A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
Diane Ellis, Ed. ·
Dec 9, 2011 at 11:36am
I present to you, Newt's Christmas "Naughty List." The coveted top spot goes, of course, to Mitt Romney for this 59 seconds of devastation.
- David Brooks – "Gingrich loves government more than I do. He has no Hayekian modesty to restrain his faith in statist endeavor....In the two main Republican contenders, we have one man, Romney, who seems to have walked straight out of the 1950s, and another, Gingrich, who seems to have walked straight out of the 1960s. He has every negative character trait that conservatives associate with ’60s excess: narcissism, self-righteousness, self-indulgence and intemperance. He just has those traits in Republican form. As nearly everyone who has ever worked with him knows, he would severely damage conservatism and the Republican Party if nominated."
- Ramesh Ponnuru – "Conservatives who dislike George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism have Gingrich to thank for it. After Gingrich lost the budget battles with President Bill Clinton, it took 15 years for any politician to take up the cause of limited-government conservatism that he had discredited. Although Gingrich isn’t solely responsible for the Republican policy defeats of those years, his erratic behavior, lack of discipline and self-absorption had a lot to do with them."
- Peggy Noonan – "The biggest fear of those who've known Mr. Gingrich? He has gone through his political life making huge strides, rising in influence and achievement, and then been destabilized by success, or just after it. Maybe he's made dizzy by the thin air at the top, maybe he has an inner urge to be tragic, to always be unrealized and misunderstood. But he goes too far, his rhetoric becomes too slashing, the musings he shares—when he rose to the speakership, in 1995, it was that women shouldn't serve in combat because they're prone to infections—are too strange."
- George Will – "Gingrich...embodies the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive. And there is his anti-conservative confidence that he has a comprehensive explanation of, and plan to perfect, everything....Gingrich, who would have made a marvelous Marxist, believes everything is related to everything else and only he understands how."
- Charles Krauthammer – "Gingrich has a self-regard so immense that it rivals Obama’s — but, unlike Obama’s, is untamed by self-discipline."
- John Sununu – "Listen to just about anyone who worked alongside Gingrich and you will hear that he's inconsistent, erratic, untrustworthy and unprincipled"
- Tom Coburn – "I'm not inclined to be a supporter of Newt Gingrich's having served under him for four years and experienced personally his leadership. I found it lacking often times. There are all types of leaders: leaders that instill confidence, leaders that are somewhat abrupt and brisk, leaders that have one standard for the people they are leading and a different standard for themselves. I just found his leadership lacking and…I will have difficulty supporting him as president of the United States."
- Peter King – "The problem was, over a period of time, he couldn't stay focused. He was undisciplined. Too often, he made it about himself."
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
He sounds like half of the Founding Fathers.
Apr '11
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
That's a devastating roundup, Diane. Wow.
Edited on Dec 9, 2011 at 11:53amDec '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
So what does it say about Romney that with all this stacked against Gingrich he's still down in the polls? It's not like this is all brand new revelation stuff about Newt that has yet to sink in.
Edited on Dec 9, 2011 at 11:53amDec '11
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
When the nation hates, as in having a burning fiery disdain for, washington, did people really think that 'washington hates Newt' was going to hurt him? If you want to sink newt ENDORSE HIM.
Edited on Dec 9, 2011 at 12:01pmJul '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
I can see them all at the cocktail party in Georgetown now...
David Brooks? Ramesh Ponnuru? Those are the bastions of conservatism!
I'm pretty sure the Tea Partiers (the base, right wing nutjobs, bitter clingers, et al.) are hanging on their every word! This is Peggy Noonan and Peter King we're talking about here.
As for George Will and Charles Krauthammer...let's just say they wouldn't be caught dead in my local.
As for Tom Coburn...Newt got you this job, pal.
May '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
Rick Perry is still in the race, folks. He may be ham-handed in some of his PR moves and debates, but his record is pretty strong, and he's definitely got some good ideas about what to do with the accumulation of power in Washington-- namely, return it to the states and the people.
Edited on Dec 9, 2011 at 12:02pmDec '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
We've given up on ideas this go round. It's unfortunate but true.
Oct '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
Perry is still in the race, but he's going to need Newt to implode reasonably soon. I would agree that it's only a matter of time before The Great Newt Train Wreck(tm), but I suspect it won't come in time to save Governor Perry. Pity because Perry has credible experience as a chief executive that most of the GOP candidates don't possess.
Aug '11
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
That's Krauthammer? Does he realize he just suggested that Obama is disciplined?
Aug '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
Jen Rubin- Gingrich’s ability to deceive, to twist and to rearrange facts to fit his own grandiose vision of himself is, to be frank, scary.
This is why, if some are puzzled, elected Republicans and veterans of the party are so aghast at the prospect of a Gingrich nomination. What he will say and do to the party is entirely unpredictable. And his ability to dissemble is unparalleled.
Jen Rubin is the Bobby Lee Swagger of conservative punditry, dropping sundry pandering, book-peddling hucksters with deadly precision.
Aug '11
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
The Republican establishment still doesn't get why they lost in 2006 and 2008. (And I submit that the Republicans lost in 2010 as well. But the Tea Party won.)
Oct '11
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
I assumed Herman Cain cornered the market on all train-related political terms, especially wrecks. Are you sure it isn't licensed? Newtron Bomb(tm) is my preferred explosion/implosion doomsday term.
Edited on Dec 9, 2011 at 12:24pmJun '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
It would be nice if these great pundits of us all would be FOR someone instead of just against everyone. At some point we will all have to cast a vote. By the time this primary is over, every one of our candidates will have been ripped to shreads. Why don't these geniuses just focus on Obama? Oh, I almost forgot, at least two of them voted for Obama.
Sep '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
Any chance the pundit class falls in line and actually starts attacking Obama if Newt somehow manages to win the nomination?
May '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
Party. Of. Stupid. Welcome to the circular firing squad...
By the way, Mr. Romney... you want to dissuade me using... Pat Buchanan?
Edited on Dec 9, 2011 at 12:30pmApr '11
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
I agree 100% there. The GOP establishment has convinced itself otherwise regarding 2010 by focusing on the Tea Party-supported candidates who lost, and then declaring that a pattern to be avoided.
Oct '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
QuickerBrownFox
I assumed Herman Cain cornered the market on all train-related political terms, especially wrecks. Are you sure it isn't licensed? Newtron Bomb(tm) is my preferred explosion/implosion doomsday term. · Dec 9 at 12:21pm
Edited on Dec 09 at 12:24 pm
You win. Cain Wreck has been taken, hasn't it? I love Newtron Bomb(tm)!
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
Michael Tee
David Brooks? Ramesh Ponnuru? Those are the bastions of conservatism!
I'm pretty sure the Tea Partiers (the base, right wing nutjobs, bitter clingers, et al.) are hanging on their every word! This is Peggy Noonan and Peter King we're talking about here.
As for George Will and Charles Krauthammer...let's just say they wouldn't be caught dead in my local.
As for Tom Coburn...Newt got you this job, pal.
This was pretty much my reaction too, Michael Tee. But, there's one guy I left off because it crushed me to see him lumped in with the rest of these sometimes incisive, but usually snooty elites, and that would be Mark Steyn.
As someone who right now favors Newt, and doesn't care a whole lot what the likes of Obama voters Peggy Noonan and David Brooks have to say about much of anything, it doesn't bother me one whit to see them bash Newt. In fact, it even makes me like Newt all the more. But when I start hearing folks like Mark Steyn go negative too, well, it makes me a little queasy.
Nov '11
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
All now chant: SAN-TOR-RUM - SAN-TOR-RUM -SAN-TOR-RUM.
Yes, yes, I know, he looks and sounds and acts like he just ate a nasty bad piece of fish, and got a couple of bones stuck in his throat while he was at it.
But I'm starting to like that look. I'm starting to lurve, lurve, lurve it.
It's a look just right for the times: Don't we almost all share Santorum's contempt, disgust, and disappointment about the rest of the candidates?
SAN-TOR-RUM! SAN-TOR-RUM! SAN-TOR-RUM!
May '10
Re: A Guide to Newt's "Naughty List"
Are you ready for some Hardball?