Coincidentally, this newt is also a miserable human being...
I suppose that it was inevitable that the “Anyone but Mitt” bloc of Republican voters would eventually give Newt Gingrich a second look. After all, he can put a complete sentence together and stays current on world events. He doesn’t take pride in being inarticulate (like Rick Perry) or think it’s cute not to know a thing about foreign countries (like Herman Cain). Unlike Michele Bachmann, he could pass a junior high exam in American History; unlike Ron Paul, he doesn’t live in a parallel universe. Newt isn’t bland and weightless, like Rick Santorum, and he doesn’t appear to be a holograph, like Jon Huntsman. He’s obviously smart.
This is all true, and yet Newt is a wretched choice. Not because he has virtually no executive experience (and we should be learning what that means.) Not because in his only extended attempt at filling an important and challenging leadership position when he was Speaker of the House, he squandered a position of strength with ethical misconduct and unrestrained hubris worthy of the House of Atreus. Newt is unqualified to be president because he is demonstrably an awful human being.
For those tempted to make the argument that a leader’s core character doesn’t matter, I have two words: John Edwards. Here are two more: Richard Nixon, although I would trust Tricky Dick before I would trust Newt. In his case, the media’s hunger for trying to destroy Republican front-runners will have genuine benefits, and it won’t have to concoct scandals about painted-over rocks. Newt lies. Newt betrays. Newt refuses at accept responsibility for his own misconduct. He’s a hypocrite. He shows all the signs of being a narcissist.
Focus, you Republicans: leadership has to include trustworthiness, and everyone who ever trusted Newt, notably his first two wives, have discovered that he is ruthless, cold and self-centered. Remember that his entire staff walked out on him when he rewarded their hard work and devotion by taking a vacation when he needed to be working as hard as they were.
Have men of seriously flawed character been successful and even great Presidents? Certainly. It is still a terrible risk to put someone with dubious character in a position of great power, and irresponsible of any voter to knowingly choose someone with a track record of lies and betrayals. With the exception of Nixon, the S.O.B.’s who became President successfully hid their ethical rot from the public, a few of them, like Woodrow Wilson and Jack Kennedy, for their entire time in office. We know Newt, or should. The media likes to refer to Newt Gingrich’s character deficiency as “baggage,” like it’s just a burden to be overcome, like a lisp or bad mortgage. It isn’t baggage; it’s a warning.
I’ve written about Newt’s character several times, here, here and here. It shouldn’t require any more exposition; the record is clear. Newt Gingrich lacks the strength of character that President must possess. Awful human beings should not lead nations, if there is any alternative at all
There has to be.
Ethics Alarms 
Mitt Romney is the alternative. Sadly.
I want someone to primary Pres. Obama. Someone? Anyone?
I think the Democrat Party is all aligned on what the 5 year strategy is: re-elect Obama, and elect Hillary as his successor. 6-8 years of Secretary of State experience will make her nearly unstoppable if she chooses to run in 2016.
I wish Huntsman was a serious contender. He is by far the most reasonable in that rabble of crazy.
That’s the depressing part. Instead of debating the varying policies of the contenders, we’re just look at their sanity.
You just can’t get a elected to national office without some presence or charisma, not in the TV age. It’s the same as with movie stars.. People wrote that when George Washington walked into a room, even those who had no idea who he was stopped and stared. I would walk right by Huntsman TODAY, and I know what he looks like. A little crazy can help you get noticed.
>You just can’t get a elected to national office without some presence or charisma
You’re recognizing this as a problem…. right?
>A little crazy can help you get noticed.
A little crazy can lead to a lot more crazy. In a political body, crazy can lead to the deaths of a whole lot more people than just the crazies.
It’s just a fact, and it is as old as leadership. Normal people aren’t leaders. By definition, leaders are special. If you are special, it helps to be recognized as special.
Your last statement is true, But my own study of the subject would indicate that the vast, vast majority of our Presidents were were a little crazy, as in seriously maladjusted, clinically depressed, narcissistic, sociopathic ( a lot of those), and neurotic. Adams, Jackson, Polk, Pierce, Lincoln, A. Johnson, TR, Wilson, and Nixon, at least, probably were more than a little crazy. A mixed bag, no?
The contenders on the GOP that have any common sense are not even taken serious by the public or media. I wish there were more than 2 major parties to choose from. At least one that has an ideology that a large portion of Americans will support and vote for.
Vote straight-ticket independent. It’s what I’m doing until there is a coup, revolt, or major power shift.
The best liberal minds go into politics. The best conservative minds go into business. That’s why each group is relatively incompetent at the other activity.
Jack: That first paragraph of your post was the best summary of the situation I’ve seen.
Ah, all the “conservative minds are in *business* (quotes because you are clearly using the Americanized version of the word).
No wonder the global economy is in the shitter.
“I think the Democrat Party is all aligned on what the 5 year strategy is: re-elect Obama, and elect Hillary as his successor. 6-8 years of Secretary of State experience will make her nearly unstoppable if she chooses to run in 2016.” – Tim LeVier
I have been saying as much (mainly as a warning) to everyone who’ll listen since the 2010 elections. No matter who wins the White House in 2012, Hillary wins it in a landslide in 2016. No doubt about it. That is only a slight variation on what I predicted in late 1992, when I went around telling everyone to get ready for 8 years of Bill, followed immediately by 8 years of Hillary. Republicans don’t know how to pile wins on wins, even if occasionally, possibly, they do happen to have better ideas and better candidates.
I think you just gave anecdotal evidence that the following 8 years of Hillary is unlikely.
I think I gave cryptic but credible evidence of a corollary to Godwin’s Law: as the time Hillary Clinton is employed by the federal government lengthens, the probability of her being the POTUS converges to 1. If she hadn’t rushed the federal takeover of health care, she would have had a strong chance of out-dueling Gore for the nomination in 2000, despite any scandals dogging Bill.
Also I would not be surprised if Joe B. retires sometime during Barack’s 2nd term, if for nothing else but to give Hillary yet another Executive Branch position to declare in her resume’ – plus a little breather from the DOS grind (with traveling privileges undiminished) before officially re-acquiring her power. Bill (Richardson) is just waiting to run with her.
>corollary to Godwin’s Law
What? You can’t just co-opt everything you see on the internet willy-nilly and make any sense. Arguments aren’t ending and Nazi’s aren’t involved – no Godwin.
Is there a “all internet laws will be misappropriated” rule?
Um… You predicted she would become president in 2000 after a centrist liberal, and instead, we went to the neocon right. Now you predict that she will become president in 2016 after a centrist liberal. If pattern holds, we’ll move to the neocon right.
Of course, since this is conspiracy theory level guessing, I shouldn’t be surprised that the logic doesn’t actually work.
I concede that I misappropriated an internet law. I see that clearly now. I apologize for my confusion of a corollary with a parallel, and appreciate the needed correction – helps me guard myself better against making reckless and fanciful associations.
I can see why others read the outcome of the 2000 election as a swing to the neocon right. I don’t read it that way. I read that a conflicted (or muddled) pragmatist’s scion, courting an electorate divided almost perfectly in half between center-right and center-left, won a squeaker of a judicial pass into power with a bunch of neocon right backers. I read Bush’s narrow re-election in 2004 as further confirmation that the electorate then was not won-over to the necon right; it was essentially unchanged from its composition in the 2000 election. Except for a couple (percentage points) extra post-9/11 hawks who were energized enough to show up and vote, minus a couple disgusted or disheartened left-leaners who could not go all-out for Kerry.
But no matter who is elected to the presidency in 2012, and no matter the electorate then, I do not, and will not, agree that the president elected in 2016 will be successor to a centrist liberal.
I know, I know, Hillary is saying she’s “done,” once her time as SecState is over. But power, and the opportunity for more power, are so seductive. I cannot imagine her, having come this far, stepping away from that next and bigger executive opportunity. And yet, honestly, I hope I am proved fanciful and wrong again then; the icing on the cake will be if my missed prediction is because of a vastly recovered and once again significantly expanding private sector economy.
Paragraph 2 is one big strawman.
Paragraph 3 is references a strawman and doesn’t seem to have any basis. You may as well believe that Jack eats Booberry cereal.
Paragraph 4 is projection.
Biden won’t retire in 2nd term. He wants to be president like Al Gore wanted to be president. The difference this time is that Hillary has a resume, and Biden should recognize that his gaffes are more memorialized than Gore’s were back in 2000.
And as far as Santorum goes: I think his single-minded hate makes him an awful human being.
I don’t think so. I don’t even think it’s hate. A person brought up to believe in a strict moral code that declares certain conduct sinful and immoral is just toeing the line, and Santorum’s views on gays are consistent with this. I don’t believe in so-called “un-weighed morality”—“it’s wrong because God says so, that’s all”, but if you do, you can end up with some very bad beliefs without being a bad person. Santorum strikes me as a good person whose fealty to religious cant makes him do bad things.
Newt has no excuse.
…and the obvious solution to what plague’s santorums and the other religious is…
Yes, it is.
You’re right about it not being “hate,” Jack, but theocrats scare me almost as much as Marxists do. Of all the unpalatable GOP candidates, Santorum is the most unpalatable. Wish I hadn’t read all this. I was depressed and disgusted enough about this race already.
And….I haven’t forgotten what he attempted to do in the midst of the Terry Shiavo debacle. That makes him utterly and permanently disqualified as far as I’m concerned.