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Drudge versus history

Drudge versus history

Politico’s homepage top headline is The right drops a bomb on Newt featuring photos of Ann Coulter, Tom DeLay, Elliot Abrams and Matt Drudge.

Just like in December, the rise of Newt has caused panic in Republican circles.

In December the charge was led by National Review, and now it’s being led by Matt Drudge, as reflected in this image from Marooned in Marin:

 

For several days Drudge has been running almost around-the-clock negative banners against Newt, hyping negatives and burying news which contradicts the Romney campaign narrative that Newt was anti-Reagan.

Against the anti-Newt crusade stands a wealth of counter-viewpoints of people who were in a position to know and who share very differenct recollections of Newt and Reagan, via Josh Painter in the comments:

Reagan Nat’l Security Advisor Bud McFarlane: http://bit.ly/zd9eAF

Reagan Economist Art Laffer: http://bit.ly/xEDETi

Reagan WH political director Jeffrey Lord: http://bit.ly/zw2ZMb

Reagan Policy Analyst Peter Ferrara http://bit.ly/zq1QxI

Reagan media consultant Richard Quinn: http://on.msnbc.com/y2sPM2

Reagan’s Speechwriting Dir. Bently Elliott: http://thedc.com/xOkDvA

Reagan’s older son Michael Reagan: http://bit.ly/yYVy7L

Reagan’s beloved wife Nancy: http://bit.ly/zrWvAw

I’ll add to that Peter Robinson, former Reagan speechwriter, who wrote the historic Berlin Wall address in which President Reagan urged Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall!”:

Newt shared the frustrations of many conservatives, including, from time to time, me, that the President permitted the bureaucracy to prove persistently feckless, undermining his program–as you’ll recall if you’re of a certain age, conservatives were always insisting that the President’s staff should “let Reagan be Reagan.”  If Newt mouthed off, giving vent to these frustrations, so be it.  He was in Congress.  That was, in a sense, his job.  And at one time or another, every conservative of any standing felt exasperated or worried–and urged the President not to go soft either on Communism or on our own bureaucracy.  Newt’s comments here place him in the company of William F. Buckley, Jr.–WFB vented his frustrations more artfully, but he vented them–and I’d have thought that for our friends at NR that would be quite good enough.

Drudge has 30 million visits a day on his side.  We have history on our side.  Make it known.

Update:  David Kenner of Foreign Policy magazine:

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Comments

RexGrossmanSpiral | January 26, 2012 at 9:42 am

Is there any way to vent to drudge? Like an e-mail address.

I look at Romney and I’m reduced to simple disbelief: you’ve got to be kidding me. GOP, you cannot be serious.

Hillbuzz, linked to the right, provides a 2008 clip of Romney, in typically vapid, peppy and breathless game-show host manner, lauding Hezbollah. Yes, Hezbollah. The other clip is Newt and Christopher Hitchens with Peter Robinson in 2002 analyzing the nature of the Islamic threat and the “new war” facing America after 9/11.

http://hillbuzz.org/romney-praised-hezbollah-in-2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OET1UGhJIYI

The difference is stupefying. Gingrich’s easy, comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the various Islamic factions outpaces even Hitchens’.

Romney will be your ruin, GOP. You will never recover from him. You’ve been warned.

    RexGrossmanSpiral in reply to raven. | January 26, 2012 at 9:49 am

    Romney may ruin the GOP, but ain’t noone gon’ end the Conservative movement.

    StrangernFiction in reply to raven. | January 26, 2012 at 9:52 am

    Newt often strays, Romney is never at home (sorry, but rhetoric doesn’t count). There’s a difference.

[…] Gingrich is that he was disloyal to Reagan. A poster at Legal Insurrection, Josh Painter, offers up this contrary evidence suggesting the two had a close relationship: Reagan Nat’l Security Advisor Bud McFarlane: […]

listingstarboard | January 26, 2012 at 9:48 am

This is beyond comprehension. With all of the Obama atrocities occuring –Fast and Furious, Voter fraud in New York,The islamification of Egypt and Libya a direct result of Obama interference ETC ETC ETC–and the most influential blog focuses on a total SMEAR of a Republican candidate. Drudge, YOU are violating Reagans NUMBER ONE rule yourself!!

StrangernFiction | January 26, 2012 at 9:48 am

I hope Newt goes on the attack tonight.

We need to pray for Newt that he has a great debate tonight. And maybe that Sarah might endorse and Santorum drop out. Too much to ask?!

    StrangernFiction in reply to MKReagan. | January 26, 2012 at 10:00 am

    I’m hoping that Palin is holding her endorsement for the right moment for maximum effect. I will certainly think a lot less of her if she doesn’t get in this fight.

      She already has weighed in. What’s, “If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep this thing going, I’d vote for Newt”? Or her main surrogate Todd’s clear endorsement?

      I think she’s waiting for the only other plausible conservative, Santorum, to drop out. She doesn’t want to be seen as stepping on *any* real conservative. Though all the massing of supposed conservatives in using falsehoods and half truths against Gingrich may force her hand. If not on a political strategy level on a personal empathy level. She’s been there and undergone that.

    I am a Santorum supporter, but I can live with him dropping out if he endorses Newt, because all these Alinsky style attacks against Newt from so called “smart people” “conservatives” who are really just a bunch of elitist snobs who look down their noses at us regular people just make me like Newt MORE. I hope Newt goes Godzilla and lays waste to Mittens, the media and the d-bag GOP snobs. Git ’em, Newt!
    I like Rick, but this is going to be the ugliest and dirtiest election season we have ever seen, we need someone who will just go in there and beat the ever livin’ snot out of everybody who gets in the way, and I think Rick might be too nice for that, while Newt is the type of guy who can rip a person’s guts out and do it with a smile.
    Obama and the rest of the left need to go down in flames and have their ashes peed on. Newt’s the only guy who can do it.

      iambasic in reply to Zilla. | January 26, 2012 at 11:26 am

      Yeah, the last thing the GOP needs is a great conservative nice guy with no big baggage issues…

        Hope Change in reply to iambasic. | January 26, 2012 at 1:03 pm

        Seriously, just whom would you have in mind. That is a delusional statement.

        IMO, the only candidate who will defeat Obama and then help us to RESTORE our constitutionally-based government is Newt.

        Have you watched the videos raven offered above?

        If you think Rick Santorum is up to the job of being president right now, you are not paying sufficient attention to how the last 80 have gone.

        The federal government is completely out of its legal boundaries. The agencies are out of control. The government is poised to slide down into a socialist tyranny.

        And you talk about “baggage”?

        You think Rick Santorum could stop what’s going on?

        We need someone with Newt’s understanding and courage and stamina.

        They’re going after his so-called “baggage” because he’s going to break up their little party, paid for by taxpaying, hard working Americans. They can’t TOUCH him on policy.

        Do you see that? They can’t TOUCH Newt on policy. So this is what they go after. And SHAME on Drudge.

        And SHAME on Rush, who was piling on with this this morning as if he were the most wide-eyed newbie who ever fell off a turnip truck. Rubes.

        Rush, taking the “sluts and nuts” bait as if he doesn’t know what it is. I turned off the radio. Sorry, Joy. Rush is insane right now. Carrying water for the Pelosi point of view. There is something wrong with Rush and I want to know if it’s that Bain owns the contract to Rush’s syndication and they’ve threatened him somehow.

          Hope Change in reply to Hope Change. | January 26, 2012 at 1:06 pm

          With all due respect.

          iambasic in reply to Hope Change. | January 26, 2012 at 2:29 pm

          You know you’ve gone off the deep end of the Newt cliff when you have to trash someone as consistently conservative as Rush –

          Santorum wouldn’t have a chance? Why? Every time I’ve heard him he’s been passionately conservative. Isn’t that what will bring us back to the constitution?

          I’m amazed at how quickly people will write off someone for no real reasoning other than what plays well red meat wise on TV.

        Hope Change in reply to iambasic. | January 26, 2012 at 1:31 pm

        iambasic, I’m sorry I snapped at you. imfine reminded me what this is all about.

        We haven’t had leadership of the quality Newt offers of years. Since Reagan.

        I want to restore our country to the constitution so much.

        I want our children and grandchildren to have a chance at a free life and the opportunity to pursue happiness in the American tradition.

        That is being lost to these supposed idealists who accidentally get rich while they take away our freedoms and syphon money from the treasury for their friends, and turn our government into a pool of corruption with favors for friends and punishment for enemies.
        I hate that.

        And with all due respect, Rick Santorum wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of turning that around. Even if he means well, even if he would want to. He doesn’t have the vision and grasp of the needed nature and scope of the change. Washington, D. C. would stymie him, frustrate him and stop him.

        Newt saw how Washington, D. C. stopped Reagan. Newt would not be learning on the job.
        Newt is already clear how to do this!

        Newt is working on how to turn things around starting day one. Newt understands how to team up and get enough people in the House and the Senate to turn things around, and act in accordance with the will of the American people, to return to the rule of law.

        Rick Santorum, whatever his strengths, does not know how to do this.

        And neither does Romney, who wouldn’t even be interested in turning it around, anyway. The people who support Romney run Romney, and they like things the way they are.

        And that is why we see the “nuts,” or “nuts” and “liar,” part of the “nuts and sluts” attack being wheeled out against Newt.

        They cannot touch him on policy. So they try to destroy his character and reputation.

        I would rather have Newt than all these critics wrapped in a bow, surrounded by all the tea in China and with a 100,000 candy bars thrown in to the bargain.

        If we don’t turn this around, our children and grandchildren will never know what it is to live in a free country. They will be very poor, relatively speaking, and they will be very unsafe, as other nations shake off the scourge of communism and begin to compete effectively.

        Thank you again, imfine: we haven’t had leadership like Newt’s in such a long time. That’s what this is all about.

With Rick looking like he is getting ready to leave the race it looks like the conservatives are solidifying the only conservative left standing, Newt. Romney’s isn’t really campaigning against Newt, he is Campaigning against the 60 – 70% of the party of the party that is conservative. Liberals to moderates, only make up about 20 – 30% of the republican base, you can’t win with that. I got to tell you, that the sheer rage against newt sounds a lot like the rage against Reagan when he first ran.

Newt is the only person out there thinking not just about the election, or the next election, but what America could be in 20 or hundred years and laying the groundwork today. We haven’t had that kind of leadership in a long time. it comes around every other generation.

    Hope Change in reply to imfine. | January 26, 2012 at 1:12 pm

    Oh, imfine, well said, well said.

    You said what I feel so deeply.

    Thank you!

    I think remaining positive and focusing on what we need and how to restore our country is much better than arguing.

    I argued in my comment above. Sorry about that. Although sometimes you need fire, I guess.

    Anyway, thank you, imfine, for reminding me. You said it. We haven’t had leadership like this for such a long time.

    And I want to restore our country so much.

I’ve posted all the links in Drudge’s tip box and asked him to apologies to hos readers for the lies he’s been telling and for his squandering of his reputation. It looks like Romney paid good money for all of them cuz Drudge has stayed bought. He has not posted one single alternative viewpoint. Drudge is Romney’s advance liar, officially, as of today.

Why is Drudge helping to reelect Barack Hussein Obama? Romney has so alienated Conservatives with his lies that we’re not gonna hold our noses and vote for him. He’s treated us with scorn, contempt, disdain, willfully and repeated lied to us, made the truth a lie and the lie be truth, he has undermined Conservatism all his life and now wants to tell us he’s one of us.

We know Romney for what he is. An Alinskyite. His dad endorsed Saul Alinsky’s work, and we’re seeing Romney use Alinsky tactics full bore against the GOP. He will never use them against his fellow traveler Obama. Never.

Given a choice of two Alinskyites, both of whom hate Conservatives and the Constitution, let the GOP rot!

NC Mountain Girl | January 26, 2012 at 9:53 am

I’m worried about the latest Rasmussen poll.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_election/florida/2012_florida_republican_primary

It was taken Wednesday night which means they could have under sampled evangelical Christians but the smears may be working among lower interest voters.

    StrangernFiction in reply to NC Mountain Girl. | January 26, 2012 at 10:10 am

    I am as well. Insider Advantage’s last poll is saying the same thing, and those are the last two polls on RCP. I am 100% behind Newt in this fight, but it looks like Iowa is happening again.

    It seems to me that though Romney’s base of support is about 25%, when the long knives come out there is another 15% or more that can be convinced. The uninformed voters break to Romney when they are bombarded with propaganda.

Drudge has a lot of power and he knows it. he has absolute control over his presentation. even if he realized how dishonest his presentation is who is going to stop him? doubtesss he thinks hes doing whats best for us. lord acton was right about power. with romneys stack of money and stack of endorsements how is it that he cant take out shoestring candidates. mitt is submccain.

I suspect that the heart of this, aside from the Romney campaign, comes from the statements all of the intelligent Republican candidates, Senators, and Congressmen have made supporting the notion of adding a guest worker program to our current immigration law.

People confuse the sensible notion of recognizing a certain obligation to have our laws make sense, and dealing with the real, human consequences of a law with perverse results being given decades to play out, as being somehow impure.

I watched the last battle over our immigration laws play out online, and I watched the right-wing nut bars make real progress with making a very legitimate point, that the path to citizenship should not be through illegal acts, and squander the opportunity because they couldn’t recognize the real, workable solution. In the end, they made common cause with the unions, and then comforted themselves that they had a victory because they “stopped” bad legislation and allowed worse legislation to remain in place. Michelle Malkin, in particular, was a big disappointment on that score. She was pivotal in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

A guest worker program makes so much sense on so many levels. We had one before, and it did help deal with an illegal immigration problem.

As for the issue the Romney campaign still wants to talk about, namely the ethics charges against Newt that were heavily political and eventually found to be baseless, we’ll see how well his reputation survives his unethical actions today. If he does not demonstrate the cojones to own up to this colossal mistake, it will come back to bite him.

MaggotAtBroadAndWall | January 26, 2012 at 10:16 am

The problem is that so much of what people think they know about Newt just isn’t so.

Byron York’s article yesterday was telling. How many people knew before it was published, or even know now, that Newt was completely exonerated by the Clinton administration IRS on the trumped up tax fraud charges that led to the House ethics investigation? Or that after he won re-election AFTER the ethics investigation was well underway? Or that he resigned his Speakership and House seat not because of the ethics probe, but because the Republicans lost seats in an election and they blamed Gingrich for the loss. Or that he was estranged and living apart from his second wife for several years (in other words the marriage was over), before he sought companionship elsewhere? He’s released the contracts with Freddie, and I don’t see alot of “there” there.

Where is all the so-called baggage Newt supposedly has? An affair that happened 30 years ago? Please. Obama has confessed to violating actual laws, like smoking dope and snorting cocaine more recently than that. He still got 53% of the popular vote for President.

George Soros says there is not much difference between Obama and Romney, the major difference being that Romney probably won’t raise taxes like Obama would if he could. He also says that Santorum and Gingrich are the two conservatives in the race and are least likely to continue the Obama legacy. Check it out at Gateway Pundit.

I am, quite simply, done with Drudge. There are plenty of other sites out there to get my news from. He’s gone the way of Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs. I left that site when he went off the deep end. It was almost like an addiction – actually quite hard to walk away from at first, but now I don’t miss it and don’t give it a passing thought (I’m not even sure LGF still exists, and don’t really care). In time I won’t miss Drudge either. Good riddance. Frankly I think Drudge’s preferred ticket would be Mitt/Hillary.

I kind of wish I was some world class level hacker so I could shut down Drudge’s site and leave a message to anyone visiting it that says “We’re sorry- Matt and Mitt are too busy spooning to post any links today.”

Ted Bell

This is another example of what it has all come down to. You can see there is no difference between liberals and the GOP establishment. Both of them use the lamestream media to force their will. Glad we still have some websites like this one to go to.

Close your Drudge tab (as I did first thing this morning after seeing the gross distortion of the record).

Don’t go there again.

Same with reading a Coulter piece, etc.

    Jake Blues in reply to Ragspierre. | January 26, 2012 at 7:16 pm

    Exactly! It’s past time to lop off some of the weaklings anyway. The Corner @ NRO, for example, hasn’t got the consistently good posters they had five or ten years ago, and half of them post long essays, rather than clean posts. And not surprisingly, Katharine Jean Lopez has been pimping Romney for several years, since at least 2007 as I recall.

    I’m happy to move on from Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Matt Drudge, etc. It’s not that I only want to hear what I agree with, but I’d like to hear conservatives that aren’t lying like the MSM to get their points across.

It’s important to get the full text of that speech. It’s nowhere on the net.

    Tamminator in reply to conductor. | January 26, 2012 at 10:29 am

    CSPAN has free archives now. You used to have to pay to get them.
    Has anyone tried to get more speeches by Newt?

    I’m sure we could find several to counter this propaganda.

      Hope Change in reply to Tamminator. | January 26, 2012 at 1:46 pm

      HI tamminator – Here is a list of links to 17 of Newt’s speeches, the oldest one from 2007.

      I don’t know if they address the issue you are hoping to address, but they reassuringly show Newt’s brilliance and grasp of policy issues, as well as steadiness in the solutions he is offering.

      http://newtgingrich360.com/profiles/blogs/2012-victory-or-death-newt-s-speeches-links-to-17-speeches

      For inspiration and strength under pressure, “2012: VICTORY OR DEATH,” Newt’s description of George Washington and the early American Army on Christmas Eve in 1776, the night they crossed the Delaware, is a wonderful, wonderful speech.

      When you think of what George Washington and all Americans went through in that time, it feels like a moral imperative to stand strong today. I believe that is how it looks to Newt, and why he would run for president when he knows they will try to destroy his reputation and character in this way.

      That speech is from 2009 and Newt was already saying that this year, 2012, is a time of reckoning, as was 1776. If we don’t stop Obama and the corrupt crypto-socialists in the Establishment, the damage done in the ensuing four years will be very, very, very tough to undo.

      This is a big showdown.

      Watch these speeches. You will learn more about how we’re going to restore our nation. And you will get the infusion of courage we need for this fight.

Drudge is my homepage, however, that didn’t keep me from telling him that his content about Newt insulting Reagan was way over the top nonsense.

I have never been with the blue-bloods of the Republican Party. It amazes me to see how they think they can simply dictate right down their noses to the base. For me, it all became clear when Barbara Bush made those comments about Sara Palin staying in AK – no elaboration, no reason, no need to rationalize or justify her position. She simply said it in a very cold and haughty manner and that was it – as though we were to do nothing more get the message and follow in line. The interviewer didn’t even follow-up and ask her why she felt that way. Well, F BB and her kind.

That repulsive type of haughtiness will be the undoing of the Republican Party if Mitt gets the nomination and he loses to Obama. Even without such a calamity, I believe there are many conservatives who would like for the Republican Party to be more representative than dictatorial. No matter how it goes down in November, the Republican Party is going to get shaken up and many people will either leave and go with the Tea party or turn it around from the inside.

Provide a counter-punch if you wish, Professor, but there’s nothing untoward about what Drudge is doing. Are the links he’s providing lies? Why not address the content instead of attacking the messenger?

You know it’s interesting: no one is that excited about Romney. But Romney doesn’t generate NEAR this level of antipathy among the conservative intelligentsia/elite/whatever-you-want-to-call-them that Newt does. One has to wonder, if Romney is such a poser and Newt is the clear conservative and best choice for defeating Obama, why are so many conservatives entrenched against him?

Over at BuzzFeed, Ben Smith observes, “Newt appears to have finally managed to do what Mitt couldn’t: Unite the party around Romney.”

    Ragspierre in reply to Ryan. | January 26, 2012 at 10:53 am

    “…there’s nothing untoward about what Drudge is doing. Are the links he’s providing lies?”

    What Drudge is doing is exactly what SeeBS, NBC, ABC, and the rest of the Mushroom Media have done for decades…and which led to the New Media explosion. They all shape the news by printing ONE dominant view. That is not journalism, it is advocacy.

    This is pure GroupThink by Drudge. Posting BOTH negative AND the counter stories would be right.

    And, yes, some of the links Drudge has up are…or contain…lies.

    ldwaddell in reply to Ryan. | January 26, 2012 at 10:58 am

    In case you weren’t aware, “the party,” has been united around Romney for months. I also thought the party was the constituents who identified with the the Republican platform and not a group of rich folk sitting at their cocktail parties deciding for the little people who should be king. Also, the professor has provided a number of links disputing the story at Drudge, did you follow those and read the story or are you just reacting to a headline?

      My reading of the conservative elites shows a lot of ambivalence and even distaste for Romney. “United” is hardly the word I’d use,

      Re: the links, Jacobson is right to post those links, and I’m glad he did. Provides both sides. But it’s no more wrong for Drudge to do it than for him to.

        Ragspierre in reply to Ryan. | January 26, 2012 at 12:15 pm

        Except that the Professor has openly come out as a Newt supporter, and makes no pretense at being non-partisan.

        Drudge HAS, and that is obviously false.

    raven in reply to Ryan. | January 26, 2012 at 11:08 am

    “One has to wonder, if Romney is such a poser and Newt is the clear conservative and best choice for defeating Obama, why are so many conservatives entrenched against him?”

    No, one doesn’t have to wonder. That’s called self-answering irony. Newt has so many elitists entrenched against him not only because he can defeat Obama but because of what he will do to Washington when he does.

    Of course Romney doesn’t generate the same antipathy among the elite. That’s the whole point. These are not “conservatives”; they’re the royalist crust on the conservative pie. Their entire reason for being has degenerated into the cause of antipathy toward threats to their existence. The byproduct of this degeneration is contempt for those who rally to the “threat” and who question their prerogative to decide our rulers. Do they have another purpose outside of “managing the decline”?

    Did you see the SC primary results? Romney lost every country but two. He lost every voter bloc and demographic outside of affluent liberal Republicans. That’s uniting the party, all right. Romney – he’s the Future!

    And Ben Smith is a source sure to impress conservatives.

      Ragspierre in reply to raven. | January 26, 2012 at 11:35 am

      There is also the carefully crafted, but bloodless, Romney persona.

      Nobody gets passionate about milquetoast. Which is CERTAINLY a factor in turning out the vote in the general election.

      Tamminator in reply to raven. | January 26, 2012 at 11:35 am

      Wasn’t Ben Smith on the list of “journolisters” that connived to get Obama elected?
      Anyone?

My new homepage is now Legal Insurrection.
Screw Drudge.

Im not bothered by what Drudge is doing or does. News is news and pageviews are pageviews. I take all this as all about Florida..that Florida Firewall for Romney.
I suppose the media may be doing for Romney what he isnt equipped to do in a debate setting so here we are…media doing what they suppose is the next best option…a Newt Pile On. The pile on may be as strong as the near paranoia that indeed Romney just might lose Florida. And really arent we seeing in advance form what Obama may advance during a one on one with Newt? We cant have both sides of that argument really…its okay for Newt to demonstrate to us what Obama may use against Romney and then say “unfair” when the object is different.
I figure another great debate performance by Newt and all this junk will lose its punch. Newt takes Florida and man..that will stick a pin in the Romney party hog.
The worst thing Newt could do is let Romney supporters push his buttons to the point of mistakes.
And believe me..Im no Romney supporter.

Why don’t you rename this blog site “Newtsurrection” – I mean how in the tank do you have to be to not pay attention to some pretty un-conservative inflamatory rhetoric by Newt??

He has not stopped the progressive attitudes about Romney’s wealth! Sorry, but his thought pattern here is NOT CONSERVATIVE:

“You have to live to in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic $20 million a year income for no work to have a fantasy this far from reality…”

If he keeps this kind of class warfare rhetoric going he will be the first Republican since Reagan to have won South Carolina and loose the nomination.

Newt’s only enemy in this primary season is his own mouth spewing progressive populism!

God help us
YIKES!!

Drudgeup is becoming the sinister form of muckrake.

Breitbart used to work for Drudge. Drudge links a lot to Breitbart’s “Big” sites … I hope Andrew can talk some sense into him.

Kudos to the Professor. He takes anybody to task when they are acting badly … even the big shots who might then refuse to link him as a result of the Professor calling them out. It will pay off in the long run, Professor. For Coulter, Rubin, Drudge, etc., there is no easy answer to the question,

“Where do I go to get my reputation back when I ruined it myself?”

    MaggotAtBroadAndWall in reply to LukeHandCool. | January 26, 2012 at 11:28 am

    “I hope Andrew can talk some sense into him.”

    Too late. I’ve detected a mild anti-Newt bias seeping into the Breitbart.tv site that links to video clips this week. The bias is not as pronounced as Drudge, but it’s noticeable.

      How is suddenly “anti” to post the very words and video of someone?

      Gee, I thought we conservatives LIKED to be informed about our vote…

        Ragspierre in reply to iambasic. | January 26, 2012 at 11:41 am

        Again, it is a matter of balance. More information is better. Seeing a clear tilt is not ignoring the negative information. And there is POSITIVE information out there that SHOULD be posted…unless you are partisan.

        And, again, Drudge has a perfect right to make his site partisan. And people who want UNBIASED information have a perfect right to de-select Drudge for his obvious bias.

          iambasic in reply to Ragspierre. | January 26, 2012 at 11:54 am

          Sorry, but Newt basically said he was Reagan’s BFF so some have looked deeper into that.

          We all know Newts’ good points: started the Conservative Opportunity Society, the leader of the Republican revolution in the 90’s, welfare reform, and fiscal sanity.

          His rocky, questionable stuff should also be weighed – that’s what informed voters do and posting video and words that contradict some recent statements by him is part of the information needed to become informed.

          Ragspierre in reply to Ragspierre. | January 26, 2012 at 12:11 pm

          Now you are changing the subject.

          It is not at issue what Newt claims, or what his detractors say, it is the BALANCE in reporting. Both streams of information should be provided if one hopes to retain any reputation for being unbiased.

        Tamminator in reply to iambasic. | January 26, 2012 at 11:42 am

        Well that’s a good point. Except the things that they are posting are excerpts speeches. Purposefully clipped, and taken out of context.
        Why don’t you go read the story by Jeffrey Lord above?
        He admits that Newt and Reagan didn’t always see eye to eye.
        But Newt did not “insult” Reagan, as Drudge’s headline proclaims.

        Drudge’s bi-line is pure propaganda, and if you don’t see that then you are blind.

          iambasic in reply to Tamminator. | January 26, 2012 at 12:04 pm

          Yes, my computer monitor is braille compatible.

          When one says they were Reagan’s BFF then there is going to be some close to Reagan who refute how much F was in the BFF. That will be news and Drudge posts news links. Sorry.

        MaggotAtBroadAndWall in reply to iambasic. | January 26, 2012 at 11:58 am

        There is no balance, and that’s why it’s biased.

        There are tons of videos of Newt they could be linking to. Instead, Breitbart.tv has a video that is 24 years old from 1988. It was presumaby selected to strengthen the Drudge meme that Newt is a Reagan basher.

        Most of the videos shown this week have been chosen to portray Newt negatively. There’s no balance. That’s bias.

          The video chosen was chosen because Newt says he is something but words from the past don’t quite fit. That’s not Drudge’s or Breibart’s fault.

          I don’t pay too much attention to stuff 20 or 30 years ago, but I do pay attention to the class warfare rhetoric he has been using lately. Sorry, but that kind of stuff bothers conservatives.

Perhaps we now know Drudge’s secret to success – kowtowing to the establishment GOP in exchange for insider access. If Newt wins, Drudge loses access.

It’s working too. Rasmussen has Romney up by 8 this morning. The only think I know if for Newt’s supporters not to use Drudge over the weekend. If enough people did not use him, it could dint his hits a little.

SJR
The Pink Flamingo

Good article around Newt’s electability V Romney

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/25/the-three-reasons-newt-is-more-electable-than-mitt/

One point..how Romney is perceived as the model one percenter I agree with strongly. Probably a reason all the anti Newt stuff in the media…an attempt to distract folks from Romney’s taxes etc. Like magicians do…draw your eyes away

OK, let’s agree for the sake of argument that Newt’s tongue lashing Reagan on the House floor in the middle of Reagan’s Presidency was just a matter of nudging him from the right. But what about this?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/newt-gingrich-in-1988-bush-wont-win-if-he-runs-t

Newt blows with the wind. As Tom Delay summed it up, he’s not really a conservative. He says whatever you want to hear.

This is an interesting article about Drudge and his link to the Romney camp. Drudge plays conservatives like a fine violin.

http://www.damndirtyrino.com/2011/10/04/the-drudge-romney-axis/

Professor Jacobson’s ‘Drudge vs History’…

The 20 percent, like Coulter, just because they screech with the loudest voice, should not be allowed to determine what candidate is better for the majority of Republicans….

I’ve posted on this and the trend to just dump on Newt in general at my own blog. Look for posts entitled, “Very Annoying” and “Drudge is Part of the Annoying Crowd as Well.”
My prose is nowhere up to the Professor’s standard, but I am just as upset with these bully tactics as he must be. What’s next – Taking Newt’s lunch money while he and the Rino are on the school playground? Oh, wait, Obama already promised to do that during his campaign speech on Tuesday night.

Oh man…getting really desperate. When your guys taxes make him look a little out of touch with middle america…why presto! An “expert” there to make the narritive go away.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/289262/tax-lawyers-question-newts-2010-returns-nathaniel-botwinick

Oh…just adjusted at RCP…Newt up a point since this am nationally

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html

Jeez, this instant, over the top hatred of Drudge is instructive. You can be a conservative only if you support the Newtster. If you don’t, we’ll stop reading your blog and hold our breath until you relent.

    Henry Hawkins in reply to JEBurke. | January 26, 2012 at 2:28 pm

    I realize speaking sense is a waste on some, but when such a large blog as The Drudge Report agrees to be one candidate’s attack dog pointed directly at another, it will have earned the hate of those who hate. Having said that, you mistake a surprised disappointment for hate. Blog readers would like to think their favorite blogs tell the whole story, regardless of whatever ideology or candidate they choose to support. Matt Drudge has devolved into a simple political hack, and The Drudge Report has gone completely untrustworthy. Were Mr Jacobson to start posting anti-anybody mistruths, slants, and biases, the LI regulars would abandon him just as quickly. My allegiance to this site is based on the fact that if the wind were evidence Mr. J would be a weathervane; I can trust content at Legal Insurrection and I’d be here if I were not a Gingrich supporter.

    Personally, I abandoned The Drudge Report many years ago.

[…] that noticed: Legal Insurrection Against the anti-Newt crusade stands a wealth of counter-viewpoints of people who were in a […]

The all-hands-on-deck propaganda war against Gingrich is breathtaking. Has there ever been anything like it within a party? Please enlighten me. I must admit I wavered over the Bain SuperPAC attack; I didn’t like its tenor (I don’t like propaganda from any source) and held Newt responsible even if he could officially disavow it. But Bain was nothing compared to what Romney has done and is doing, and this media pile on is without precedent that I can recall. It’s even more intense than what the media did to Bush during any election run-up (because there is no friendly side outside a very few blogs to hit back).

Why is this happening? Obviously, it’s not a conspiracy. I think it’s group hysteria: a well recognized phenomenon. It is a terrible indictment against these folks that they lack the discipline to ward off what is basically the call of a lynch mob.

    hrh40 in reply to hamilcarb. | January 26, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    Yes, there has: What was done to Sarah Palin in the middle of the 2008 campaign – and has been continued for the four years since.

    Perhaps why Todd Palin endorsed Newt; he felt a certain empathy. Also empathetic concerning the harassing ethics charges strategy that was employed against both Newt and Sarah Palin. Palin mentions Newt in this regard in Going Rogue.

    Perhaps also why Todd Palin has never registered as a Republican despite his wife’s 20 years of public service as a Republican. If anything, the party machinations against his wife have probably solidified him against EVER joining the party.

      You’re right! (facepalm) The anti-Newt campaign is I think more acutely intense right now simply because of the primal fear he provokes in these here real live primaries, neck’n’neck for the lead. Sarah’s been (since 08) more of a latent threat. They would’ve ratcheted it up accordingly if she entered the race, especially if she did well (would’ve made what they’re doing to Newt pale in comparison).

hamilcarb, it might be mass hysteria but it could just as well be a conspiracy. Look at who is piling up on Newt and following the Rino Romney line. It’s virtually a list of Who’s Who in the Beltway, the Republican establishment and the punditry. There are some exceptions, but it appears to be those who really want things to stay the same, IMHO. No risktakers among them.

    I’m not much for conspiracies, but who’s to say righty media types aren’t capable of ‘Journolist’ type villainy? I suppose it’s possible.

      Henry Hawkins in reply to hamilcarb. | January 26, 2012 at 7:43 pm

      ‘Conspiracy’ can be a creature of perspective or relativity, that is, if you’re part of it, it’s just a plan put into action by a team of people with a common goal. If you’re not part of it, nor privvy to it, it can look like a conspiracy. In the final examination, it hardly matters. A group of folks with a common goal are hard at it against one Newt Gingrich.

      In recent times, very similar all-out assaults were mounted on Sarah Palin, Iowa Newt, Herman Cain, and now the SC Newt Reborn. What have these folks in common? They are conservatives who challenge(d) the GOP status quo. Had they all been murdered, the police would consider the GOP their primary suspect, based on motivation and opportunity.

[…] there are many with ties to the Reagan years who are supporting Gingrich and telling a different story. But apparently these folks have escaped the attention of National Review, Ann Coulter, and now, Mr […]

I’m done with Drudge. It was my homepage for several years. For now I’ll use something else for when I open my browser.

[…] kill him before the convention. The smear campaign by Romney surrogates has produced an amazing response from conservative bloggers. Using Reagan is one thing. Lying about him is […]

[…] For days Drudge trumpeted Romney’s “Gingrich was anti-Reagan” narrative while ignoring accounts of those with different recollections: […]