Gingrich: The phony intellectual

washingtonpost.com ^ | 11/17/2011 | Jennifer Rubin

[Carry_Okie]

From the RINO RNC perspective, Newt's job is to be the anti-Cain such that Hermann can't develop sufficient steam to have a majority of delegates over Romney before the convention, where they believe they can "fix" it.

See tag line.

[Reagan Man]

Newt has always been a knowledgeable and energized speaker. He's also an arrogant and ugly pinhead with questionable core values.

Conservatives can do better.

[Hunton Peck]

Newt knows that government is too big and intrusive, and he has ideas for hundreds of government programs to fix that.

[Rennes Templar]

“We are in real trouble.’

Your’s a glass half-empty sort. As Rush said yesterday, and I totally agree, ALL of the candidates have something of value to offer, and any of them would turn around our country from its current course of destruction.

[Notary Sojac]

"Conservatives can do better."

I'm supporting Newt and I happen to agree with you on that.

Unfortunately, DeMint, Jindal, Barbour, Daniels, Ryan, Palin, and Rubio are not running.

[jobim]

Why can't you put a disclaimer in the title so that you distance yourself as a Conservative from the ENEMY MEDIA?

Gingrich: The phony intellectual [WashPo thinks only Libs can be intellectuals of course]

[Reagan Man]

If we conservatives want to beat Obama, we’ll have to do better than Newt.

Redux 2008, anyone? LOL

[Lazamataz]

WTF. This is not breaking news.

[wardaddy]

If you and others are gonna attack Newt now with Breaking News attacks like you did against Bachmann, Perry and anyone else who has traction instead of your chosen candidate...Palin..all for naught or now Cain...again likely for naught

then by all means ask your buds to put Newt in as a keyword

all we still have is Palin this and that as keywords and she didn't even run

Cain never got a keyword either

Imagine Breaking News bashing Palin...Fresno woulda zotted yer butt to the moon in a nanosecond

if We are to become a Cain only board I'd like to know cause right now it's odds Newt or Mitt and Cain trailing and the rest done for...and primaries are close...is FR gonna join the media to attack Newt and get Mitt nominated unintentionally?

if I ran a thread claiming Cain is a fake...do you really think the mods would leave it up

all this zotting and fighting is not going amongst a few hundred folks is not going to do anything but create hard feelings

we may have a DFU or buckhead moment but that is about the extent of our influence

but once...we did have some influence

[AndrewC]

Yeah, something doesn’t quite smell right about Gingrich.

"Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien(The perfect is the enemy of the good.)"

We're gonna lose.

[wardaddy]

Hear Hear.

My faith restored...thanks AM!

[federal__reserve]

I hope and pray you are right. However Newt has made many turns in his career, so one never knows which Newt will show up.

[dirtboy]

I see plenty of Cain bashing on FR.

All of the candidates have flaws, that is a given.

The question we all have to ask, how would those flaws translate into actions of the candidate if they were to become President?

In Newt's case, I see someone who is deeply entrenched in the Beltway mindset, more so than any other GOP candidate.

And someone who apparently doesn't even consider the 10th Amendment when proposing some new federal program.

I think Newt could beat Obama's fanny in debates, more so than any other candidate in the race - that is a given.

But how well will he run while carrying all of his years of baggage? His history to me shows a man who cannot control his appetites or his instincts. One thing I always felt about Reagan was that he was a very disciplined man. I get no such sense from Newt.

To me, outside of the RINO twins of Romney and Huntsman and the moonbat candidacy of RuPaul, Newt is the hardest sell - just because has, over the last 15 years, popped up continually shilling for DC to have more influence, at a time when we need someone who truly believes DC needs less.

[federal__reserve]

I have zero hard feelings against those who bashed Cain and Palin and Bachmann, my preferred candidates. I am old and mature and I know we are in the primary season, and vetting is a natural part of the process.

In 2008, McCain was last on my list, yet I voted for him.
In 2012, I am going t vote for the nominee, even if he is on the bottom of my list.

[Hunton Peck]

My point is to poke a little fun at Newt. He’s by nature a tinkerer and a meddler, not the sort of person who understands the concept of limited government.

I think he’d be a lousy president — but that’s a completely abstract thought as he’d be an even worse nominee.

[federal__reserve]

This thread was moved there, and not by me.

[federal__reserve]

Point well taken.

[C210N]

yeah, that’s the plan..the white knight will destroy Romney, right?

mitt seems to have reached a ceiling of 20-30%, and the other 70-80% shifts from one candidate to another, shopping a bit, saying "hmmmm..." and then saying "no, I think I'll go with the other one". What this all could lead to is a contentious convention where no candidate is chosen on the first ballot. Many delegates are released from their vote after some number of ballots (I presume it varies, 3? 5? x?), whence they can vote for anybody, including beyond the current bunch now on primary ballots. Should be an interesting time if there is no one guy standing... but, of course, not a single vote has been cast YET, and no delegates are yet chosen.

[federal__reserve]

Ding..Ding..Ding..Ding

You nailed it!

[x]

Kind of a given, isn't it?

Newt is much more of a talker -- a big talker -- than a deep thinker.

Surely nobody needed Jennifer Rubin and the Washington Post (or Andrew Ferguson and the Weekly Standard) to tell us that.

Sorry, Newtonians and Harry Turtledove, but the writers of counterfactual history novels are not serious intellectuals almost by definition (If that excludes MacKinlay Kantor and Winston Churchill from serious intellectualism so much the worse for them).

What I would have liked to see was an analysis in 2007 or 2008 of just how seriously intellectual Barack Obama was.