Posted on 12/03/2011 10:22:20 AM PST by TBBT
Over the last couple of days, several well-regarded Republican pundits have taken it upon themselves to educate Republican primary voters about the many shortcomings of Newt Gingrich. As I read them, I was reminded of Abraham Lincoln's reaction to the series of military and political experts who warned him that Ulysses S. Grant was an overly ambitious, incompetent drunk. When these experts demanded Grant's removal after the then-unprecedented casualties at Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, Lincoln acknowledge Grant's shortcomings but responded, "I can't spare this man; he fights." Many of Grant's critics were enamored of George B. McClellan, a parade ground general who consistently overstated the strength of his Confederate opposition and who had long fancied himself the presidential frontrunner for 1864. The bottom line was that while McClellan considered himself the next Napoleon, it was apparent to Lincoln that it was Grant who actually had the rare 2 o'clock in the morning courage Napoleon himself so highly valued. In 1863, during Grant's siege of Vicksburg and amid his own growing unhappiness with the series of generals rotated through the leadership of the Army of the Potomac following McClellan's dismissal, Lincoln's reply to the incessant complaints of Grant's critics was even more pointed.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Over the last two years, I’ve had my fill of candidates being compared to other people. I wish folks would just give it a rest. Good grief!
A person rises and falls on their own merits, their own deeds or misdeeds.
While Newt probably isn’t being compared directly here, the comparison is nauseating.
Agreed.
So Newt is the new Grant? Seriously?
He will throw conservatives under the bus at the first opportunity that suits him. That said, so will Romney. At this point we will end up with one of them.
Newt also knows how to 'get the job done' when necessary...that's good. Would love to see him debate Obama and his teleprompter... That said, he needs to beef up on his conservatism - maybe chat with Palin...
Just a loose analogy...
Don’t blow a gasket....
Amnesty
Global warning
Individual mandate in obamacare
“Radical rightwing social engineering”, “era of reagan is over”
Fairness doctrine
Gun grabbing bills
Otherwise conservative /s
Newt: The Liberal Cause Sympathizer.
You miss the point - it's about following conventional "wisdom" and listening to naysayers just because they can cite some negatives. It blinds one to the positives. Newtt isn't my first choice, but it gets old hearing all the "uber-informed" reacting to every bit of drivel that comes down the pike.
I love that phrasing.
He could certainly stand to read Washington’s Rules of Civility.
If anyone should be compared to Grant it should be Cain. Cain is a consistent winner in everything he did. Even Grant couldn’t say that. The only thing Newt “Lets make a deal.” Gingrich is 100% competent at is feathering his own nest.
Looks like you’ve done what I should have. Good work. Over time I have watched Newt screw up more times than I can count. Each time I thought to myself, as a Constitutional scholar the guy comes off great. In the real world he comes off looking like a squirrel.
Too bad, but it’s true...
Like Churchill “Newt is a fighter of rare courage, and they value his consistent focus on American exceptionalism ...”
Newt even looks like Churchill. Both were historians and scholars. Both effective communicators and debaters in parliament/congress as for the general public. The bombastic Churchill, for a long time written off, was the perfect leader for his time, just as Newt may be ideal for ours.
Newt is like Grant only in that critics were proven wrong about making him general. He was a great general despite short comings. But, Grant is considered to have been a poor President. Let’s hope the analogy between Newt and Grant doesn’t go too far.
Maybe she's trying to tell us that Newt drinks.
Reagan had a way of making people feel that he was on our side and we were on his side.
Sorry, Newtonians, but Newt has a way of alienating people, of making us feel that his fight isn't quite our fight and our fight isn't his.
What are folks supposed to do, when a guy like Newt sticks his head up the Whack a Mole device, and starts delivering excellent message?
Yes Newt, we all know that you're a Constitutional scholar. We know that you can debate. We just wonder why all that doesn't translate to you coming down on the right side of issues, over and over and over again.
Then someone laments the fact that a lot of folks know Newt for what he is, and they pull Grant out of the history books to rehab Newt.
It's disrespectful of Grant to use his memory in this manner, and it's preposterous to infer that Newt will turn out to be a figure like Grant. No, he won't.
Newt has proven over and over again what he will be. He will be Newt, a guy whose head is not glued on squarely. He screws up over and over again.
While he does understand the Constitution in retrospect, he has no clue how to incorporate those tenets into his every day life. Retrospect fine..., day to day horrible.
Careful, mention of Lincoln may call forth the undead zombie John Wilkes Booth brigade ...
It's only a matter of time ...
I appreciate the mention, and don’t disagree on point, but after watching another candidate compared to a list of people as long as my arm this last year, I can’t sign on to these endless comparisons even for my own guy.
Cain is a good man. You and I both know, we don’t have to compare him to others. The other candidates should be compared to him, and if that causes folks to see the value in him that I do, they will support him.
Hope you understand.
God help America in this time of distress and deception and delusion, in Jesus name, amen.
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