is still an adultress, then Karen Santorum is still a whore fornicating outside the vows of marriage with a known abortionist... and Rick Santorum is still a compromised political hack, who endorsed Specter... That is the Santorum Standard, and apparently yours, but you can apply it selectively, though that seems to be what rick and his supporters do continually.
Somewhere Santorum and his supporters seemed to have decided because he wears his religion on his sleeve that gives them the right to decide who and what is evil or good in this world...
"On Santorum: No, I’ve never met him. I’ve read about him, some of the corruption he is associated with, I’ve watched him, I’ve listened when he was disrespectful to his mentor for political expediency’s sake. I study his voting record. I know a charity of his gathered millions of dollars, and only spent 32% of their funds on the poor, for whose benefit the charity was formed; and that the normative ethical ratio is for most charities to spend 82% of their funds on their targeted constituency - while most of Santorum’s donations went to give his political friends cushy “charity” jobs. Good Neighbor, I think it was called. I listened as this so-called “good” Christian man stood on a stage and said his character was the quality of character that Americans needed in the White House, unlike the character of others who had personal baggage in their past, without once mentioning the forgiving saving transforming power of Jesus Christ, who is the center of the faith Sanctimonium so piously professes to live by... and sets his principles upon...
If you are not a Christian, you can’t really appreciate what is so appalling and galling about the man, in light of true christians, who don’t abrogate the work of Christ with attempts at self righteousness attained by their outside of the cup persona and behaviors..
What you are doing, and why so many sincere Christians have great problems with Santorum, is he, as well as you, overlook how the transformative power an encounter with the True Christ impacts a man’s entire soul and being; he becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus, old things pass away, all things are made new.
Newt has confessed his sins, said he did things he is ashamed of, has sought to make reconciliation with the members of his family, and others he has hurt. He has blamed no one else but himself. He has come to a new and apparently cleansing faith in Christ Jesus and, most importantly, there is no evidence of any of the same behavioral sins in his life since this long journey of his repentance, rebirth, and renewal began.
And, yet, people cannot let the man leave his past behind. After 20 years - think of it - 20 years - there are still a majority of people in the press, politics - Santorum, and a lot of his supporters - who consider Newt the same man he was 20 years ago, and dare he try to take one step away from his past, to step into the new, as his faith promises him he can, they are there loudly, hypocritically, self-righteously to pull him right back. They won’t let him step away from his sinful past, though no apparent evidence of that sinful past exists any longer, or any evidence that he is the same man he was 20 years ago. He is being judged as the man he was - while that man no longer exists. He is, I repeat, a new creature in Christ Jesus.
Finally, Christians, who truly fully embrace and receive the saving work of Christ, who are transformed deeply, understand that Newt could have done all those things back then, even worse, and still today be a new creature in Christ Jesus - but no one, not Santorum, nor his minions, will allow for that, or accept that might ever be true. So, the final finally: it says more about the people who can’t let Newt be this new creature many believing Christians trust he is, if only because they are likewise sinners, great sinners, saved and transformed by the same power that Newt claims has saved and transformed him. It is religious bigotry, hard hearts, and people like Santorum, who behaviorally have hit many of the right notes in their outward lives, though it is hard to believe that is extensively true - I am sure we will find out - whose self-righteousness - whose pride in their outward manifestations of sinlessness, and acceptable conduct, that causes believing Christians to distance themselves from him, to see him as a hypocrite, saved more by his self-perceived good works than the miraculous, healing work of a Perfect Savior, by his love and tender mercy, towards those who are fully unworthy.
Santorum is about none of that, he is about a gospel of works and self denial, of earned salvation. Newt is simply a sinner being saved by by the gift of grace, he could never earn or be worthy of... through no goodness of his own... the same as most of those Christians who can’t support Santorum’s apostasy."
“The 1994 wins were not a victory for conservatives, it was a GOP victory. Newt has not been a conservative until this year when he ran for President.”
Spoken like somebody who was in a drug-induced coma between 1994 and 1998.”
For a Congressman with over 92% conservative voting record in 20 years and 10 terms as Georgia Rep. in the House, Newt Gingrich is one of the staunchest conservatives ever.
dforest’s “darling” Rick is lagging far behind...
I said before that whining isn’t attractive. It wasn’t when Santorum did it either.
“it says more about the people who can’t let Newt be this new creature many believing Christians trust he is, if only because they are likewise sinners, great sinners, saved and transformed by the same power that Newt claims has saved and transformed him.”
Great post, TBF.
Sounds like a conservative to me and he also sounds like someone who can get things done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MJtkUxIzdA&feature=youtu.be
Newt haters are WRONG.
Nor me.... We need to keep reaching out to evangelicals... and reminding them what the Cross of Christ really means in the life of someone who has repented, confessed his sins publicly and sought reconciliation and making things right with those whom he has hurt..
I don't think you will find the answer to this question ("forgiveness") in religion... you will find it in politics.
Truth is, many of the evangelicals "leaders" and their organizations find themselves quite comfortable with the "kinder, gentler, compassionate conservative" GOP structure that provides them a certain measure of importance (or they just might support a "conservative" Democrat). All they are interested in, just as most "minority" groups within a structure is increasing (or at least not losing) their influence relative to some other groups.
They are a slice of a bigger slice which represents government within a political-economic pizza pie. You can grow two ways - by growing your slice within the government slice, or by growing the government slice within a pizza pie that represents entire economy. The bigger the government, within the economy, the bigger their own influence overall.
Smaller government advocates don't give them anything. As a matter of fact, the Tea Party "platform," such as it is, (ideally) calls for the diminished role of government, and the influence of the Special Interest Groups within it, through tax and regulatory reforms. That would cut the role (slice) of the government within the economic pie, and it would also cut their own influence (and many other SIGs) within the government sector (slice).
It's a double-whammy for some evangelical "leaders" and they don't consider it a good thing. That's why Gingrich (most representative and early supporter of the Tea Party movement) was, in reality, the nemesis of this part of the evangelical "community" of "leaders" who went to endorse Santorum at that "non-consensus consensus" meeting near Houston.
That's the real reason why, despite Gingrich's organizations providing real, tangible (including financial) help to these evangelical "leaders" some of them would choose "anybody but Newt" as a nominee - he is for a "radically" smaller government and its influence in the economy and people's lives, and for smaller influence of special interest groups within the government - the worst outcome for some evangelical "leaders," despite Gingrich himself, like Reagan, being personally quite sympathetic and favorable to their stated spiritual goals.
That's what explains Huckabee and Santorum runs, and the choice of "family values" VP Dan Quayle by George H.W. Bush and their embrace of George W. Bush. That's what at the heart of the more outspoken and "visible" supporters of Santorum, whose names I brought up in the post. They see Tea Party and the concept of smaller government as a threat to them, just as the GOPe, so they are "natural" allies in this interparty struggle.
Of course, not all evangelical "leaders" see it like that; many truly want the government out of the way, and they are the ones who supported Gingrich - that's why the sharp and quite public and acrimonious split this year that most people who didn't pay attention to it, missed.
Many people didn't see it because they assumed that "we are all on the same side" and have the same or similar goals. Just like the case with GOPe, it was not exactly true.
Bla-Bla-Bla, Santurum kicked New’s behind in the primary. So you are just whining.
I enjoyed (entertainment) when Newt started running against “Rich guy gets rich laying off workers” all while his plan would cut the same rich guy's taxes to zero for ‘laying off workers’ making the evil rich guy even richer for doing what he was accusing him of doing. Like Newt was not going to get caught for that.
Newt was not a serious candidate.
You are busted LOL.
Right ON Marguerite! he has a terrible record and he has not done anything to advance the conservative cause but now he is the “GOD of Conservatism”. The sheep are lining up behind him as he leads us to the slaughter
“We need to keep reaching out to evangelicals... and reminding them what the Cross of Christ really means in the life of someone who has repented, confessed his sins publicly and sought reconciliation and making things right with those whom he has hurt..”
If I touch my nose, will that count as reaching out to evangelicals?
Evangelical! ——> Freeper Psalm 144 <-—— Evangelical!
As to your summation of the work of grace, credo!
:-)
If that is the choice, so be it. I will fight for ABR until then. We do still have a choice.
LOL, responsible for the end of civilization..
Where have we seen such drama ...??
I think some of your Marianne/Callista chronology is off. If Newt and Marianne had been separated for 6 years by 1993, why was she with him at virtually every press conference when he was Speaker (eff. Jan. 1995)? Just as he now endlessly says “Callista and I,” back then it was “Marianne and I,” as if they’re a team. That doesn’t make sense.
Not that I much care, other than as it seems to have damaged Newt’s chances to be our nominee, which is a real loss, both to the GOP and to the USA.
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