Keep in mind that Newt Gingrich is considered a serious Person

[vixengrl]

This post regards this Youtube video of Gingrich's longer speech in front of AEI, where he encourages a pursuit of the other countries mentioned in the Axis of Evil, invoking both the Cold War, and especially, WWII. He is a peculiar character--not really an elected figure the last decade or so, and actually ended hid position as Speaker of the house in something akin to an ouster by his own party, he's nevertheless taken seriously. Even when he suggests things like hippies being responsible for Susan Smith drowning her babies, or taking out North Korean missiles with ""lasers"". From about 1993 to about 1998, he actually was someone I thought about seriously. Now, he writes books and goes on Meet the Press and other shows far more than I think I need to see him. He thinks he might run for president in 2012--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5XjiedoX1M&feature=player_embedded


Hahahahahahahahahhah. :evilgrin:

I mean, :blush: here's my criticism of his speech:


The US has been at war for the past nine years in Afghanistan and the past seven in Iraq. It's cost us a lot of money. It's cost many lives. And war does that--it costs money, and it costs lives. It shouldn't be entered into lightly.

When Gingrich refers to being at war with the other two countries in the somewhat artificial "Axis of Evil" that got such a good reaction shortly after 9/11, I think he's missing all kinds of points.

We were attacked by an extra-governmental extremist group on 9/11, not a nation. The participants in the terrorist attack on 9/11 did not actually involve anyone from those countries in the "Axis of Evil". The country out of the modern-day "Axis" that we did invade had no immediate designs on the US, no WMD's, and no material connection with al-Qaeda at the time of our invasion. This would be rather different from the situation FDR was in when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and shortly thereafter, Germany declared war on the US. The Bush Administration took advantage of a climate where, yes, people did applaud the "Axis of Evil" sentiment (because it appealed emotionally to a sense many aggreived patriots felt that someone had to pay) to start a war.

FDR did not have a choice. And for that matter, the choice that Truman had came at the end of a "hot" war. And then there's Korea....

I'm sure that as an historian and something of a public intellectual, Gingrich does not require a semi-anonymous smarty-pants blogger to remind him of all the very many ways these situations are in no way parallel. For that matter, I'm sure he knows as well as anyone that his "get'em all" sort of rhetoric is a whiff of red meat for the GOP base, and not necessarily something that would appeal to a larger war-weary public, which has been tired of Iraq since a whole presidential election ago, and has just this week gotten some negative news about Afghanistan.

But, me being me, I find myself recklessly speculating that Gingrich felt the need to make a foreign policy statement of such.....machismo, because he's already been beaten to the punch by that Alaskan woman over the mosque thing. Her eye-catching Tweets have made it more her issue than his business about no mosques until Saudi Arabia has churches(1) (Hey--those are some guys who aren't even in the Axis of Evil, are they? Huh! How do you like that!) And then kind of backpedalled about how it could be in Manhattan, but then maybe not so close....(2)

(Meh--should Ground Zero get a restraining order against Cordoba House? It should only be within so many feet?)

And now Palin is off to defend the border(3), plugging the holes from the golfing Mexicans or whatever and not at all being on talk shows, which is like, so whatever! How can Gingrich compete without upping the ante--

Being extra-double-plus macho: War with everybody! America, FUCK YEAH! Even if we have to clone Jango Fett to take on a billion people because otherwise we'd be all outnumbered and stuff....oh now HE's GOT ME MAKING UNSUCCESSFUL ANALOGIES!

Or that's how I'm reading it. It gets his face out there and looking militant-ish.

Otherwise, I could say he might have a point about treating it like the Cold War in some respects, if we could ever get current-day conservatives to recognize the difference between appeasement and detente. Which I think we can't so long as we use "Axis"-based rhetoric. So there.

1) http://politics.usnews.com/news/washington-whispers/articles/2010/07/23/gingrich-blasts-plan-for-mosque-at-ground-zero.html

2)http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/newt-gingrich-clarifies-thoughts-on-mosque-exclusion-zone-questions-remain/

3)http://www.newser.com/story/96842/palin-obama-should-be-at-border-not-on-view.html

[H2O Man]

1. I would not

be surprised to see him on the republican ticket as their VP candidate. He should not be taken for granted, or mistaken for a joke. The guy is dangerous.

[Webster Green]

2. Palin/Gingrich?

:crazy:

[H2O Man]

3. I don't think

Palin will be important in 2012, except on cable news shows.

[Whoa_Nelly]

10. Agreed n/t

[monmouth]

16. I would be surprised with either Pawlenty/Gingrich or Thune/Ging...n/t

[vixengrl]

4. I'm not sure if I can say he is or isn't--

in terms of political shelf-life, he shouldn't still be viable. He simply hasn't been an elected figure in lo so many years. Also, his personal life is contentious, what with the divorces, especially when his history is that he left his first two wives while they were sick, and he's been an adulterer. I know he's flogging the anti-secularist line especially hard at the moment, with a soupcon of historical revisionism and the usual heavy-handed dash of culture war.

I think this is where he's going to run into an issue--it isn't the 1990's. A lot of the issues that formerly would have played well as wedge-issues might not get as receptive an audience--also, he's lowered himself in his recent effort re: The Secular Machine.

I don't think taking cues from the equally-noted public intellectuals Jonah Golberg and Glenn Beck are especially heart-warming even to other conservative....erm....intellectuals.

He's also been on tv the past ten years enough to have a vault of Youtubery to be essentially prodded with.

I've read some Palin/Gingrich threads--but I can't buy them--that's two monster-egos. One would have to eat the other. I don't see it as doable. Both would wake up every morning doing a sweep for knife-handles out of their shoulder-blades.

I do think a Liz Cheney/Newt Gingrich ticket would be the death of this country. I should go back to studying Italian in the event I need to expatriate. I think both are lame and beatable, but if both could be nominated on a major party ticket, I think that's the sort of thing that presages a)badness and b) more badness. Newt is Newt, and the young Cheney strikes me as a "learner". She'd go along to get along as far as she could. After even a loss, they'd have toxic levels of resentment and shit-stirring at the ready.

(And in a worse case scenarion--how would they, ahem, govern? I think they'd hold a fire sale for everything this country still had!)

[Mopar151]

5. Newt is sort of an academic...

The worst sort, IMHO. Basically, he makes provocative statements to see where the arguments will go. Sometimes these "learned" goobers will get into a contest of sorts, to see which grand poobah can get his acolytes to swallow the biggest lie.

[political_Dem]

6. If he runs again, it would be the second Contract On America. :(

[dsc]

7. what honestly amazes me in this regard

is that we almost incescently hear about how disgraced people like Spitzer are and this man who left his first wife on her cancer bed and his second wife while Speaker is actually taken seriously as a politician.

[vixengrl]

8. If you are a Republican, Moral Deficits Don't Matter.

Or so I've come to understand.

[Angry Dragon]

17. Their god forgives them

and the evil liberals have no god so they can not be forgiven

[mitchum]

9. Only in gop world is an instructor at a community college...

considered to be an intellectual powerhouse

[opihimoimoi]

11. the dude is a mental midget.....but thinks vice versa.....other obstacles:: deluded, self centered,

obsolete,

Clueless,

Heartless.

[Hugabear]

13. So was Ronald Reagan

Even more so...but he was a good communicator, was able to take advantage of the tough economic situation in the late 70s by placing the blame on Jimmy Carter.

[opihimoimoi]

15. IMO..RRR was a terrible Prez.... horrid....

[Hugabear]

12. Gingrich is a good speaker

As wrong as his views and politics might be, he does have a very good way of articulating them. I could easily see conservatives and Tea Party types rallying around him.

Scary thing is, we know that there's not much chance of the economy turning around before 2012. And people usually tend to blame whomever's in office at the time, forgetting who it was that caused the mess in the first place.

[KG]

14. he's a serious serial adulterer.

[Enrique]

18. well he used the power to impeach a president totally recklessly

if he were president I'm sure he would use his power to wage war equally recklessly.