Goldberg: Gingrich the compassionate

Los Angeles Times ^ | December 6, 2011 | Jonah Goldberg

[Cincinatus' Wife]

What his critics don't — or refuse to — understand about him is that he's not driven by a lack of empathy but by a surplus of it.

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.....Gingrich probably agrees with the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan more than any other leading conservative. "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society," Moynihan observed. "The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." A constant theme of Gingrich's career is a desire to use government to fix the culture.

That's the irony of the Gingrich surge. All of these Republican voters who once supported Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain, and are now flocking to Gingrich, seem not to have noticed Gingrich's progressive bent.

The primary season began with a race to see how much of the government we could send back to the states. We're now in the phase in which the Republican front-runner is proposing janitorial reform in the schools.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

2007: John Kerry, Newt Gingrich Take On Environment, Each Other…..Gingrich raised some discrepancies among the science that has led to the current data on climate change, but when asked pointedly about science doubters, like Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., Gingrich strongly held the case that climate change is a problem.

"What would you say to Sen. Inhofe and others in the Senate who are resisting even science? What's your message to them here today?" Kerry asked.

"My message, I think is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading in the atmosphere —"

And do it urgently, now?" Kerry interrupted.

"Urgently, yes," Gingrich said.

But Gingrich also said that up to now, conservatives have been slow to loathe with environmental policy because, he said, "For most of the last 30 years, the environment has a been a powerful emotional tool for bigger government and higher taxes. And therefore if you're a conservative, if you hear these arguments, you know what's coming next."

"So even though it might be the right thing to do, you might end up fighting it because you don't want the bigger government and the higher taxes."

Gingrich said there must be a "green conservatism."

Dec 2011: Gingrich on Cap-and-Trade “At the forum hosted tonight by Fox News host Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich said this about cap-and-trade:

”But if you notice, I never favored cap-and-trade. I – in fact, I actively testified against it. I was at the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee the same day Al Gore was there to testify for it. I testified against it. And through American Solutions we actively fought it in the Senate, and I think we played a major role in defeating it. “

Both the Perry and Paul campaigns e-mailed media this quote from Gingrich in 2007 on PBS after he made the claim that he had “never favored cap-and-trade”: “I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.”

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A "master debater" can switch sides in mid-sentence and never miss a beat.

[Texas Fossil]

"The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society"

Nope, it is moral values that are the foundation of a society. And that is not a new concept.

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Adversity employs great talents; prosperity renders them useless and carries the inept, the corrupted wealthy and the wicked to the top

May they bear in mind that virtue often contains the seeds of tyranny

May they bear in mind that it is neither gold nor even a multitude of arms that sustains a state but its morals

May each of them keep in his house, in a corner of this field, next to his workbench, next to his plow, his gun, his sword, and his bayonet

May they all be soldiers

May they bear in mind that in circumstances where deliberation is possible, the advice of old men is good but that in moments of crisis youth is generally better informed that its elders

Denis Diderot

Apostrophe to the Insurgents, 1782

[Texas Fossil]

I am not a fan of Newt, still think he is on the wrong team.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Until voters can see past style and focus on substance instead, they’re setting us up for failure.

[Cincinatus]

Gingrich suggested in a speech that perhaps the best way to break the cycle of poverty in inner cities is to break the culture of poverty that sustains it by, among other things, paying kids to do janitorial work.

Wasn't there some GOP candidate who made some derogatory remarks about "right-wing social engineering"? Who was that again? His name has slipped my mind.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

That would be the same guy Rush used as a springboard for one of his monologues:

“GINGRICH: I think the brokered convention would pick one of the people who had filed for president, but I think the process, after all, it was... You know, Abraham Lincoln was running third and won the convention. He didn’t come in first on the first ballot, and so, I think there’s nothing unhealthy about the Republican Party having a serious discussion. We are at the end of the George W. Bush era. We are at the end of the Reagan era. We’re at a point in time when we’re about to start redefining — as a number of people started talking about, starting to redefine — the nature of the Republican Party, in response to what the country needs......

RUSH:....”If conservatism is dead, and if the Reagan era is dead, then I assume that this means the Declaration of Independence is dead as well, that the era of the Declaration has come and gone. Now, what we actually have going on now are people posing as serious thinkers (a common thread in all of this, folks) that conservatism is dead. By the way, that’s what the Reagan coalition is, after all. The major elements of conservatism combined into a political movement, is what Reaganism was and of course they’re now saying, “That era is gone. We need to replace it with something else.” (sigh)”....

[samtheman]

Wasn't there some GOP candidate who made some derogatory remarks about "right-wing social engineering"? Who was that again? His name has slipped my mind.

Wasn't there some GOP candidate you used to positively support before you switched gears and now spend all your time attacking Gingrich? What was that candidate's name? I think it was, ummmm, wait, I know it, just give me a minute here, hmmm, I can't, his name, I can't.... oops.

[Cincinatus]

Wasn't there some GOP candidate you used to positively support before you switched gears and now spend all your time attacking Gingrich?

No. You're thinking of my wife. I have announced my support for no candidate as yet. But you are as well informed as many on this board, that being, not at all.

[dirtboy]

You’re citing Jonah Goldberg, known Romney pimp? No thanks. And that is from someone who would prefer Perry to Gingrich - but I don’t care to listen to someone who is trying to sell me an even bigger pig in a poke than the one they are bashing.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Hi dirtboy.

Can’t explain it away so you attack Jonah and me.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Dec 6, 2011: Anti-Washington Perry Heading to Capitol Hill

“Look, I am not an establishment figure, never have been and frankly I don’t want to be. I dislike Washington; I think it’s a seedy place.” —Gov. Rick Perry (Laura Ingraham Show - Aug 2011)

Perry: Uproot and Overhaul Washington

Gov. Perry is back in double digits in Iowa.

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“We are fed up with being overtaxed and overregulated. We are tired of being told how much salt we can put on our food, what windows we can buy for our house, what kinds of cars we can drive, what kinds of guns we can own, what kinds of prayers we are allowed to say and where we can say them, what political speech we are allowed to use to elect candidates, what kind of energy we can use, what kind of food we can grow, what doctor we can see, and countless other restrictions on our right to live as we see fit.” -- Rick Perry, "Fed Up!"

[dirtboy]

Can’t explain it away so you attack Jonah and me.

So you deny Jonah is a Romney pimp?

Like I said, I don't look to a Romney pimp for reasons to dislike Gingrich.

And Perry is still failing to get any traction. That must chafe you big-time. I think that is the only thing I have enjoyed about Gingrich rising to the top is futility of frantic efforts by hacks like you to drag him back down to single digit land where Perry has been hanging out for a couple of months.

And once again, I would be inclined to pick Perry over Newt at this point, as Perry at least has shown he understands the 10th Amendment. But your methods still reek and sure as heck don't improve Perry's standing. You're a rank hypocrite - you piously promote Reagan's 11th Commandment on Perry threads as you bash other candidates elsewhere. And that reflects badly on Perry as well as on you.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

You really don’t like me. I get it.

[dirtboy]

I don't like hypocrites. And you are one with a capital 'H'.

You should either promote Perry and encourage positive comments about candidates and refrain from attacking other candidates, or just fess up that you are a hack and not try to invoke the 11th Commandment on Perry threads as you muck the stalls of the MSM and RINOland to dig up dirt on other candidates.

But instead, you try to have it both ways. It's toxic.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Who died and made you poster critic king?

A hack?

Was I a hack when I posted threads for Sarah Palin?

Now I support Perry. I also have an educated opinion on the other GOP primary candidates and I WILL express it.

I haven’t been posting FR for the last 13+ years to sit back and watch “style over substance” nitwits put a RINO in the White House!!

[GOPJ]

It was Gingrich who pushed through welfare reform... he understands ideas have consequences. Understanding reality works for me....

[dirtboy]

Who died and made you poster critic king?

I'm hardly the only one who has noticed.

A hack?

Yeah, a hack. You turn into one every presidential primary cycle. Last time out, it got you the boot for being a Rudybot. So we know your core principles aren't terribly deep.

Was I a hack when I posted threads for Sarah Palin?

If Palin was in the race, you'd probably be bashing her as well if she was ahead of Perry. Of course, given Perry's poor standing in the polls, bashing anyone who is ahead of Perry means you will bash just about the entire field.

Now I support Perry. I also have an educated opinion on the other GOP primary candidates and I WILL express it.

And like I said, if you do that, please spare us any references to the 11th Commandment on your Perry threads. It completely perverts the concept.

I haven’t been posting FR for the last 13+ years to sit back and watch “style over substance” nitwits put a RINO in the White House!!

Har. You were pimping the uber-RINO last time. You just want YOUR RINO to be put into place now.

And Perry is something of a RINO, at this point it's just a matter of who sucks the least among who is left. To me, it's Perry by a nose. But surely not because of anything you have said or posted. If anything, your two-faced attacks on Newt make me more inclined to support him.

[achilles2000]

Perry has made a few - and they are only a few - bad decisions in his many years as governor, but he is far more conservative than Newt. I would also suggest that he would be a better President than Governor because is genuinely is committed to an expansive concept of federalism.

I will support Newt if I have to, but Perry is better by more than a nose. Unfortunately, I don’t think the primary voters are serious enough to look hard at substance. My guess now is that it will be Newt, but I’d be happy with anyone but Mittens or Huntsman.

[dirtboy]

I would also suggest that he would be a better President than Governor because is genuinely is committed to an expansive concept of federalism.

I lean very slightly towards Perry for that exact reason - he does understand the 10th, something I don't get from Newt.

The problem with Perry is that he doesn't seem to understand the nature of a presidential campaign. His heartless comment was a completely unforced error. He could have simply said that a vast majority of Texans wanted in-state tuition for children of illegals, he went along with their wishes, but he would re-examine the issue if he were president from that particular viewpoint.

But he didn't. And it shot down his chance to allay concerns about his views on illegal immigration.

So I have to look at both the positions of the candidates and the ability of the candidates to articulate those positions in the setting of a presidential campaign. And Perry has not done well at all in the latter category.