I will admit that I have had my frustrations with Peggy Noonan, particularly in 2008. That said, she has an uncanny ability sometimes to get to the root of something. Her column on Newt Gingrich comes as close as anything I have seen written to expressing my uneasiness with the man.
Ethically dubious? True. Intelligent and accomplished? True. Has he known breathtaking success and contributed to real reforms in government? Yes. Presided over disasters? Absolutely. Can he lead? Yes. Is he erratic and unreliable as a leader? Yes. Egomaniacal? True. Original and focused, harebrained and impulsive—all true.
Do you want evidence he’s a Burkean conservative? Start with welfare reform in 1996. A sober, standard Republican? Go to the balanced budgets of the Clinton era. Is he a tea partier? Sure, he speaks the slashing lingo with relish. Is he moderate? Yes, that can be proved. Michele Bachmann this week called him a “frugal socialist,” and there’s plenty of evidence of that, too.
All true. And this is the problem. All about navigating the winds of policy, the destination is an after thought. In other words, all policy, no principle. And I don’t believe for a second he has changed because his campaign has been a microcosm of his career. Stake out a position, back track, deny, change course, move on. I want a president as committed to some fundamental principles and Newt does not seem to have them.
And then there is the other thing about Newt. If Newt wins the nomination he has to beat Obama. And here Noonan describes my fear (a fear I don’t have much about Romney) and this part she really nails.
Those who know him fear—or hope—that he will be true to form in one respect: He will continue to lose to his No. 1 longtime foe, Newt Gingrich. He is a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, “Watch this!”
What they fear is that he will show just enough discipline over the next few months, just enough focus, to win the nomination. And then, in the fall of 2012, once party leaders have come around and the GOP is fully behind him, he will begin baying at the moon. He will start saying wild things and promising that he may bomb Iran but he may send a special SEAL team in at night to secretly dig Iran up, and fly it to Detroit, where we can keep it under guard, and Detroiters can all get jobs as guards, “solving two problems at once.” They’re afraid he’ll start saying, “John Paul was great, but most of that happened after I explained the Gospels to him,” and “Sure, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize, but only after I explained how people can think fast, slow and at warp speed. He owes me everything.”
Newt in a NUTshell.
December 10, 2011 at 5:13 pm
But I think it is a complete illusion (repeated by Bill O'Reilly every business day) thinking that Romney can do better.
Foresee Ronmey vs Obama and you will see a guy trying to walk in a thin line without any idea. Newt vs Romney? Newt, but Santorum is the best.
December 10, 2011 at 5:16 pm
It seems like Noonan has found her critical eye in the back of her closet and dusted it off just in time to sink her teeth the next viable conservative candidate. Newt is not my choice, for sure, but who is HER choice? In the last election she was panting after Barack Obama and bitterly sowing contempt for Sarah Palin.
She's a dandy wordsmith, but she has disqualified herself as a conservative pundit. I don't trust a word she spins.
December 10, 2011 at 6:50 pm
It's hard for someone with a girlish crush on The One to think objectively about anyone else.
December 10, 2011 at 8:34 pm
SANTORUM 2012.
December 10, 2011 at 9:21 pm
I don't usually go for shoot the messenger, but yeah, Peggy Noonan lost all credibility years ago. She happens to be partially right, but as I've said elsewhere, the wrong people are making the case against Newt. Having Noonan attack you is practically a badge of honor.
December 10, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Not seeing the difference between Romney and Obama. As far as Newts principles, where are hers? Santorum stands a less than zero chance of beating Obama, too polarizing and hated…and his principles are a tad fluid as well. Bachmann contradicts herself all over the place, Gardisil Rick is Gardisil Rick. Huntsman is too socialist, but he has that in common with all the rest but one, He Who Must Not Be Mentioned.
December 11, 2011 at 1:00 pm
"The case for Barack Obama, in broad strokes:
He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections. He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm, and, in terms of the execution of his political ascent, still the primary and almost only area in which his executive abilities can be discerned, he shows good judgment in terms of whom to hire and consult, what steps to take and moves to make. We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122539802263585317.html
Noonan in a column about Obama right before the election in 2008. I put her musings below that of my dog, who can at least discern friend from foe.
December 11, 2011 at 1:14 pm
My Dad is a great leader and holds right opinion on all the issues, but he could never run for president because he doesn't have one of the important qualities, the quality that all good candidates should have in common regardless of ideology: discipline. I don't mean the discipline to wake up early and stay on schedule; I mean the discipline to stay on message. Obama has this discipline to an incomparable degree–probably because he's a total plastic banana with no flesh and blood under his candidate veneer. But we need to be able to count on our guy or gal to maintain discipline all the way through November 2012. I wonder if Newt can do it? I even wonder if Romney can do it. I'm pretty sure the others can't.
December 11, 2011 at 1:58 pm
I stopped reading Noonan during the last election cycle. Truth is, if the GOP ran my greyhounds against the current "administration" (i use the term loosely), I'd vote for them instead of O.
December 11, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Gingrich is emotionally unstable. His past sexual history shows he's a sex addict. We don't need another Kennedy or Clinton in the White House who could be a blackmail target of a special interest group or a foreign power.
Santorum betrayed the pro-life cause, so no votes for him.
Perry, as one commentator has already noticed, wanted to push gardisil upon teenage girls without bothering to think what the parents would think of it.
Huntsman and Romney are socialist redux, Cain dropped out, and Bachman is flighty. IMHO, the only candidate worth voting for is Ron Paul. He has proven to be a man of principal who will actually follow the Constitution and act in the best interest of the US, instead of a foreign power or the Federal Reserve Bank.
December 11, 2011 at 5:11 pm
"But we need to be able to count on our guy or gal to maintain discipline all the way through November 2012. I wonder if Newt can do it? I even wonder if Romney can do it. I'm pretty sure the others can't."
Then you haven't been listening to Ron Paul. Here is an interview he gave in 1983 to Mother Earth News in which he teaches the same truth he is teaching now.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1983-03-01/The-Plowboy-Interview.aspx
December 11, 2011 at 7:05 pm
I don't trust Peggy anymore. The way she wrote about Sarah Palin was so high school mean girl that I can't believe anyone takes her seriously anymore.
December 11, 2011 at 7:05 pm
Oh and one more thing. I will vote for a cabbage stuck on a pike if it gets the nomination. Obama has to go.
December 12, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Noonan on Newt? Isn' t that a little like Jerry Lewis calling the Three Stooges silly people? At least Newt never had a crush on Obama, for Pete's sake. And when did Peggy ever get conservative legislation passed? So far Newt 2, Peggy 0.
December 12, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Yeah Noonan really blew it a while back.
Some folks: like a broken record.
As for saying that Newt is a sex addict? Really? He had 2 marriages that were not really marriages. Do you know that he was and is addicted to sex based on this? If so, you must have some insight I don't have. So if he just had the one marriage he would presumably NOT be a sex addict? And I guess you are saying that he was never in love, and was only involved with these women for the purposes of sex? Whoa.
I think it is over the top to say that about someone. We don't know that. We don't. Seems that is dangerous ground on which a Christian should tread.
Re: Rick and Gardisil – didn't he have parental opt-out? I am not supporting what he did, but if he had an opt-out in there it would be the OPPOSITE of not bothering to think what the parents would think of it. (He has his other issues, but,) I believe in his Pro-life position.
Santorum betrayed his pro-life postition? Really? But as far as I know his MAIN position is to PUSH for an amendment to ban abortion. His MAIN position is not – well shucks, I dunno – let the States decide it.
Now here is just ONE position that really should give us pause:
1. How about we just let Iran have the bomb? How's that for a swell idea?
Let's just let them have it? Why not? "They have a right to defend themselves, don't they?"
Here's why not. Because they will use it. They are among the first and only theocracies run by people who believe that they MUST cause a nuclear war in order to bring about their version of Heaven. They will not be deterred. They already have the means to deliver it:
1. Deliver via modified Shahab/Zelzal-3 to Israel or parts of Europe.
2. Deliver via Shahab-5 to anywhere in Europe/Saudia Arabia
3. Deliver via modified Shahab 6 (Shahad 7) to anywhere in the world (orbit – due out in next 12 months- taking into account recent explosion)
4. PUT IT ON A RICKETY BUS AND DRIVE IT OVER THE FREAKIN MEXICAN BORDER. (Daily non-stop flights between Tehran and Caracas, (then boat to Mexico). Same goes for a small plane.
5. Put it on a sub and sail up to the US coast. (They have some quiet diesels – or they could use a Colombian style drug sub), I admit our Navy would have a good chance of taking them out – except that – within 12 miles they would make one heck of a mess with a nuke.)
6. Give it to Al-Qaeda!
7. Fedex. Hey you never know. But any cargo ship coming into a US harbor would be an easy place to put a weapon.
A vote for Ron Paul is a vote for an Iranian bomb. Oh goodie! If you don't believe that they will use it, you are betting millions of lives on that.
December 13, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Used To Post, the late Alan Stang, Not Holier Than Thou, has a section on Newt Gingrich. There's a story in that section about ol'Newt receiving oral sex in a car parked in his driveway. A next door neighbour saw this disgusting act take place, and barely had time to avert the eyes of two innocent children from seeing the woman's head bobbing up and down. Only a full blown sex addict would take this kind of chance of doing something like this in public.
December 13, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Yeah, I dunno… I don't think one needs to be a "sex addict" to fall into that trap – regardless of the morality of it. We could call it something else quite easily.
Certainly isn't prudent that's for sure. But who knows what he was thinking (maybe not too much) I surely don't. I don't even know if it is a true story, and even if I did know it was true, I have no idea of the circumstances. And that definitely matters.
Besides, even if you could prove that he WAS a sex addict, rather than just someone who made an error, (which this doesn't) it certainly doesn't prove that he still is.
Nor does it prove that, now, as a convert to Catholicism, he is going to continue being this sex addict and be a guaranteed FSB honey pot risk.
Not only it is a huge stretch, it just doesn't seem nice.
Look, there's plenty to criticize the guy about on policy alone (I have) that I am just saying I don't think we need to go there. We may disagree.
But while I myself am, regretfully, CHOCK FULL of flaws and sins, I do make an effort to imagine how I would feel if someone posted something similar about me. That's my simple gauge. If I am not 100% sure and I can't prove it, then I don't say it. I try not to pass that judgment on someone and I don't think it is fair to do so to Newt here on that issue.
December 14, 2011 at 11:34 pm
The USSR had a LOT more opportunity and at times, motive to nuke the US and the US managed to avert that threat. The USSR had a lot more resources and actual existing weapons that Iran does. Why this hysteria over a third world theocracy that just may want a weapon because they are surrounded by other hostile states…INCLUDING ISRAEL…that have nukes?? Al Qaeda is most probably a CIA creation to justify war since the boogeyman of the USSR was dissolved. If it is not a CIA creation US intervention in the Middle East has strengthened them far more than they have weakened them. Newts sexual peccadilloes, unsavory as they are (and why would a serial adulterer, even if *really* in love, be less likely to lie to voters than to his wife?) pale in comparison to his shady "business" dealings and political compromises with commies. That this person is even being considered because "he's CATHOLIC!!" sickens.
December 15, 2011 at 1:34 am
Ron Pauls "nutty" foreign policy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8NhRPo0WAo&feature=player_embedded