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The Spectacle Blog
As for yesterday’s debate: I think Newt Gingrich made a fatal error by appearing to patronize Michele Bachmann. This clearly angered Michele, and last night, she exacted revenge. Let’s go, as they used to say, to the videotape (or at least the transcript).
The issue was abortion. Bachmann was railing against Newt for supposedly refusing to defund Planned Parenthood when he was Speaker of the House of Representatives back in the 1990s.
Worse yet, she charged, Newt had pledged to “campaign for Republicans who are in support of the barbaric procedure known as partial-birth abortion. I could never do that,” Bachmann said. “I will be 100 percent pro-life from conception until natural death.”
This is beyond “hardball politics.” This is called “destroy your opponent” politics. Bachmann ought to be ashamed of herself for suggesting that Newt’s position on abortion is no different from extreme left-wing Democrats such as Barack Obama or Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
In fact, as Newt himself tried to explain, he had a “98.5 percent right-to-life voting record” during his 20 years in the Congress.
Gingrich said he did disagree with some (but not all) pro-life advocates on the initial Welfare reform bill. He supported it; they opposed it. But Welfare reform, he continued, had nothing to do with abortion. “I think my position [on life] has been very clear and very consistent.”
Now, if that was all Gingrich had said, he probably wouldn’t have a problem. He began his statement, though, with this comment: “Sometimes Congressman Bachmann doesn’t get her facts very accurate.”
This wasn’t the first time Newt had said this of Bachmann; and his professorial condescension toward her clearly has gotten under Bachmann’s skin.
“Can I have a rebuttal for getting my facts wrong?” she asked the debate moderator, Chris Wallace. “Because this isn’t just once.”
I think it’s outrageous to continue to say, over and over through the debates, that I don’t have my facts right when, as a matter of fact, I do.
I’m a serious candidate for president of the United States, and my facts are accurate [emphasis added].
Speaker Gingrich said that he would actively support and campaign for Republicans who got behind the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion. This is not a small issue. This is a big issue. And I think George Will was right when he asked that question: What virtue is there in tolerating infanticide?
Whoa. It’s one thing to charge Newt with being insufficiently bold and aggressive in defense of life. It’s another thing altogether, though, to charge him with “tolerating infanticide.” The Speaker’s record simply doesn’t support that vicious and vitriolic accusation, and shame on Bachmann for suggesting otherwise.
It is true that Newt said he would campaign for some “pro-choice” Republicans. However, as he pointed out in the debate, this is a pragmatic concession to political reality, not a statement of conviction or belief about life.
“What I said on that particular issue,” he explained, “is: I wouldn’t go out and try to purge Republicans. I don’t see how you’re gonna govern the country if you’re gonna run around and decide who you’re gonna purge.
The fact is, twice when I was speaker, we moved to end partial-birth abortion. Clinton vetoed it. We worked very hard… I have consistently opposed partial-birth abortion.
In fact, I would like to see us go much further than that and eliminate abortions as a choice. And I’ve said as president, I would defund Planned Parenthood and shift the money to pay for adoption services to give young women a choice of life rather than death.
I think that Newt is substantively right. The facts, it seems to me, clearly support his contention that he is deeply pro-life. However, as a purely political matter, I think it’s undeniably true that Bachmann bloodied Gingrich and got the better of this exchange.
View all comments (19) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by John R. Guardiano
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/12/16/how-bachmann-bloodied-newt
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JimH| 12.16.11 @ 9:15AM
And so Michelle's campaign to be Mitt's VP begins.
Bumr50| 12.16.11 @ 9:33AM
PolitiFact just made Bachmann out for the increasingly vindictive fool that she's turning into.
http://www.politifact.com/trut.....-and-said/
Only Republican's unhappy with Newt's surge view this as a victory for Angry Shelle. The rest of us are sick of false attacks to score political points.
Ryan| 12.16.11 @ 9:50AM
I wouldn't say "fool," because she's been very good at being a gadfly in Congress, but that's where she fits best.
She's had a lot of major factual errors in her Presidential run.
kingsmill| 12.16.11 @ 9:37AM
Bachmann's attempts to play Hillary and paint Newt as Rick Lazio have diminished her. She has made herself an unserious candidate.
Derek Wain| 12.16.11 @ 9:48AM
Guardino should get his facts right. At the time that this issue arose, at least one of the Republicans Gingrich supported and campaigned for did accept partial birth abortion. Gingrich was aware of this at the time.
"Bachmann ought to be ashamed of herself for suggesting that Newt's position on abortion is no different from extreme left-wing Democrats such as Barack Obama or Debbie Wasserman Schultz."
That is a fabrication by Guardino. MB never mentioned any of those left-wing Democrats.
Bachmann was substantively right. Guardino is trying too hard to defend Gingrich on this issue.
Gingrich's reference to his voting record is irrelevant to MB specific, concrete charge, which was accurate. She did not refer to his "voting record."
Ryan| 12.16.11 @ 9:55AM
Bachmann overstated the matter, plain and simple. Newt supported ONE candidate who held that position. If it was a matter of habit, she should list off the people he supported.
Dai Alanye | 12.16.11 @ 10:54AM
Overstatement is too weak a word for Bachmann's rant-- distortion is what she's up to. I'm no supporter of The Newt, but Bachmann has started to sound looney. As her numbers fall she has gone more and more negative, to no good effect.
Greta| 12.17.11 @ 12:35AM
Bachman looked like a petty puny whining fool with this attack. You will never have a national political party pure on every issue, even one like partial birth abortion. Who would bachman have campaigned for in those races, the democrat or a third party thus again the democrat? If you do not have them on this issue, again important, you do not have them at all for other issues with the democrat. It could have been the difference of holding the house or the senate where losing hurts the cause in general. And you can always hope that when the person is elected, that they can be convinced or pursuaded to cast their vote to end partial birth by the party. That would not happen if seat lost to the democrats on purity issues. Now if there was a viable pro live republican with an honest shot at winning, this issue has more merit, but that was not the case.
John Guardiano | 12.17.11 @ 12:20PM
Mr. Wain,
There is no Guardino. I am a GuardiAno! ("Guardian" as in "Guardian angle" with an "o" at the end.
Thanks!
John
W| 12.16.11 @ 10:16AM
Bachman is a loose cannon with her charges and will not be the nominee or the VP selection. She has a limited but strong following like Ron Paul, and would not add to any ticket. She will drive away voters in a general election especially once the media and Obama focus on her husband's therapy practice of "curing" homosexuals. She is a terrific congresswoman and bombthrower in the House, but not a national candidate.
Margie| 12.16.11 @ 12:57PM
.."her husband's therapy practice of "curing" homosexuals."
Wow. He does that? That is wonderful. Of course though, it is Christ that does the healing, Christians just do the guiding to Him, and that is most pleasing to God.
I heard part of an interview with Michele and her husband on Christian radio recently that they had with Dr. Dobson, and I fell in love with both of them.
Michele would make an excellent President, I just thought what she said about Newt wasn't exactly truthful.
Mike| 12.16.11 @ 4:29PM
There's no more loose cannon than Gingrich. If he was the nominee he will say something stupid that will end the race.
Greta| 12.17.11 @ 12:37AM
Every candidate could say something stupid. The biggest issue with Newt is can he get the women vote. I think he will get the male vote big time. Here is where a real good choice of running mate could be crucial.
Steve| 12.16.11 @ 10:38AM
"I'm a serious candidate for president of the United States"
If a candidate has to say that, it can be said they aren't.
I'm from Mn. and I really like her, but sorry she's not a serious candidate.
I just hope this run doesn't cost her, her seat.
Jake| 12.16.11 @ 1:23PM
Newt did treat Bachmann like she was his five yr old granddaughter and her comments were not to be taken seriously.
His contempt for the only woman on the panel was palpable.
Maybe he'll apologize by sending her a bauble in a blue box from Tiffany and Company.
Newt campaigning for just one pro PBA Republican is campaigning for one too many.
Steve| 12.16.11 @ 1:32PM
Yeah he was picking on the girl!
And he was right, she's not a serious candidate. Sorry, she has had she moments, but she's not ready for the big leagues.
TB| 12.16.11 @ 1:37PM
She's not a serious candidate. And to any serious person, it's obvious that she's living in a fantasy-land. Gingrich was the leader of the Repuiblicans in the House. He's concerned with building and maintaining majorities, and that means winning and retaining congressional seats in purple and blue districts. You can't do that by demanding the same level of ideological purity in New Jersey that you would in Georgia. Because Bachmann is a callow back-bencher from a hard right district, she doesn't get it.
I thought she was very obviously being a demogogue. The question is whether Iowa voters are intelligent enough to see it too. If they are, this won't hurt Newt.
And finally, what's with the notion that because she's "a serious candidate," her facts must be accurate? Non-sequitur much?
Chris| 12.16.11 @ 4:31PM
John,
Perhaps you are unaware, but Gingrich's bible is a book is book called Third Wave. Gingrich idolizes that book, and has often expounded how it is the major influence on his philosophy. Among other things, it talk about how those who are against abortion are obsolete, and one day it will be seen as virtuous.
Of course, Gingrich voted mostly pro-life as a Congressman, as a political expediency, but that doesn't mean he doesn't recognize that opposition to abortion is outmoded, and will disappear soon.
It's really a shame that Gingrich can't come clean about his beliefs about abortion and other issues. He'd win a lot more than he lost, if he revealed his more moderate, forward-thinking self.
But as a journalist, you should investigate a little bit deeper, and tell the real story.
Greta| 12.17.11 @ 12:39AM
Opposition to abortion is growing every year with a lot of the younger crowd moving solidly pro life. Not sure what you have been looking at.