Posted on 12/14/2011 9:00:49 AM PST by Qbert
Newt Gingrich — the friend of his detractors, to whom he offers serial vindications — provided on Monday redundant evidence for the proposition that he is the least conservative candidate seeking the Republican presidential nomination: He faulted Mitt Romney for committing acts of capitalism.
Gingrich did so when goaded by Romney regarding his, Gingrich’s, self-described service as a “historian” for Freddie Mac, which paid him more handsomely than anyone paid Herodotus. Romney was asked by an interviewer about the $1.6 million Gingrich earned, or at any rate received, from Freddie Mac, the misbegotten government-backed mortgage giant. In the service of Washington’s bipartisan certitude that too few people owned houses, Freddie Mac helped produce the housing bubble and subsequent crash. It did so even though it paid Gingrich $30,000 an hour. That is about what he received if, as he says, he worked for Freddie Mac about an hour a month, telling it that what it was doing was “insane.”
Anyway, Romney’s interviewer mischievously asked him if he thought Gingrich should “give that money back” to Freddie Mac. Romney said, “I sure do.”
Soon thereafter, Gingrich, when asked about Romney’s cheeky judgment, replied: “I would just say that if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain Capital, that I would be glad to listen to him.”
[Snip]
Gingrich is reusing the attack honed by Ted Kennedy in 1994, when Romney suffered a 17-point loss in attempting to take Kennedy’s Senate seat.
[Snip]
Romney surely anticipated that such an attack would come — but from Democrats, in the general election, not from a volatile Republican. He now understands Rep. Paul Ryan’s response when Gingrich attacked his entitlement reform as “right-wing social engineering.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I am sure all of these talkingheads are counting on their regular loyal audience to swallow all they are saying about Newt but the extreme statements they are making in order to prop their guys up discredit them now and hurt their credibility into the future. They just don’t realize it yet. They just never counted on Newt pulling ahead and now they are hysterical and going off the deep end with many of their statements.
And since then he has acted like a pig.
The Albany (NY) Times Union carries him. It is a newspaper that often shops for its liberal/progressive news reports when it finds the New York Times articles taking a extremely conservative viewpoint.
The editor and the director of the local NPR station join together to do a daisy chain of liberal news analysis on radio and public TV.
And since then he has acted like a pig.
"The beltway elites can’t put Romney in the lead again. Watch how crazy they get."
My question is, if their guy doesn't get the nom, will they faithfully embrace the Republican nominee... or will they revert to their secretive backstabbing techniques (so that they can have their dream ticket of Jeb/Christie in 2016)?
To paraphrase the Godfather: 'Keep your friends close, and your frenemies closer"...
Personally, I don't think there will be all that much difference in the governance style of Newt versus Mitt.
But we'll get better rhetoric from Newt.
I'm still hoping for a brokered convention and a real conservative alternative to ride in to the rescue.
I wish George Will would attack Obama with the same enthusiasm that he uses against Repubs. Instead he joins in the completely destructive Repub civil war, where the apparent goal is to render all our candidates unelectable.
He hasn’t held public office since then.
That’s why many backed Grover Cleveland in 1884: they said they loved him for the enemies he had made.
Except for those who want another reason to bash him, there's nothing wrong with Newt tongue-in-cheek retort, which included a "$10 bet," to Romney's foolishly taking the press bait.
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