So the message South Carolina voters sent was: “Anything goes so long as you attack the media.”
Whatever you think about Mitt Romney’s shortcomings as a candidate — and I agree with Mark Steyn, who said of his stump speech, “The finely calibrated inoffensiveness is kind of offensive” — embracing Gingrich is like bashing yourself in the face to relieve the pain in your foot.
Certainly it’s possible that the voters have done all of us a favor. If Gingrich’s success there scares Romney into becoming a better candidate, then it may work out well in the general election.
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But really, South Carolina, a whooping ovation for Gingrich’s denunciation of John King? King asked a perfectly legitimate question. It was Marianne Gingrich, not “the liberal media” who made this a story. Gingrich knows this perfectly well, but he can turn a hangnail into a conspiracy by the media. And so he crafted his reply to leave the second Mrs. Gingrich’s agency out of it entirely. “To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.”
“Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things,” Gingrich added, as if he were the wounded party.
Sorry, but it’s impossible to sit still for that kind of cynical manipulation of an audience. Gingrich is not just someone who has “gone through painful things.” Instead, he has inflicted pain quite promiscuously to those nearest him and justified it because he was destined for greater things. He cheated on his first wife, Jackie, and then divorced her while she was fighting cancer, telling a friend that she was neither “young nor pretty enough” to be the wife of a president. Jackie was obliged to petition the court to enforce child support and alimony orders. Gingrich later peddled the story that it was she who had wanted the divorce. “He can say that we’d been talking about it for ten years,” she told the Washington Post in 1985, “but it came as a complete surprise.”
Gingrich himself contradicted the “Jackie wanted a divorce” account. Attempting to negate the story that he was insensitive about discussing divorce during a hospital visit, Gingrich explained, “All I can say is when you’ve been talking about divorce for eleven years . . . and the other person doesn’t want a divorce, I’m not sure there is any sensitive way to handle it.”
Gingrich cheated on his first wife, or in his own words, “I did a lot of things . . . that reflect[ed] how much pain I was in.” But he “asked for God’s forgiveness” and married Marianne. After finding God, he seems to have misplaced Him, because after cheating on Marianne, divorcing her, and marrying Callista, he found Him again, adding piously that “I think most people, deep down in their hearts, hope there’s a forgiving God.” A bewildered Marianne asked him how he could deliver speeches on family values while walking out on her. He explained that “it doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.” Gingrich managed, during the affair with Callista, to participate in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. And while it’s true that Clinton lied under oath, which Gingrich is not accused of, the hypocrisy would have inhibited a man of ordinary decency.
Newt Gingrich is not your average flim-flam artist. He is profoundly, fundamentally, transformationally different. With equal passion, and within 36 hours, he can condemn the media for impugning free enterprise and then (in a huge gift to the Obama campaign) slam private equity and venture capital as “rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company.” There is no concern for intellectual consistency, party loyalty, or the advancement of an agenda. He will condemn Paul Ryan one day and film a global-warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi the next — more a loose pop gun than a loose cannon.
This fierce antagonist of liberalism — the roaring lion who tells John King and Juan Williams where to get off — confessed that in meetings with Bill Clinton, “I melt when I’m around him. After I get out, I need two hours to detoxify. My people are nervous about me going in there because of the way I deal with this.”
“His people” ought to be even more nervous now. I know I am.
I have yet to make up my mind here, but from what I saw, the question John King was asking was not based on the affairs, but on the claim a few days earlier by his ex-wife (posted here on NRO right below his debate response) that he wanted an open marriage. If King had asked simply what his marital history had to say about his character and Gingrich had responded the same way, that would be different.
I don't disagree with your other statements, but let's evaluate whether the ACTUAL question King asked was worthy of such a response. And I do mean that in a most impartial way.
"It was Marianne Gingrich, not “the liberal media” who made this a story."
And it was right there that you lost me. Of course it was "the liberal media." who made it a story. They had been wringing their hands and gleefully salivating as they awaited the time when releasing the story would do the most damage. The only thing missing from this melodrama was Gloria Allred, who must have been busy chasing a bigger ambulance. As for the rest of your rant, how do you spell 'ho-hum?" (And I'm not even a big Newt fan.)
I think it's more likely that conservatives will support a conservative politician that doesn't meekly sit at the back of the bus when attacked by the leftist media.
Far to often the left's attack dogs in the main stream media set out on a lynching and are obsequiously allowed to do it by conservatives. Newt merely told one to get back in his kennel where he belongs.
I get that you really really really don't like Newt Gingrich. Fair enough.
But I think your article is missing the main points. All of the stuff you talk about in your article is already known to almost everyone - and certainly everyone who reads NRO. But unlike, apparently, much of the staff here as well as most of the media elsewhere, 'walking around, working citizens' in this country know that this is not a normal-business-as-usual election. It's our Battle of Midway
1) The only thing that matters in 2012 is removing Obama from office. Nothing else matters (I don't care, on the eve of battle in 1943, that Patton had an affair in 1927, if he's the best general available to beat Rommel). I believe many many millions of scared Americans share that same calculus - AT THIS TIME IN HISTORY.
2) Heartland America is interested in a candidate who can beat Obama, and then has the grit and pugnacity to do hard things that will reverse the disastrous course we're currently on. MANY MANY voters DO NOT BELIEVE that Romney has the conviction, the sand, the fire to 1) rally enough voters to win, and 2) get his nose bloody fighting for us. Many of those same voters believe that Newt does have a chance to do those two things.
The South Carolina voters don't care about having an 'attack dog against the media'. But we won't abide a lapdog, either. And if a guy won't speak up and defend his ground against the simpering slyness of the MSmedia now, then how less likely is it that this guy will have the gumption/ability to defend his ground - indeed, OUR ground - against the simpering manipulation efforts of Obama and the Democrats and their MSmedia?
If you want faces to be angry at, go find a picture of John McCain and Mitt Romney. Their soft, tentative, ineffectual presentations (and, through implication, convictions) are what's given Newt his chance.
This is war, lady. In 2012, all that matters is the victory.
Oh, he is a mean little bugger. Kind of like the ghost tearing up the hotel dining room in the movie "Ghostbusters", and I would love to see him turned lose on the Democrats, so long as we can build a laser containment field to hold him from time to time.
If South Carolinians wanted a media attack dog, they would have voted for Mona Charen or any of the other loyal National Review pups in the pet carrier atop Mitt Romney's campaign bus.
If the greatest question American voters are faced with this election season is whether or not Newt Gingrich's embittered shrew of an ex-wife endorses his political aspirations, why is the Republican Party even bothering to nominate a candidate?
Gingrich's outrage at John King should have been joined by the other milquetoast candidates for posing such a question in an allegedly serious forum. Ah, but serious candidates are required for a serious forum, and Romney, Paul, and Santorum are all but that.
They didn't join. And that's perhaps the biggest statement upon their lack of character now.
When the media unearths an ex-girlfriend or acquaintance from the past of any other candidate and makes their sordid, unfounded smear allegations the centerpiece of attack questions on Romney, Paul, or Santorum in a debate (and they will), I hope Gingrich will speak up for them and wonder aloud why policy issues and positions to be discussed must await the media catching up with the reasons we have elections in the first place.
"...When the media unearths an ex-girlfriend or acquaintance from the past of any other candidate and makes their sordid, unfounded smear allegations the centerpiece of attack questions on Romney..."
That is the whole point Mona is making, the correct point, this is not going to happen with Willard Mitt Romney. The media has unearthed ALL that they could to smear this man.
Romney is a man you can admire, a man you can respect. Newt is a man you can be friends with, hang out with, and talk about how tough life has been for him regarding his bad marriages, a man you might not have ANY respect. You don't vote for your best friend to be President just because you like the way he handles tough questions that put him on the spot. You vote for the person you respect and admire.
Maybe South Carolina voters voted for Newt because they preferred Newt. Maybe voters out there are tired of this befuddled, bemused, milquetoast Republican and commentator establishment blaming everyone but themselves for the state we are in now. Can you really blame voters for voting for someone — anyone — who is actually and forthrightly refuting the left?
You guys should try it sometime instead of jumping through all these strained hoops of logic for what the South Carolina voters *really* were saying.
In the face of all the negative facts about Gingrich (his working for the top lobbyist at Freddie Mac, lobbying for health insurance industries, having NO RESPECT with Republican congressmen either NOW or when he was speaker, etc. etc. etc.) -- the SC Republican voters have decided HE'S THEIR GUY!
Meanwhile the Republican establishment is horrified -- since their internal polling is telling them Gingrich would not only get us another 4 years of Obama; but would also lose congressional seats as well.
NO WONDER the media tends to portray us as uninformed yahoos!
Since 1974 I have been a Newt-watcher. He has been my Congressman and I have voted for him and I have never voted against him. However, a long time ago, I figured out that, while he was brilliant, he was a little bit (maybe not so little) crazy. I worried when he was Speaker about something happening to both Clinton and Gore and Newt ending up with his finger on the button.
There was some harm he did while Speaker - but - other than hurting the Repub cause - he probably did more good than harm.
The potential of the harm he could do with his finger on the button scares me to death.
It's easy to understand those who have been introduced to him on a single occasion "falling in love." And there have been many single occasions. We have to hope and pray that his true colors will show and keep him from the nomination.
Before the campaign, I was willing to accept the fact that he had been born again and I still don't doubt that he has made his spiritual peace with his God. However, just his actions flip-flopping on Libya so that he would stay on the opposite side of where he saw Obama showed me that while he may have been born again spiritually, he is still the same degree of crazy. And he reminds of that crazy again on at least a weekly basis.
"Sorry, but it’s impossible to sit still for that kind of cynical manipulation of an audience."
It's a good thing we will never see Obama stoop to such manipulation.
Part of the reason Newt gained strongly from what King asked was that it said what the majority of the people there felt. The question simply was not a debate topic at all. All it was, was a direct attack on Newt. It was not about how he would govern or the political differences between him and the others on the stage. The information does not apply in the debate, it was only about Newt. That could be done at anytime outside the debate. I am not going to vote for Newt in the primary, but I did feel a visceral pleasure as he gutted King. The crowd should have chanted policy not personality to get the point across.
I despise Gingrich. That being confessed, I cannot comprehend how people who claim to be Christian can "...accept that he's made his peace with God..." and that he's been "forgiven". Admittedly, it is certainly debatable in our "make-up-your-own-rules-on-morality" society whether this has anything to do with his fitness for the office of President of the United States of America, but how can a "Christian" let him get away with "I've found God and been forgiven" self-absolution. I could quote scriptural reference after scriptural reference that unequivocally demands restitution, not just mere confession, saying you found "God", and "asking to be forgiven". There's more to forgiveness than that, much more. You must do all in your power to make restitution to those you've wronged. That not only requires effort, but it requires humility to admit you've wronged others. Gingrich refuses, steadfastly, to admit he's wronged anyone. It was merely because of "pain" he felt. He had to escape the pain in the arms of another woman...twice! At least, twice that we know of, that is. He's vermin, people. Admit it. He is not, in my expectation of worthiness for the office of POTUS, fit for the job. I'd reject him on his moral history and abundantly evident refusal to admit error, alone. It indicates an utter lack of character. I want a man with character in the White House. Among many others, it's a primary reason I do not want Obama in the White House for another four years. He lacks character. He and Gingrich are of a kind and neither is fit to lead our nation. Support Santorum, Romney, a write-in, perhaps, or, heaven forbid, even Paul, but do not be led down the Gingrich road to disaster. People who make disastrous decisions in their personal lives are likely to make disastrous decisions in other walks of life. Seriously consider what he's done in politics. It's always been about Gingrich, about his personal wants and needs, not about the people. Only someone with a serious mental condition can be two or three different people. Gingrich is Gingrich. He'd be Gingrich as President. Do you really want that? I do not!
Mona, you're terrific! Some comments here may denounce your views on Gingrich, but you're right on target. Gingrich is dangerously flawed and I'd be worried, if I thought he could be elected President of the United States. He can't and, as bad as Obama is, we'd be much better off with an Obama hamstrung with a Republican House and Senate than a Gingrich, regardless of the political persuasion of Congress.
Ms. Charen is right. Cynically manipulating his audience is what the former Speaker does exceedingly well. Most demagogues have a knack for this. As for those lusting for the defeat of Obama, I would only say that defeating Obama, should it come to pass, will happen in the course of one day of voting. The far more important question has to do with who will then govern the country for four years. On this point, the former Speaker is a risky--even dangerous--bet.
I'm sorry, but for many Independents Gingrich is essentially a right-wing equivalent of John Edwards: an über-slick professional politician who has a few smart riffs he feeds the yokels, topped with a few nasty layers of hypocrisy, trough-feeding & personal venality. For America's sake, better hope Romney gets his act together or a better man (e.g., Christie or Rubio) stands up.
They just don't get it. Grassroots people are sick and tired of spineless Republicans who couldn't even deliver the milk. We have seen our moral values trashed and the party not only didn't defend them but appeared to agree with Obama ref our God and guns clinger image. It wasn't that Newt attacked the media but rather that he attacked the other side in a way we wish a candidate would. Judging from the criticism of Newt, too many of our conservative minds don't even have the spine to support a candidate with a spine.
It isn't that we of the country class have lost our moral underpinnings but rather that we want a fighter and Newt was the best the ruling class could come up with, warts and all.
Some of our so called elites tell us Christie is our savior ... but when he attacks Newt sounding no different than the Democrats of Bonior's day, it makes me mad. We lived through that shameful period of partisan vile attacks and don't need our own party reliving it.
All our choices, except Newt, seem more adept at attacking each other rather than Obama. I can get that from Democrats.
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