The American Spectator

Red Phillips| 10.26.09 @ 6:23PM

"a great conceptualizer"

The problem, Quin, is that he conceptualizes things wrongly. He is a neocons through and through. Always has been. Always will be. The base is angry and moving beyond neocon formulations. They want pure unadulterated conservatism. They don't want to hear about Tofler. They want to hear about Jefferson.

dad29| 10.26.09 @ 6:30PM

Heaven help us, Newtie is thinking of "saving the Party" by running for President.

He's gone Narcissist I.

Ken (Old Texican)| 10.26.09 @ 6:57PM

Ignore Red
He is a liar, and a coward.

Newt has gazillions of ideas...most good...some not so good.
Anybody here ever make a bad call?

Does everyone here understand the exact definition of an "anti-neocon"?
Ladies and gentlemen, an "anti-neocon" is a NAZI and a jew hater....period paragraph!!!!!

As a Christian, I am a "jew", adopted by Jesus Christ. The Bible says every Christian is a jew by adoption.
Everything else is NAZI propaganda.

NOW, having cleared that up once and for all, (right, smile)
I think Newt is frightened that a third party "movement" will only insure communism in our country via the ballot box.

I think Hoffman would want to be a Republican, voting for us. The Republican stupids repudiated him.
Screw 'em.

Americannodash| 10.26.09 @ 7:06PM

For the most part, Conservtives don't need to stick a finger in the air to see which direction the wind is blowing. Newt Gingrich has shown these tendencies since losing his House Speaker job. He appears to have taken up many schemes such as global warming pandering when the cartography suits him. If he is a beliver of this hoax, he is finished as a true conservative. No recovery will be entertained from us while he is still sitting on the couch with Pelosi. He should have pressed for a fair & balance forum instead of siding with the misguided & truly misinformed people heading this climate change cult. Al Gore along w/ Obama are a cancer on American economic growth and if passage of C&T occurs -- this will also be a part of the Gingrich legacy. Could Gingich have stopped them long ago? I say yes, but as it seems to most of us out here in flyover country that was never his goal. Write another book Newt ---- because your leaderSHIP credentials for the conservative movement to me has lost it way due the the winds that an unfurled windsock usually show. Keep putting that finger in the air Newt, I just hope it isn't the middle one.

BTW, Reagan stuck to his princples and the people of America came to him. Twice!

Who knows, maybe this is your chance to become all those things you've written about on your TWITTER BIO: Paleontologist, Chef, Zoo director and movie reviewer. so ...

John - TMF| 10.26.09 @ 7:36PM

Gingrich suffers the same emotional and informational warping that many others in the Power elite of the GOP suffer.

Newt believes:

1. The GOP lost 2006 and 2008 because it lost the "middle". This is false. There is no middle. The GOP Establishment IS the middle. The GOP lost in 2006 and 2008 because it lost the Right, and barely hung on to the middle (ITSELF) because so much of the GOP establishment was enthrall of or completely frightened by the ethos of The One.

2. Newt bites off on the George Bush was unpopular because he was a poor communicator, unsophisticated... got mired in the war and should have run away... etc... This is false. Bush would have always been reviled and hated for any and every particular reason by the Left and those toadies who do what the Left tells them to believe.

Where Bush lost his popularity was on the RIGHT... If he had backed a stepped immigration reform that depended on controlling the borders and enforcing the law FIRST... he would have had at least a 10-12 point polling cushion from is tiny numbers.

If he hadn't screwed around in Iraq, hamstrung by the Lefties in the State Department, and gone for the "surge" in 2003-2004 he would have been in much better shape by 2007.

If he hadn't rammed that Medicare Drug benefit down everyone's throat, he might have had more political capital to actually do something to FIX social security and maybe even mop up the mess that was obviously festering on Wall Street.

In sort, and I repeat... There is no middle. Newt is wrong. He has been grindingly wrong on several issues (including the GREENIE DOOBER) for a while. I'm with Ken on this one.

Scozzafava is a Democrat, running as a Republican, and IF she actually won, would prove to be a complete waste of time, money, and political capital, because she would vote with the Democrats on virtually everything.

Newt isn't the enemy of all things holy and Right.. Newt is just wrong, and being too smart by a quarter on this one. Scozzi's R is worthless in the grander scheme of 2010 reality.

r/The Mighty Fahvaag

Red Phillips| 10.26.09 @ 8:17PM

Ken, I'm a liar? And a coward? How nice and Christian of you.

I assume you are a pre-mil dispensationalist and that is where you are coming from. I'm sure you are aware that that belief is not uniformly accepted by sincere, orthodox (small o) Christians, and is in fact only about 150 years old, a real newcomer theologically speaking. It seems rather short sighted to me to base foreign policy on a relatively new speculative theological system that not all sincere Bible-believing Christians accept.

But what is with you and name calling? I'm a liar and all anti-neocons are Jew haters? Can't you make a rational argument without resorting to invective like a good little Marxist?

Mary Louise| 10.26.09 @ 8:40PM

On the other thread I didn't write my comments with a hard heart against Newt.

I did write that it's easy (at least for me) to forget the good that he did, and while I wasn't clear about it at all, I didn't mean that as a plus. I think you should remember the good that people do.

SoCon| 10.26.09 @ 10:18PM

Mary Louise, Newt is not "People" he's a politician, and honestly, I don't give a FIG (Newton, ha!) about the good things the little cherub did for us in the past. The Hoffman debacle is a disaster for him.

I've been suspicious of Newt since I saw him in that ad with Nancy Pelousy. Thanks but no thanks, Newt.

I guess I'm just not as nice a person as you, ML. :)

Mary Louise| 10.27.09 @ 12:53AM

You're as nice as me SoCon; just spunkier.

I'm worried and here's why; if Hoffman and similar candidates win, no problem. If they lose and the seats go to dems/libs they go to them for a generation. And now you're shut out altogether, and any good people you have won't be able to get in.

No guts, no glory, I do know that. And the thing is if people are going to try to reclaim influence over their own lives, why wait? Waiting could be the most dangerous thing of all.

Newt's going for obedience/10th Amendment argument w/Scozzafava. The problem is you have to respect your party to hand over that kind of individual power.

I'll try to lighten up.

Mama Mia: heap, big trouble!

Mary Louise| 10.27.09 @ 12:53AM

You're as nice as me SoCon; just spunkier.

I'm worried and here's why; if Hoffman and similar candidates win, no problem. If they lose and the seats go to dems/libs they go to them for a generation. And now you're shut out altogether, and any good people you have won't be able to get in.

No guts, no glory, I do know that. And the thing is if people are going to try to reclaim influence over their own lives, why wait? Waiting could be the most dangerous thing of all.

Newt's going for obedience/10th Amendment argument w/Scozzafava. The problem is you have to respect your party to hand over that kind of individual power.

I'll try to lighten up.

Mama Mia: heap, big trouble!

Mary Louise| 10.27.09 @ 12:54AM

Have to correct, should be Mamma!

Eric Damon| 10.27.09 @ 10:06AM

Mary Louise,

You have to realize that this district is already left leaning, as the congress member being replaced was a Republican who got an appointment in the Obama administration. Scozzafava is the spiritual heir to that position, but Hoffman could be the beginning of a conservative revival there. And what would be the difference between Scozzafava and the Democratic candidate on the big issues? Heck, her husband was pimping her out to the Democrats just in case the GOP nomination went elsewhere!

As for Newt, he sold out long before the Nancy Pelosi couch commericial; I haven't had a lot of respect for Newt since he became Speaker. He campaigned on his Contract With America, and convinced people that if the GOP could get control of the House and if he became Speaker, he would fight to enact the ideas in the Contract. But what he did was get many of the legislative ideas a single vote on the floor, and as soon as he did that he announced that he had done what he promised and moved on to gathering power for himself. When he did that, he lost all conservative credibility with me, because I judge him not on what he says, but what he does. Ideas are great, but actions count...and Newt's actions don't nearly match his rhetoric.

SoCon| 10.27.09 @ 6:49PM

Eric, I've read this district leans conservative because it draws from rural/farming folks. I heard just the opposite of what you wrote.

Bob Belvedere| 10.26.09 @ 9:26PM

One might say that Newt is the James Otis of the conservative revival. In 1993 and 1994, he led the conservative charge to retake control of the Congress, and he won. But like Founder Otis, he went full-on mad shortly thereafter. Mr. Otis was a brilliant thinker and speaker who fought British tyrannies in the 1760's with strength and vigor, but his eccentricities were well under control. At some point however, they came to the forefront as did his ego, and he went mad. The same has happened to Newt. This kind of thing happens to the best of us.

Also, Newt had his moment in the Sun and has exhausted himself. Time to make way for the new generation.

Thank you Mr. Gingrich for your service in the early 1990's; you served your country well. But now, you have stayed too long on the scene and you have let your ego become monstrous in size and in effect. For the love of God, go!

Ran / Si Vis Pacem| 10.26.09 @ 11:10PM

Bob B, I hear you. I too miss the big '93 Newt V8. Perhaps, though, Mr. Hillyer is right: Newt is really mis-interpreting the Zeitgeist. I'm inclined to hope that he's still adaptable. Libertarians have earned huge successes in the marketplace of ideas, at the expense of RINOs and statist liberals in general. RET has mentioned the importance of Libertarian-Conservatism. I'm thinking Newt may yet join the fray, do a little atonement. I hope.

Bob Belvedere| 10.27.09 @ 9:52AM

Ran, I wish I could hold out hope that you're right, that our Sam Adams would return. Sadly, Newt, I think, has gotten too full of himself and like James Otis, there will be no return to 'sanity'. I am, you see, a conservative and a pessimist -- actually that's redundant [see John Derbyshire's We Are Doomed: Reviving Conservative Pessimism].

Daisy| 10.27.09 @ 6:51PM

Ran, you're Si Vis Pacem? No wonder I liked Pacem's comments so much--they were yours!!

J. Davis| 10.26.09 @ 11:12PM

I really admire the clarification Quin. Classy.

TennesseeVolunteer| 10.27.09 @ 7:06AM

What is happening is that we, the great unwashed, are defining the terms and limits that we will support in our leaders. If Newt is smart, he'll hear us loud and clear.
We have to educate our leaders sometimes. It is a good thing and we are blessed to have the internet to do it. Newt isn't always wrong and we are not always right. But on this one, there can be no middle ground. When he understands that, he'll move over.

Tim| 10.27.09 @ 11:33AM

Sorry to hear about Newt's hurt feelings, hope he wasn't too hard on you. I remember that AMSPEC was the last site Arlen Specter granted an interview to before he jumped ship. I like to think that we virulent posters and our scorn for him were the last straw.
Mr. Gingrich we do not owe you an apology. AMSPEC only taps into what is already out there, and I for one have had my doubts about you since you took to the couch with Nancy Pelosi to shill for Global Warming. You want our respect, you can start by endorsing Doug Hoffman.