This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:
Newt Gingrich has made headlines and gained supporters at the debates by taking on the media moderators, challenging the assumptions in their questions, and refusing to attack others on stage. Playing smash mouth with the MSM has been good for Newt.
As Newt rises in the polls it is inevitable that he will become a target of attempts to portray him as racist, since he is just “another bitter old white guy.”
It’s not hard to imagine how Newt will react.
He’s not going to take it, as this interview with David Gregory last spring demonstrates. Gregory claimed that Newt’s reference to Obama as the “food stamp President” was “racially tinged” but Newt pushed right back at him (transcript at Newsbusters):
That’s the way to do it. No false apologies based on how others twisted your words. No playing into the “racially tinged” nonsense. Push right back.
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Comments
Push, push, push back! He did it perfectly. Don’t let the LSM try to imply a pruning shear is a spade – no offense intended.
And that’s why I’m taking a closer and closer look at Gingrich. He does it with intelligence, clarity, and straightforwardness. No mincing, no dicing, no whining.
Sheesh, where to begin? There may be no other figure in Republican politics pulling more baggage behind him. Newt is unquestionably an impressive guy, but it should not be a surprise if he gets a jarring treatment by the media and his rivals if he surges into genuine contention.
Most significant, Newt is the only Speaker ever to be sanctioned by the House. Scores of charges were leveled and most were dropped but in the end he submitted to negotiated sanctions and paid $300,000. Count on deep dives to explore every charge made against him.
Shortly thereafter, half the GOP House leadership staged a coup to oust Newt. Newt survived but this was a vicious knife fight that left Newt with a lot of lifetime enemies in his own party. Some of these enemies will serve nicely as sources for negative stories about the peak moments of Newt’s keadership on the national stage.
After losing seats in the 1998 midterms, Newt was in fact driven from the Speakership and decidec to give up his seat rather than return as a backbencher. Only a few voters at this stage are even dimly aware of just how disliked and unpopular Newt managed to become within his party.
Next case — his admitted serial cheating on his wives whom he divorced. While the fact that this has long been known publicly is a plus, the potential for nasty details that are not public is high. It is also a plus that his children seem to be on board and his ex-wives forgiving, but it still remains a hot potato if he comes under greater scrutiny.
Less important but a lot more recent, his key aides all jumped ship last June. They were not very kind to him at the time. Given that they doubtless know details that can put him in a bad light, they are an obvious source of bad news.
I am only scratching the surface.
JEBurke,
You nailed it exactly.
No one can deny that Newt is not a smart guy and I could see him as VP to someone like Cain who has the executive experience. He would be an effective presiding officer of the Senate and help get things done.
Should Newt win the nomination and subsequently the presidency, give it about eighteen months before everybody hates him.
Just my 2¢ worth…
I wonder what they have up their sleeve to Alinsky Newt with?
Wait for the next Jennifer Rubin column and we’ll find out!
I would think Newt and Netanyahu would make a great team when dealing with Middle East problem states.
Yanno, it seems to me that, often times, the MSM is like a lot of bullies I’ve known along the way. Once you’ve shown them that you’re a hard target that can’t be hurrahed without a price being paid, they’ll soon learn to leave you alone and go off to look for easier pickings where they can ply their malodorous trade.
I’ve never thought much of David Gregory.
Subtract a little after viewing that.
Racially tinged? Gregory is farcically tinged.
Brilliant. He is the front runner from all of the candidates.
Either people respect individual dignity or they do not. If there is no statute of limitation on past transgressions, then there will never be any peace. There are no people with a heritage free from sin. The vast majority of people alive today are not responsible for past sins. To continue denigrating individual dignity is to repeat the sins of the past — it is the antithesis of enlightenment. The people who advocate and promote denigrating individual dignity should reconsider their positions.
Obama campaigned on the promise of redistributive and retributive change. He — as other left-wing (i.e., authoritarian) ideologues — has been a progressive success in both denigrating individual dignity and devaluing human life. It’s unfortunate that he never qualified whether the progress he sought to realize was positive or negative.
Truly idiotic. A progressive number of Americans are apparently unfamiliar with the concepts of redistributive and retributive change. As they dream of physical and fiscal instant gratification, they are wholly unaware that those two concepts empowered individuals suffering from delusions of grandeur to be responsible for the greatest destruction of human life in history and in less than 100 years. It was only matched by the imperial (another construct borne from an authoritarian ideology) ambitions held by Islam, but their total carnage was realized over a period exceeding 1000 years.
And no, he did not express prejudice, implicit or otherwise. The “journalist” needs to review the number (and color) of people who benefit from non-contributory entitlements and reconsider his demented predisposition to denigrate individual dignity. The welfare system in America has been a progressive success in undermining development and perpetuating its own existence. It has harmed people of all incidental features and geographical origins.
There’s one big difference between Newt, and the rest of the field, Newt will not allow the media to manipulate him, because he is too well experienced and versed in the politics of the media to be played the fool.
Newt is the only one of all the candidates, who is consistent in his abilities to address and answer any question with ease, as he has vast amounts of knowledge, expertise, skill, experience, and wisdom, as well as being extremely articulate and precise in his statements
And Newt has no fear of the media, as he knows the how to play the media, more than the media knows how to play him, especially when the liberal media starts using their their standard false claims of racism..
Perfect response until the last sentence.
Newt’s a brilliant guy, but as JEBurke points out, he is trailing so much heavy baggage. That’s too bad for him and for America.
Isn’t Obama trailing enormous amounts of baggage? Joe Biden? Solyndra? The Porkulous? The Porkulous giving money to foreign companies? The new drug deal Obama is giving to, the ex husband of Ellen Barkin Mad, the billionaire Ronald O. Perelman? Obamacare? Fast and Furious? Eric Holder? Obama’s science and technology advisor John P. Holdren? ???
Let the mud wrestling begin.