I’m with Mona. I’ve been trying to defend Newt from some unfair criticisms, but I don’t think there’s any legitimate defense for his Holocaust survivor robocall. It’s disgusting.
When I read about this today, I decided that I will not vote for Gingrich if he turns out to be the GOP nominee. I have decided this despite thinking that the re-election of Obama would be a terrible thing.
Newt displays his devotion to big government - as if the only way for elderly Holocaust survivors to get kosher meals is for the government to pay for them.
Sowell has an excellent column denouncing Romney's false charges about Gingrich and the ethics issue. I wonder if he'll be as animated denouncing the Holocaust Survivors robocall.
Because it seems that "resigned in disgrace" is more of a matter of opinion; given that apparently not a single old person, Holocaust survivor or not, had a single non-Kosher meal forced on them, pretty much makes this a clear falsehood.
Plus, this is another case of Gingrich attacking from the left. If Gingrich is President, and someone sends a bill that tries to continue funding some program that would be cheaper run privately, will Gingrich NOT veto it? Does Gingrich think Romney should have driven Mass. more into debt to fund a public program that apparently could be done more cheaply by outsourcing? What was his CONSERVATIVE complaint here?
Is it smart to attack Romney on one of the few cases where he worked to cut spending?
Mitt governed like a liberal, until it came time to determine what the elderly Jews would eat.
Why not just shut down nursing home kitchens in general, for all the residents, Jew and Christian and Muslim (oh, and vegan druids!) alike, and serve 'em all frozen foods?
Is that REALLY the conservative position? No home cooked meals for anyone over 80, or, at least not for the Jews?
I bet I'm with Santorum on this -- Mitt picked an interesting target to start worrying about expenses, and the complaints now about this after the campaign he has run increases the hypocrisy to levels of sickening far beyond these RoboCalls, as ill-advised as I think they are
(Because Tobachniks aint all that bad, after the first 500 boxes one is made to eat)
By the way, these are tame compared to GWB's robocalls to catholic voters in Michigan against McCain in 2000.
Goldberg and Charen know that, too.
Totally unrelated: I'd like to amend my advice to the kosher nursing home residents: it's never too late to eat bacon and aygs with hash browns and sauteed peppers.
It's an article of faith to Newt's nutters that Mitt "started it." I will admit that Romney's social security attacks on Perry were cheap shots, but Mitt should have nothing to apologize over the Fannie Mae business. Those were in my view de facto bribes that Gingrich accepted. Gingrich has always been greedy for money and a lavish, self-indulgent liver and he has never hesitated to use his government connections to advance himself. He broke no laws, evidently, but he's a tawdry person. On the Reagan's heir matter, Gingrich has exaggerated his connection to Reagan, though it's true he did more conservatism than Romeny ever did. It's also true, however, that Gingrich has done way more to harm conservatism than Romeny ever did.
Gingrich's Bain attacks and now this kosher smear are sleazier than anything that Mitt Romney has done, but it's Newt who is doing all the whining (along with his cheerleader Palin).
CharlesWayne, I agree with you, but Gingrich's distortion is even worse than you indicate. There was no discontinuation of funding, according to the original post, anyway. "In 2003, amid a budget crisis and rapidly rising Medicare costs, several nursing homes in Massachusetts considered cutting costs by closing their kosher kitchens and instead providing catered or prepackaged kosher food. The state legislature proposed an additional $600,000 in spending to prevent this from happening, but Romney vetoed it, due to state budget constraints."
So all Romney did was decide not to introduce funding for Kosher kitchens,
"Pander" is an understatement. It is a libelous, shameful, despicable lie -- and for what? To lose Florida by a few thousand fewer votes?
Newt Gingrich should be effectively excommunicated from the Republican Party after this primary season. He is a truly horrible character who cares nothing for anyone in the world but himself.
I'd like to go on record urging Jewish seniors in Massachusetts to demand Tobachnik's pre-packaged, over anything the nursing home is gonna brew up itself.
And, both are preferable to catered kosher food. How do we say in Yiddish? BLECH! (German gutteral ch with some emphasis!)
I know about nursing home kosher food because I used to eat meals with my granddad at his predominantly Jewish nursing home dining room.
In case the debate comes round again.
But, I'll bet these elderly nursing home residents were happy they hadn't been eating frozen weenies in blankets, fake egg rolls and soggy microwaved latkes.
Far from disgusting, Mitt Romney asks for this kind of thing by slinging millions on pure negativity as the first candidate in two straight cycles to resort to scorched earth tactics as opposed to spending even half as much on positive ads in support of his record.
I cannot help but find the outrage of Charen and Goldberg to be at least slightly manufactured, or "pre-packaged".
After all, these Holocaust survivors in FL could help matters by proclaiming their votes are not for sale to the charlatan pols who cater to them, like Al Gore in 2000, who fired up a recount effort on the basis of the fact that the Reform Party Headquarters in Palm Beach County effectively turned out its members to vote.
But, Mitt vetoed the effort to keep the kosher kitchens open, which is the service with which the nursing home residents had become accustomed to enjoying -- a home-cooked meal, just like all the other residents, which met their religious practices.
Mitt's preferred policy was, "Let them eat frozen pigs-in-blankets", and now he doesn't have to explain that?
How much in "savings" are we talking about? Cos I doubt the kosher caterer woulda been any cheaper, and Charen and Goldberg know it. That was an inflationary budget line item waiting to sky-rocket.
So, Mitt lives by the sword and he dies by it, potentially. This is hardly grossly misleading.
I find the faux outrage on part of Jewish commentators to be clearly the most offensive angle to this story.
So, save money on frozen pre-packaged, but don't pretend this is in any way different in kind from the way Mitt Romney campaigns.
This is outrageous and contemptible. The damage Gingrich is doing to conservatism is beyond measure and we will certainly pay for it in the general election. I'm only tepid for Romney (as, I'm sure, are most NRO regulars), but if voting for him helps take Gingrich out of public life I'll do so with pleasure.
Not that it would matter to you, of course, but the robocall says that "Holocaust survivors" were forced to eat non-kosher meals. Besides exploiting the Holocaust in an extremely crass way, it's evidently not true that anyone was forced to eat a non-kosher meal. This is just Newt going straight to the gutter again. Which would be okay, except that the man is so insufferably self-righteous whining about negative attacks on him. I don't see how anyone can stand the man (and if you look at general election polls it's clear most people can't).
Whoops, that was meant to be a reply to the inappropriately named Madisonian. The captcha was "pig's ear" by the way--probably something Mitt Romeny forced Holocaust surviviors to eat, or at least that's what the next Newt robocall will be saying.
I usually don't read anything Mona Charen has to say about anything, at least not without mentally preparing myself beforehand for how painfully ignorant and uninformed her prose is.
I'm willing to give Jonah Goldberg more than a benefit of the doubt, because he's proven time and time again to not just be accurate, by reliably accurate.
I do feel sorry for these two, trapped as they are in the National Romney Online echo chamber. Charen perhaps not so much, but Goldberg has never struck me as an obedient, willing hoop jumper and apple polisher.
We all know William F. Buckley's corpse was barely cold and in the ground before National Review endorsed Mitt Romney for President in 2008. In 2012, Buckley's spinning in his grave fast enough to create a gravity well over the bizarre "Romney is the most conservative candidate" meme.
I can only suggest Goldberg is succumbing to the pressures of editorial attrition in overlooking Romney's vast array of anti-Newt LIES to pick this nit.
Newt should be expected to retract this out-of-bounds robocall only after Mitt Romney retracts his entire campaign.
The more I listen to Newt and hear about him, I think he may suffer from some psychological problem.
He exaggerates everything. He is going around saying he performed poorly at the recent debate because he never heard such "blatant dishonsty." As far as I can tell, he is talking about Romney voting for Tsongas in the 1992 presidential primary. What nonsense.
I honesty think there is something wrong with him. Even the notion that he thinks that he could win the presidential election is delusional - he has been in politics a very long time. He can read the polls. But he still has convinced himself he can be elected president. Very strange man.
But, this is what you get with both of 'em -- Mitt and Newt.
And I just love how Romney's supporters will claim that this shows he's a fiscal conservative.
That is really precious.
And, if Mitt wants to defend his decision to close down only those nursing home kitchens that served the Jews, let him. That was his policy, and I don't really care one wit what the robocalls say.
Who here did NOT vote for GWB, after he spat anti-Catholic charges in robo calls at John McCain?
Yeah, right! Anyone? Buehler? Thought so!
And Newt resigned over ethics charges, which is why Tom Brokaw himself decided to ask for the ad to be pulled.
For the mentally challenged, my entire point is that people need to spare the sanctimony as a condiment for all the BS club sandwiches on offer here.
It just sounds so impolitic, the way I said it the first time? We're talking about two grown men who need to be separated in the corner, and not considered presidential.
SANTORUM FOR PRESIDENT!
I don't know how anyone can claim that this was a real wise spending target for an erstwhile liberal governor.
I sure hope y'all with your panties in a bunch don't find what I said about assimilation to be pathetic.
That would be odd, since my dad's parents used to get a kick out of it.
But you non-Jews keep up with your faux outrage. It's only slightly more transparent than that from Charen and Goldberg.
I know what anti-Semitism is. But I don't know what you call it when a Jew bashes non-Jews as a category (along with Jews who displease him). (See both this post from Madisonian's and his post above it.)
I use to respect this poster. But it has been a while.
"But, I'll bet these elderly nursing home residents were happy they hadn't been eating frozen weenies in blankets, fake egg rolls and soggy microwaved latkes."
For what it's worth to all the supposedly "offended" Goyim:
Every relative I have ever known who's resided in a nursing home would agree with that statement 100%, unless they lived in an adjacent apartment separate from the "hospital" wing.
Those relatives heated up Tobachniks.
:)
Know a few first, huh? Before claiming to be outraged on their behalf?
When I read about this today, I decided that I will not vote for Gingrich if he turns out to be the GOP nominee. I have decided this despite thinking that the re-election of Obama would be a terrible thing.
W Wenger
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNewt displays his devotion to big government - as if the only way for elderly Holocaust survivors to get kosher meals is for the government to pay for them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSowell has an excellent column denouncing Romney's false charges about Gingrich and the ethics issue. I wonder if he'll be as animated denouncing the Holocaust Survivors robocall.
Because it seems that "resigned in disgrace" is more of a matter of opinion; given that apparently not a single old person, Holocaust survivor or not, had a single non-Kosher meal forced on them, pretty much makes this a clear falsehood.
Plus, this is another case of Gingrich attacking from the left. If Gingrich is President, and someone sends a bill that tries to continue funding some program that would be cheaper run privately, will Gingrich NOT veto it? Does Gingrich think Romney should have driven Mass. more into debt to fund a public program that apparently could be done more cheaply by outsourcing? What was his CONSERVATIVE complaint here?
Is it smart to attack Romney on one of the few cases where he worked to cut spending?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat's the point, moro err -- genius!
Mitt governed like a liberal, until it came time to determine what the elderly Jews would eat.
Why not just shut down nursing home kitchens in general, for all the residents, Jew and Christian and Muslim (oh, and vegan druids!) alike, and serve 'em all frozen foods?
Is that REALLY the conservative position? No home cooked meals for anyone over 80, or, at least not for the Jews?
I bet I'm with Santorum on this -- Mitt picked an interesting target to start worrying about expenses, and the complaints now about this after the campaign he has run increases the hypocrisy to levels of sickening far beyond these RoboCalls, as ill-advised as I think they are
(Because Tobachniks aint all that bad, after the first 500 boxes one is made to eat)
By the way, these are tame compared to GWB's robocalls to catholic voters in Michigan against McCain in 2000.
Goldberg and Charen know that, too.
Totally unrelated: I'd like to amend my advice to the kosher nursing home residents: it's never too late to eat bacon and aygs with hash browns and sauteed peppers.
Assimilation is a beautiful thing!
(Jus' sayin'!)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's an article of faith to Newt's nutters that Mitt "started it." I will admit that Romney's social security attacks on Perry were cheap shots, but Mitt should have nothing to apologize over the Fannie Mae business. Those were in my view de facto bribes that Gingrich accepted. Gingrich has always been greedy for money and a lavish, self-indulgent liver and he has never hesitated to use his government connections to advance himself. He broke no laws, evidently, but he's a tawdry person. On the Reagan's heir matter, Gingrich has exaggerated his connection to Reagan, though it's true he did more conservatism than Romeny ever did. It's also true, however, that Gingrich has done way more to harm conservatism than Romeny ever did.
Gingrich's Bain attacks and now this kosher smear are sleazier than anything that Mitt Romney has done, but it's Newt who is doing all the whining (along with his cheerleader Palin).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCharlesWayne, I agree with you, but Gingrich's distortion is even worse than you indicate. There was no discontinuation of funding, according to the original post, anyway. "In 2003, amid a budget crisis and rapidly rising Medicare costs, several nursing homes in Massachusetts considered cutting costs by closing their kosher kitchens and instead providing catered or prepackaged kosher food. The state legislature proposed an additional $600,000 in spending to prevent this from happening, but Romney vetoed it, due to state budget constraints."
So all Romney did was decide not to introduce funding for Kosher kitchens,
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Pander" is an understatement. It is a libelous, shameful, despicable lie -- and for what? To lose Florida by a few thousand fewer votes?
Newt Gingrich should be effectively excommunicated from the Republican Party after this primary season. He is a truly horrible character who cares nothing for anyone in the world but himself.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDon't forget he also cares for whichever woman it is that he happens to be married to in any particular decade.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe breif response to Goldberg and Charen is:
"Mmm-hmmm."
I'd like to go on record urging Jewish seniors in Massachusetts to demand Tobachnik's pre-packaged, over anything the nursing home is gonna brew up itself.
And, both are preferable to catered kosher food. How do we say in Yiddish? BLECH! (German gutteral ch with some emphasis!)
I know about nursing home kosher food because I used to eat meals with my granddad at his predominantly Jewish nursing home dining room.
In case the debate comes round again.
But, I'll bet these elderly nursing home residents were happy they hadn't been eating frozen weenies in blankets, fake egg rolls and soggy microwaved latkes.
Far from disgusting, Mitt Romney asks for this kind of thing by slinging millions on pure negativity as the first candidate in two straight cycles to resort to scorched earth tactics as opposed to spending even half as much on positive ads in support of his record.
I cannot help but find the outrage of Charen and Goldberg to be at least slightly manufactured, or "pre-packaged".
After all, these Holocaust survivors in FL could help matters by proclaiming their votes are not for sale to the charlatan pols who cater to them, like Al Gore in 2000, who fired up a recount effort on the basis of the fact that the Reform Party Headquarters in Palm Beach County effectively turned out its members to vote.
But, Mitt vetoed the effort to keep the kosher kitchens open, which is the service with which the nursing home residents had become accustomed to enjoying -- a home-cooked meal, just like all the other residents, which met their religious practices.
Mitt's preferred policy was, "Let them eat frozen pigs-in-blankets", and now he doesn't have to explain that?
How much in "savings" are we talking about? Cos I doubt the kosher caterer woulda been any cheaper, and Charen and Goldberg know it. That was an inflationary budget line item waiting to sky-rocket.
So, Mitt lives by the sword and he dies by it, potentially. This is hardly grossly misleading.
I find the faux outrage on part of Jewish commentators to be clearly the most offensive angle to this story.
So, save money on frozen pre-packaged, but don't pretend this is in any way different in kind from the way Mitt Romney campaigns.
SANTORUM FOR PRESIDENT!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow. You're like the Bizarro World Old Fan.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow, pathetic
See my reply to the other copy of this screed you published on another corner post.
Sad, Madisonian, truly sad.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNewt Gingrich is beneath contempt. He has become a meathead magnet. Can't wait to watch the returns tonight.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is outrageous and contemptible. The damage Gingrich is doing to conservatism is beyond measure and we will certainly pay for it in the general election. I'm only tepid for Romney (as, I'm sure, are most NRO regulars), but if voting for him helps take Gingrich out of public life I'll do so with pleasure.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot that it would matter to you, of course, but the robocall says that "Holocaust survivors" were forced to eat non-kosher meals. Besides exploiting the Holocaust in an extremely crass way, it's evidently not true that anyone was forced to eat a non-kosher meal. This is just Newt going straight to the gutter again. Which would be okay, except that the man is so insufferably self-righteous whining about negative attacks on him. I don't see how anyone can stand the man (and if you look at general election polls it's clear most people can't).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhoops, that was meant to be a reply to the inappropriately named Madisonian. The captcha was "pig's ear" by the way--probably something Mitt Romeny forced Holocaust surviviors to eat, or at least that's what the next Newt robocall will be saying.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI usually don't read anything Mona Charen has to say about anything, at least not without mentally preparing myself beforehand for how painfully ignorant and uninformed her prose is.
I'm willing to give Jonah Goldberg more than a benefit of the doubt, because he's proven time and time again to not just be accurate, by reliably accurate.
I do feel sorry for these two, trapped as they are in the National Romney Online echo chamber. Charen perhaps not so much, but Goldberg has never struck me as an obedient, willing hoop jumper and apple polisher.
We all know William F. Buckley's corpse was barely cold and in the ground before National Review endorsed Mitt Romney for President in 2008. In 2012, Buckley's spinning in his grave fast enough to create a gravity well over the bizarre "Romney is the most conservative candidate" meme.
I can only suggest Goldberg is succumbing to the pressures of editorial attrition in overlooking Romney's vast array of anti-Newt LIES to pick this nit.
Newt should be expected to retract this out-of-bounds robocall only after Mitt Romney retracts his entire campaign.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe more I listen to Newt and hear about him, I think he may suffer from some psychological problem.
He exaggerates everything. He is going around saying he performed poorly at the recent debate because he never heard such "blatant dishonsty." As far as I can tell, he is talking about Romney voting for Tsongas in the 1992 presidential primary. What nonsense.
I honesty think there is something wrong with him. Even the notion that he thinks that he could win the presidential election is delusional - he has been in politics a very long time. He can read the polls. But he still has convinced himself he can be elected president. Very strange man.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am not defending this.
But, this is what you get with both of 'em -- Mitt and Newt.
And I just love how Romney's supporters will claim that this shows he's a fiscal conservative.
That is really precious.
And, if Mitt wants to defend his decision to close down only those nursing home kitchens that served the Jews, let him. That was his policy, and I don't really care one wit what the robocalls say.
Who here did NOT vote for GWB, after he spat anti-Catholic charges in robo calls at John McCain?
Yeah, right! Anyone? Buehler? Thought so!
And Newt resigned over ethics charges, which is why Tom Brokaw himself decided to ask for the ad to be pulled.
For the mentally challenged, my entire point is that people need to spare the sanctimony as a condiment for all the BS club sandwiches on offer here.
It just sounds so impolitic, the way I said it the first time? We're talking about two grown men who need to be separated in the corner, and not considered presidential.
SANTORUM FOR PRESIDENT!
I don't know how anyone can claim that this was a real wise spending target for an erstwhile liberal governor.
I sure hope y'all with your panties in a bunch don't find what I said about assimilation to be pathetic.
That would be odd, since my dad's parents used to get a kick out of it.
But you non-Jews keep up with your faux outrage. It's only slightly more transparent than that from Charen and Goldberg.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI know what anti-Semitism is. But I don't know what you call it when a Jew bashes non-Jews as a category (along with Jews who displease him). (See both this post from Madisonian's and his post above it.)
I use to respect this poster. But it has been a while.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"But, I'll bet these elderly nursing home residents were happy they hadn't been eating frozen weenies in blankets, fake egg rolls and soggy microwaved latkes."
For what it's worth to all the supposedly "offended" Goyim:
Every relative I have ever known who's resided in a nursing home would agree with that statement 100%, unless they lived in an adjacent apartment separate from the "hospital" wing.
Those relatives heated up Tobachniks.
:)
Know a few first, huh? Before claiming to be outraged on their behalf?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse