Uh-oh -- it's Westsista's keen perspective on today's South Carolina primary!
Newt Gingrich has made me laugh out loud more than any of the other Republican candidates.
Sure, he lacks the entertaining qualities of Rick Perry, who unselfishly provided many hours of mocking fun. And he never comes close to making as many silly, unsupported statements as Michele Bachmann.
But he does remind me of another political celebrity that we haven’t heard from in a long time: Baghdad Bob
Remember him? He was the guy who on live TV proclaiming that U.S. troops were not in Baghdad, even as you could see them behind him in the video.
It takes a special kind of person to be able to sustain that level of, let’s say, flexibility with reality. And Newt is a very special guy.
The Women
You and I might describe a person’s behavior as “appalling” who cheats on and then dumps wife #1 when she gets sick, and then cheats on and dumps wife #2 when she gets sick. But Newt used that word to describe being asked about an explosive interview given that day by aggrieved wife #2. You gotta love that chutzpah, especially as it earned him a standing ovation!
Many people are guilty of cheating on their spouses, but the exceptional feat here is explaining it this way: “partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.” Genius! Talk about turning your weak points into strengths! What could be more virtuous than hard work and patriotism?
Newt Gingrich went after Bill Clinton with the flaming vengeance of an archangel over Clinton’s affair with a staffer, while he was deeply immersed in his own extramarital affair with one of his own staffers.
The Money
Newt Gingrich is the kind of guy who can pull down over three million dollars in a year, putting him in the tiniest upper tier of the top 1%, and nastily attack his opponent for . . . being even richer?
In 1988, Gingrich helped force the resignation of the Democratic Speaker Jim Wright, who was alleged to have used a book deal to circumvent campaign-finance laws and House ethics rules. This occurred while Gingrich himself was getting money from his own “unusual” book deal that raised money from political supporters to promote sales of his book.
The Positive Campaign
In Iowa, Mr. Gingrich vowed to “stay focused on positive things.” But I knew he would not disappoint. I knew that deep down he was the same guy who wrote a 1996 memo encouraging Republicans to "speak like Newt" by describing Democrats and Democratic policies using the words “corrupt,” "devour," "greed," "hypocrisy," "liberal," "sick," and "traitors."
In a delicious irony, it was his very close business partner – the conservative group Citizens United who helped him make three films – which led to the Supreme Court decision that enabled Romney’s Super PAC to run round-the-clock ads against Newt Gringrich in Iowa.
It wasn’t long before Romney’s relentless assaults caused him to abandon his positive campaign with brutal attacks on Romney.
The Mandate to Buy Health Insurance
Pop Quiz: In May 2011, who made this statement on national TV? “All of us have a responsibility to pay—help pay for health care,” and suggested this could be implemented by either a mandate to obtain health insurance or a requirement to post a bond ensuring coverage.
Nancy Pelosi? Harry Reid? President Obama?
Nope. Newt Gingrich. You can actually see him in a 2008 video making a pretty convincing argument on the merits of the individual mandate. Now he opposes the Obamacare mandate.
Where Newt Gingrich truly sets himself apart from the other candidates is in sheer gall. He appears to be totally untroubled by his own unbridled hypocrisy or his non-stop carousel of positions. I have barely scratched the surface of the “Newtisms,” without even mentioning climate change, immigration, Libya or Paul Ryan’s budget plan, but you can read about some of them by clicking here.
I don’t know about the people in South Carolina, but I would hate to see another Republican debate without Newt in it. He makes me laugh.
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