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Is Newt Gingrich America's Churchill?
The American Spectator ^ | November 15, 2011 | Jeffrey Lord

Posted on 11/15/2011 6:31:37 AM PST by St. Louis Conservative

The thought startles.

Is Newt Gingrich America's Winston Churchill?

The former Speaker has repeatedly dazzled in the ongoing series of GOP presidential debates. He is "the adult in the room," the man Republicans keep saying they would like to see on the debate stage with Barack Obama.

The latest polls (Wall Street Journal, CBS, and Marist) have him vaulting into a tie with Mitt Romney behind Herman Cain or leapfrogging Cain to barely trail Romney. This video of a Frank Luntz focus group that appeared on Sean Hannity's TV show following a recent GOP debate is typical of the changing reaction to the Georgian. Gingrich is a long way from the low single digits he registered at the beginning of the campaign.

But Churchill? America's Churchill?

There are all manner of people -- including some conservatives -- who would faint dead away at the comparison.

They shouldn't.

First, Mr. Churchill.

One of the ironies of history that is that those figures who have morphed from flesh-and-blood reality to marbleized icons always seem to lose their humanity. This is true, in fact, of most people. Great-Aunt Sally whose habits or manner or outrageous behavior here and there proved so infuriating in life becomes the iconic family elder after passing into eternity, her descendants fondly telling Great-Aunt Sally stories and holding her up to the youngest generation as a family role model.

So it is with public figures, and so it was with Winston Churchill.

In his childhood his father thought him a major disappointment, the father himself a star -- an infuriating star -- to his colleagues in British politics.

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: hermancain; newtgingrich; obama; primary; tas
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To: St. Louis Conservative

I would be tickled pink to have Gingrich over Obama or Romney.


41 posted on 11/15/2011 7:38:26 AM PST by ZX12R (FUBO GTFO 2012 !)
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To: exit82
Is Ashton Kutcher Hollywood's Saul of Tarsus?
42 posted on 11/15/2011 7:39:09 AM PST by OddLane (If Lionel Hutz and Guy Smiley had a lovechild together, his name would be "Mitt Romney." -KAJ)
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To: St. Louis Conservative
Is Newt Gingrich America's Winston Churchill?

No, he's Chamberlain - Better than Bush (Baldwin), but not Churchill.

That would be Ron Paul - pray that things don't get that bad. Paul cannot become President until we face our own May 1940.

43 posted on 11/15/2011 7:49:48 AM PST by Jim Noble (To live peacefully with credit-based consumption and fiat money, men would have to be angels.)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Didn’t Newt say “the era of Churchill is dead”, oh wait, it was Reagan that Newt was speaking of.


44 posted on 11/15/2011 7:51:43 AM PST by dforest
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To: xzins
"The "brilliant failure" derided as a "genius without judgment" turns out to be the man of hard earned wisdom with rock hard principles and the best judgment after all. The man once seen as "erratic" is suddenly recognized as the man whose bone-deep understanding of history, strategy and human nature gives him the steely ability to see over the horizon while all around him are essentially blind. And displays the supreme virtue of being unafraid to act."

Sounds right on to me.

45 posted on 11/15/2011 8:02:04 AM PST by matthew fuller ((1) fully fund defense, (2) transform entitlement programs, and (3) do not raise taxes!)
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To: dfwgator

Great points and I agree 100%.


46 posted on 11/15/2011 8:07:19 AM PST by SIDENET ("If that's your best, your best won't do." -Dee Snider)
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To: Lady Lucky
"Just read it, and it wouldn’t hurt to read up on Churchill either. Numerous excellent works on the subject..."

I just finished "The Second World War- The Gathering Storm V.1", and I know that there are five more volumes in that series, but I am interested in your reccomendation of a couple of the better bios on Churchill.

47 posted on 11/15/2011 8:10:01 AM PST by matthew fuller ((1) fully fund defense, (2) transform entitlement programs, and (3) do not raise taxes!)
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To: matthew fuller

If you haven’t seen it, you have to see “The Gathering Storm”, with Albert Finney as Churchill.


48 posted on 11/15/2011 8:18:46 AM PST by dfwgator (I stand with Herman Cain.)
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To: dfwgator

I’ll check it out, thanks.


49 posted on 11/15/2011 8:30:30 AM PST by matthew fuller ((1) fully fund defense, (2) transform entitlement programs, and (3) do not raise taxes!)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Hell no, newt thinks he is a fat. Little french man. What was that little fellows name. Married that young honky looking chick. Had something about a bone in his name. Maybe bone was a part of his name.


50 posted on 11/15/2011 8:31:01 AM PST by org.whodat (Just another heartless American, hated by "AMNESTY" Perry and his fellow demorats.)
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To: Colonel_Flagg

Are you sure? I heard he was quite the old rip! :)


51 posted on 11/15/2011 8:42:16 AM PST by luvie (This tagline reserved for a hero.......)
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To: Junior_G

“Winston by his own admission was indifferent to sex.

Sounds like the type of thing a man says when he’s in a lying mood.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Yep, I recall a business acquaintance who once told me that sex is not what marriage is about etc. This was the same man who had told me earlier about all the extramarital affairs he used to have on the road and said that those affairs probably saved his marriage and what his wife didn’t know didn’t hurt her. It’s easy to say how unimportant it is when you are either getting all you want or too old to want it. When you are young and frustrated it seems a LOT more important.
Of course the only thing the sex drive does is continue the existence of the species, not important at all.


52 posted on 11/15/2011 9:02:20 AM PST by RipSawyer (This does not end well!)
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To: MindBender26

How many times can we be fooled that Newt is a Conservative?

Yes, we are fools if he’s our nominee


53 posted on 11/15/2011 9:04:21 AM PST by not2worry
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To: xzins

Thank you so much for all this information, dear brother in Christ!


54 posted on 11/15/2011 9:08:54 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: xzins
OK, what is the take on his boinking his intern (now his wife) while he was still married?

Boinking his intern at the time he was Speaker of the House?

Boinking his intern the same time Clinton was in the Oval Office getting a Lewinsky?

He slept with the Teacher and married the Teacher.

I question the man's judgment.

55 posted on 11/15/2011 9:09:58 AM PST by not2worry
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To: not2worry

Newt Gingrich has a lifetime Conservative rating of 90 from the ACU !

You don’t want a conservative, you want a fascist!


56 posted on 11/15/2011 10:21:23 AM PST by MindBender26 (Forget AMEX. Remember your Glock 27: Never Leave Home Without It!)
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To: not2worry; Alamo-Girl; wagglebee; P-Marlowe; wmfights
I can explain as a counselor Gingrich's sexual inappropriateness, if you care to listen.

Here's some background:

While in high school, Gingrich began a relationship with his geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, who was seven years (or nine years, depending on who is talking) his senior. (According to Gingrich’s second wife, the relationship with Battley began when Gingrich was just 16.) They married in 1962, when Gingrich was 19.

We just threw a teacher in jail here in Ohio (Stacey Schuler) for the same thing that happened to 16 year old Newt Gingrich. Schuler got 4 years.

I watched one of the mothers in the Schuler case on TV. She was crying because she said the woman had injured her son in ways that wouldn't be known for years.

There is no good reason for a high school teacher to be carrying on in secret with a minor.

The Journal of Child Psychiatry noted that "there is a tendency among boy victims to recapitulate their own victimization, only this time with themselves in the role of perpetrator and someone else the victim."

Bill Watkins and Arnon Bentovim, "The Sexual Abuse of Male Children and Adolescents: A Review of Current Research," Journal of Child Psychiatry 33 (1992); in Byrgen Finkelman, Sexual Abuse (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995), p. 300.


57 posted on 11/15/2011 10:52:43 AM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! True Supporters of our Troops PRAY for their VICTORY!)
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To: xzins

Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!


58 posted on 11/15/2011 10:58:48 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Did Churchill have Newt’s load of baggage?


59 posted on 11/15/2011 11:41:50 AM PST by JimRed (Excising a cancer before it kills us waters the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)
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To: JimRed

Probably. Back then politicians and public figures did all sorts of things in their private lives that the general public didn’t know about. At that time the media protected them, and access to information was MUCH MUCH more limited than it is now.


60 posted on 11/15/2011 11:52:20 AM PST by St. Louis Conservative
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