Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Republican attack dog, the sleaze of Republican politics, was asked 10 questions submitted by readers of Time magazine. The questions and Newt's responses are in the May 5, 2008 issue.Gingrich's sleazy life has been well-documented over the years, so we won't rehash the same old story, except to note that he is the author of a new book, a World War II novel, called "Days of Infamy," and by asking, "Isn't it interesting that this particular draft dodger took it upon himself to write a war novel?" It's too bad he couldn't rely on personal experience. Maybe he should have written a novel about a political wannabe who avoided the Vietnam war by obtaining various deferments.
While Gingrich has been trying, at least publicly, to rehabilitate himself in the past few years, some of us have long memories and don't take kindly to Time magazine pretending he's some sort of national statesman and providing him with a platform to further promote that pretense.
The last question asked of Newt was this: "Why did you decide not to run for President?"
Now, he could have told the truth and said he realized that his past would rise up to bite him and very few people would vote for a sleaze like him. But this is what he said instead, and you have to give the guy credit for his world-class chutzpah!
"The scale of solutions we need for the next 20 years is so enormous that I could not both do what I'm doing and run for President. I may someday run, but I think my primary contribution is to go to the root of the problems, to try to understand the scale of change we need."
Consider the ego of someone who implies the presidency is not quite as important as what he is currently doing - figuring out the size of the solutions we need by getting to the root of our problems, and then determining the size of change we need? Or something. Sounds like a job for a god!
It also sounds impressive? But it's goobledygook! It's what a person says when what he thinks or says no longer carries any weight; when no one cares.
Write another novel, Newt, but this time write about something from your personal experience.
2 comments:
Newt personally did more to destroy the two party system than any other draft dodging, super patriot in our history up to the current group in the White House. His winner take all policy threw out the comity of Both Houses that stressed compromise between opposing sides to reach an agreeable solution. It worked for hundreds of years until he came along.
We can ignore his obvious sexual predatory habits and his ability to lie, cheat and be chief hypocrite, while telling us how to behave. As for his draft dodging: he was no different than most of the super patriots now too old to fight for what they claim to believe. He joins the rest in telling us the danger we are in now from being soft of terrorism and inefficient in fighting it. Where was he when terrorism was still relatively limited to the Middle East, Ireland, Japan and Germany? It could have been stopped shortly after the first international hijacking of a US Commercial airliner subsequently blown up on the ground in Jordan had real action been taken then.
He is a phony intellectual, rejected by his own party as a blow hard.
It is relatively easy to become a warrior when you are past draft age.
Bob Poris
Newt personally did more to destroy the two party system than any other draft dodging, super patriot in our history up to the current group in the White House. His winner take all policy threw out the comity of Both Houses that stressed compromise between opposing sides to reach an agreeable solution. It worked for hundreds of years until he came along.
We can ignore his obvious sexual predatory habits and his ability to lie, cheat and be chief hypocrite, while telling us how to behave. As for his draft dodging: he was no different than most of the super patriots now too old to fight for what they claim to believe. He joins the rest in telling us the danger we are in now from being soft of terrorism and inefficient in fighting it. Where was he when terrorism was still relatively limited to the Middle East, Ireland, Japan and Germany? It could have been stopped shortly after the first international hijacking of a US Commercial airliner subsequently blown up on the ground in Jordan had real action been taken then.
He is a phony intellectual, rejected by his own party as a blow hard.
It is relatively easy to become a warrior when you are past draft age.
He has managed to take political failure to a very good living.
Bob Poris
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