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Mitt was for Newt’s brilliant intellect, before he went zany for it

Mitt was for Newt’s brilliant intellect, before he went zany for it

Mitt Romney has been doubling and tripling down on the strategy of crazy attempting to portray Newt as mentally unfit for office.

Part of that strategy is to characterize Newt as “zany.” Romney stood by the accusation this morning on Fox News Sunday.

But that’s not how Romney described Newt in 2007, when in a word association game he called Newt “brilliant, a wonderful ideas generator.” (h/t @AKaczynski1)

What has changed about Newt’s intellect since 2007? Nothing, other than that he now is the main challenger to Romney.

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Comments

The fact that he’s now the main challenger of Romney is also why Mitt is attacking Newt’s conservative credentials.

Not because his is more stellar of course, but just so conservatives will split off from Newt and filter down to the 3rd tier candidates, thus diluting the Mitt opposition.

I’m surprised more people haven’t figured that out.

Well, I think that “zany” might be an appropriate description since Gringrich has gone on the warpath regarding the judiciary.

IIRC, FDR ran into substantial problems when he tried to control the judiciary back in the 1930’s and there’s little evidence that the outcome now would be much different.

There are different ways to deal with judges who may be legislating from the bench other than sending the marshals.

I see all this of increasing signs that his time is passing…

Whatever Mitt said in 2007, its now 2011 and Newt Gingrich has officially gone off the reservation with his outrageous ideas on subpoenaing judges to testify before Congress and/or sending the police after them.

This goes back to his discipline (or lack there of). Its absolutely unfathomable that he is injecting this ludicrousness into the campaign right now. What is the point? The only thing that should be coming from any candidates mouth is the terrible economy. That is issue number 1-50. I cannot believe he is allowing himself to get so far off message and I suspect that this little excursion into La La Land is going hurt him much more than most think.

(Note I am a tepid Newt supporter who has donated once to his campaign.)

    Henry Hawkins in reply to Jaydee77. | December 18, 2011 at 9:39 pm

    Spin it this way – Gingrich knows how to make the sort of softly inflammatory remark that keeps his name on the air for lots of free advertising. This also shows a certain frugality with other peoples’ money (campaign donees). See?

    All kidding aside, like with many intelligent people, getting used to Newt means getting used to the fact that he often thinks out loud, extemporaneously, where other candidates say absolutely nothing that hasn’t been scrubbed, massaged, screened and polished by a dozen campaign messaging professionals.

    He voiced an idea of debatable merit, but what’s wrong with voicing ideas and debating them? I say this country could do with more of that. If his ideas have merit he’ll succeed in defending them, if not, he’ll likely admit it and move on.

    This notion that no candidate should ever ever say anything that isn’t 100% vetted and approved as noncontroversial (in other words, unnecessary) is a good example of the damage modern era media ‘journalism’ has done to our public discourse.

NEWT IS BOTH – ALWAYS HAS BEEN A LOOSE CANNON.

NOTHING MITT SAID IN 07 CONTROVERTS HIS RECENT REMARKS, EITHER.

YOUR DEFENSE OF NEWT IS AS SILLY AS YOUR DEFENSE IF CAIN.

    BannedbytheGuardian in reply to reliapundit. | December 18, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    Bring out the wives.

    I am betting on Newt’s 3 to beat up Mitts 8.

    Henry Hawkins in reply to reliapundit. | December 19, 2011 at 11:45 am

    Reliapundit:

    “NOTHING MITT SAID IN 07 CONTROVERTS HIS RECENT REMARKS, EITHER.”

    Uh-oh:

    “…During a speech in Baltimore on Feb. 2, 2007, Romney outlined his ambitions for the Massachusetts plan. “I’m proud of what we’ve done,” he said. “If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation.”

    ——————

    Oh dear:

    Romney 2007:

    “Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, asked about putting a Muslim in his presidential Cabinet, said that he “cannot see that a Cabinet position would be justified” based on the percentage of Muslims in the U.S.”

    Romney 2008-2011:

    “A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.”

    ———————

    Oh my:

    Romney 2007:

    “I’m not in favor of privatizing Social Security or making cuts. You call it privatization, I call it a private account.”

    Romney 2008 on:

    “Social Security’s the easiest and that’s because you can give people a personal account.”

    ———————

    Dang:

    Romney 2007:

    “I support the assault weapon ban.” (Brady Bill)

    Romney 2008 to present:

    “I don’t support any gun control legislation.”

    —————–

    Romney 2007 (re: Osama bin Laden)

    “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”

    Romney, later in 2007 till 2011:

    “He’s going to pay, and he will die.”

    ———————–

    Hmmm:

    Romney, early 2007:

    “Those… paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process toward application for citizenship.”

    Romney, late 2007 on:

    “Amnesty only led to more people coming into the country.”

    ————————-

    Shall I go on (and on and on and on)?

TeaPartyPatriot4ever | December 18, 2011 at 10:53 pm

Romney continues to play his rope-a-dope strategy of political proxy attrition warfare, to stave off any actual debating of Newt on a one to one basis.. which just shows how much of a political coward he is..

Futhermore, Romney is a typical Republican Party RINO elitist, in the company of Boehner and McConnnell, and a typical bureacratic managerial style of crony capitalist governance, who has nothing but contempt for conservatism, just like his RINO buddy, Chris Christie..

He is almost as bad as John Kerry, let alone Obama, with a backbone of principles, that turns as fast as a wind directional finder..

Are we sure Mitt Romney is really a human being? He looks like a very well made robot. Maybe the repulican establishment is playing a gigantic joke on us.

Ahhh… yes. This is much more news worthy than Gingrich’s comments on the judiciary.

It’s funny the lengths you’re traveling in order to try and keep Newt in a good light.

I think we’re starting to see more and more “bad Newt” pop up.

I just don’t think he can help himself.

Glen Reynolds December 18, 2011 post is instructive:

“GINGRICH ON JUDICIAL REVIEW. On the one hand, everybody’s dumping on Gingrich, for mostly good reason. On the other hand, who can seriously argue that the constitutional law that comes from the Supreme Court is in fact very closely related to the text of the Constitution itself? I mean, if the Court were doing such a great job, would we see strange bedfellows arguing for a constitutional reset? Indeed, I was talking to a fellow lawprof the other day, and one who’s certainly no right-winger, who said he’d hate to have to teach Constitutional Law because of the hash the Supreme Court has made of things over the past 50 years or so. I was surprised to hear that, but it suggests a certain shakiness to current foundations.

Gingrich is very good at tossing a stinkbomb over the transom, and letting the ensuing reaction demonstrate that there’s something rotten about the status quo. It’s not so clear that this talent is desirable in a President, however. And, even if it is, it’s even less clear that it’s conducive to being elected President. What’s more, I’d say that Gingrich, if elected President, will share one of Barack Obama’s flaws: The tendency to say things that might be interesting if said by a professor, but that have a lot more impact than is desirable when said by a President.

Posted at 11:50 pm by Glenn Reynold

Why is everyone accepting “zany” as a pejorative? If I were Newt I’d thank McRomney for the compliment.

No contender for president in 2011 is beyond political attack. That goes for Romney, Gingrich and Obama.

I researched this claim about the supposed concept of mirrors in space attributed to Gingrich in 1984 and never found a direct citation… just hearsay.

Remember that in 1983 Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) aka ‘Star Wars.’ Far fetched it was for the level of engineering technology at the time. It wasn’t feasible.
But, the mere concept, and determination to bring it to reality, was what drove the Soviet Union into bankruptcy as they spent money to counter it. Reagan also proposed the Space Plane in the same time frame that would take passengers above the atmosphere allowing it to travel at hyper-sonic speeds. People were thinking outside the box. Newt was thinking outside the box.

So… I watched as Mitt Romney sat facing Chris Wallace and observed him. Anyone remember what he wore? Jeans and loafers, with a jacket and no tie. Romney can never be “one of us.” He was born into a politically well-connected privileged life and pretense otherwise is phoney.

Newt is not a phoney… he is one of us. Mitt is not, and will never be, one of us.