Update: Before reading another word, I just want to stress
my belief that Coulter has proven to be little more than a Phony
Conservative. She practically hates Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. She
cares much more about her opinion as to the political electability of
the candidate than the candidates conservative beliefs and accomplishments.
She is simply making money from a bunch of conservative fools.
Well, she
and Glenn Beck (who thinks there are only two kinds of people in this
world - Progressives and normal people), and Mark Steyn ( a very cool
fellow) all think Newt Gingrich is unelectable and
"delusional."
She probably thinks she is overweight and representative
of all reasonable and sane conservatives. Too bad Rush, Hannity and
Thomas Sowell will not be in her camp.
I gots to admit, I am getting a little worried about this
coming election. Here is a very timely message from Thomas Sowell,
about Newt's potential candidacy - read by Rush Limbaugh today, on
the air:
If Newt Gingrich were being nominated
for sainthood, many of us would vote very differently from the way we would
vote if he were being nominated for a political office.
What the media calls Gingrich’s
“baggage” concerns largely his personal life and the fact that he made a lot
of money running a consulting firm after he left Congress.
This kind of stuff makes lots of talking points that we will no doubt hear,
again and again, over the coming weeks and months.
But how much weight should we give to
this stuff when we are talking about the future of the nation? This is
not just another election, and Barack Obama is not just another president whose
policies we may not like. With all of President Obama’s broken promises, glib
demagoguery, and cynical political moves, one promise he has kept all too well.
That was his boast on the eve of the 2008 election: “We are going to change the
United States of America.”
Many Americans are already saying that
they can hardly recognize the country they grew up in. We have already started
down the path that has led Western European nations to the brink of financial
disaster.
Internationally, it is worse. A
president who has pulled the rug out from under our allies, whether in Eastern
Europe or the Middle East, tried to cozy up to our enemies,
and bowed low from the waist to foreign leaders certainly has not represented
either the values or the interests of America. If he continues to do nothing
that is likely to stop terrorist-sponsoring Iran from getting nuclear weapons,
the consequences may be beyond our worst imagining. . . . . . .
Continue reading here
. . . . .
Against this
background, how much does Newt Gingrich’s personal life matter, whether we
accept his claim that he has now matured or his critics’ claim that he has not?
Nor should we sell the public short by saying that they are going to vote on
the basis of tabloid stuff or media talking points, when the fate of this
nation hangs in the balance.
Even back in the 19th
century, when the scandal came out that GroverCleveland had
fathered a child out of wedlock — and he publicly admitted it — the voters
nevertheless sent him to the White House, where he became one of the better
presidents.
Do we wish we had
another Ronald Reagan? We
could certainly use one. But we have to play the hand we were dealt. And the
Reagan card is not in the deck.
While the televised
debates are what gave Newt Gingrich’s candidacy a big boost, concrete
accomplishments when in office are the real test. Gingrich engineered the first
Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 40 years — followed by
the first balanced budget in 40 years. The media called it “the Clinton surplus”
but all spending bills start in the House of Representatives, and Gingrich was
speaker of the House.
Speaker Gingrich also
produced some long-overdue welfare reforms, despite howls from liberals that
the poor would be devastated. But nobody now claims that they were.
Did Gingrich ruffle
some feathers when he was speaker of the House? Yes, enough for it to cost him that
position. But he also showed that he could produce results.
In a world where we
can make our choices only among the alternatives actually available, the
question is whether Newt Gingrich is better than Barack Obama — and better
than Mitt Romney.
Romney is a smooth talker, but what did he actually accomplish
as governor of Massachusetts, compared with what Gingrich accomplished as
speaker of the House? When you don’t accomplish much, you don’t ruffle many
feathers. But is that what we want?
Can you name one important positive thing that Romney accomplished as governor of Massachusetts? Can
anyone? Does a candidate
who represents the bland leading the bland increase the chances of victory in
November 2012? A lot of candidates like that have lost, from Thomas E. Dewey to
John McCain.
Those who want to
concentrate on the baggage in Newt Gingrich’s past, rather than on the nation’s
future, should remember what Winston Churchill said: “If the past sits in
judgment on the present, the future will be lost.” If that means a second term
for Barack Obama, then it means we’ve lost, big time.
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