Thomas Sowell: The Florida Smear Campaign

National Review Online ^ | January 31, 2012 | Thomas Sowell

[Flotsam_Jetsome]

The Republican establishment is pulling out all the stops to try to keep Newt Gingrich from becoming the party’s nominee for president of the United States — and some are not letting the facts get in their way.

Among the claims going out through the mass media in Florida, on the eve of that state’s primary election, is that Newt Gingrich “resigned in disgrace” as speaker of the House of Representatives as a result of unethical conduct involving the diversion of tax-exempt money. Mitt Romney is calling on Gingrich to release “all of the records” from the congressional investigation. But the Wall Street Journal of January 28, 2012, reported that these records — 1,280 pages of them — are already publicly available online. Although Speaker Gingrich decided not to take on the task of fighting the charge from his political enemies in 1997, the Internal Revenue Service conducted its own investigation which, two years later, exonerated Gingrich from the charges. His resignation was not due to those charges and occurred much later.

Do the Romney camp and the Republican establishment not know this, a dozen years later? Or are they far less concerned with whether the charges will stand up than they are about smearing Gingrich on the eve of the Florida primaries?

[Flotsam_Jetsome]

"I’m absolutely disgusted with the way Mitt Romney is conducting his campaign. I’ve stated on this forum more than a few times that although my preference for the nominee is Newt Gingrich, I would vote for whoever the Republican candidate is. I find myself having to rethink that position."

This was stated pretty well earlier by another poster: "The GOP has done a very good job of setting up a liberal for November. I’ll vote for the one who can only serve one term."

I already voted for Newt in the AZ primary via absentee ballot. I've up to this point been an ABO guy for the general election. Now I'm finding myself. . . uncommitted.

[AnTiw1]

Romney is a puppet with lds strings. I would vote for Obama before voting for a shadow government based in the mormon temple.

[Gene Eric]

ping

[hoosiermama]

Mocked? as in: RedMDer created it Feel free to spam the net with it.