Category Archives: Republicans

UPDATED: Newt Gingrich Slithers Around in Jacksonville

Conservatism, Elections, Morality, Political Philosophy, Politics, Republicans

He was supposed to be courting the tea party in a town hall meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. But Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich did everything but. Google reflects the focus in the media on a single question one toadying attendee asked the speaker; she was bemoaning media bias against Newt, who is the consummate insider. They’ve all neglected Gingrich’s reply to a preceding and very poignant question from a tea partier.

For this reason, I am unable to bring you the question and the answer arrogant Gingrich gave. But the speaker, in essence, told this hard-core fellow that he had asked the wrong question with respect to the candidate’s fidelity to conservatism. He, Newt, would be governing an enormous country and he would, therefore, tailor and aim his policies to holding a 60 percent majority.

Can anyone locate the snake’s exact words?

UPDATE (Nov. 19): Kerry, unless I missed it, the link you provided doesn’t feature the question to which I was referring. It was from a pissed-off tea-partier. He wanted to know how faithful NG would be to tea party principles. Not at all was the sum of the arrogant Gingrich’s reply.

UPDATED: Lincoln Myth Busting

History, Neoconservatism, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Republicans, States' Rights, War

I was one of the folks who contacted Tom DiLorenzo asking him to dispel any developing myths about Bill O’Reilly’s new book, which deals with that killer, Abe Lincoln. After all, who better to dispatch O’Reilly and his Abe-adulating Killing Lincoln, than the Lincoln Myth Buster himself? Writes Tom at LRC.COM:

“Quite a few people have emailed me begging me to critically review Bill O’Reilly’s new book, Killing Lincoln, about the assassination. They do this not because they have read the book, which is a big, boring bag of nothingness, but because they’ve heard O’Reilly spout the neocon party line about ‘Father Abraham’ on his television show and they smell a rat.

I’ve read the book, and it really is a big bunch of nothing. All it is is a narrative of the events leading up to the assassination. Over 100 books are already in print on the subject, and all O’Reilly and his coauthor do is cut and paste what others have written on the subject, but without including a single footnote! The authors also have the annoying habit of writing things like, ‘in his mind, he was thinking that . . . ‘ as though they could know what Lincoln was thinking when he did this or that 150 years ago. This is a standard practice of the ‘Lincoln scholars,’ who also constantly claim to know what was ‘in his heart’ (nothing but love and kindness, of course) in their writings.” …

MORE.

UPDATE: Thanks, Mari, for the Salon link. Of course, liberals would never pan a Lincoln book because it lauds a mass murderer who sundered the Constitutional scheme forever and sicced brother against brother:

“A reviewer for the official National Park Service bookstore at Ford’s Theatre has recommended that Bill O’Reilly’s bestselling new book about the Lincoln assassination not be sold at the historic site “because of the lack of documentation and the factual errors within the publication.”

Rae Emerson, deputy superintendent at Ford’s Theatre, which is a national historic site under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, has penned a scathing appraisal of O’Reilly’s “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever.” In Emerson’s official review, which I’ve pasted below, she spends four pages correcting passages from O’Reilly’s book before recommending that it not be offered for sale at Ford’s Theatre because it is not up to quality standards.

War-Party Prattle

Elections, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Republicans, War

Other highlights (or lowlights, rather) from the CBS/National Journal GOP Debate, which may elicit rhetorical reprisals from my readers:

IRAN: Newt Gingrich exercised his wit in suggesting that Obama had exhausted all the ways to be dumb about Iran. I disagree, but then I am not a neoconservative, and I do not experience a vicarious delight when my country’s military and government bombs, boycotts, and generally bullies barely developed countries. As a prelude to war, Newt was willing to entertain covert operations, co-operation with Israel, but war to break the Iranian regime would be best.

Ron Paul reminded all that war powers were vested in the congressional cockroaches, and warned against Iraq-like war propaganda against mad A-Jad. Still a peculiar idea, if to judge by the facilitator’s facial expression.

Rick Perry, who had taken his meds for the occasion, wanted to shut down the Iranian economy (all the better to starve its people). Good going for a goon.

The Other Rick advocated funding the pro-democracy movement. (With what? Monopoly money?) Santorum also believes that foreign aid creates jobs (although not in Iran). (By logical extension, RS, can you perhaps explain why Republicans assert that the assorted stimulus initiatives have failed to create jobs? How does their source of funding differ from that of foreign aid? Oops; you’re talking to the hand, Ilana Mercer. Not that his inquisitors would ever ask, but RS is incapable of explaining away that “minor” lapse in logic.) RS liked the idea of covert activity targeting Iranian scientists, and advocated the only thing with which I agree: the unleashing of computer viruses on nuclear programming. (See “Cyber-Warfare: Is It Libertarian?”)

Water-boarding babe Michele Bachmann warned of a nuclear conflagration involving Israel. As much as libertarians prefer to pretend otherwise, this is a reality the tiny country should entertain, as no one else is willing to face it, and many even delight in it.

MORE to come.

UPDATED: And the Anti-War Winner Is …

China, Elections, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Republicans, War

Jon Huntsman. In the CBS/National Journal GOP Debate, the former Utah governor articulated the best foreign-policy vision. “I say this nation’s future is not Afghanistan. This nation’s future is not Iraq. This nation’s future is how prepared we are to meet the 21st century competitive challenges, that’s economic and that’s education and that’s going to play out over the Asia Pacific region, and we’re either prepared for that reality or we’re not. I don’t want to be nation building in Afghanistan when this nation so desperately needs to be built,” Huntsman added.

Huntsman is nothing if not consistent on the foreign-policy front. As I pointed out following the FoxNews/Google debate, Huntsman has “managed to distill a foreign-policy vision better than the rest.” Earlier in September, commenting on the foreign-policy pose Huntsman struck in Florida, I gave the governor points for the libertarian momentum he was gathering by “brilliantly commandeer Ron Paul’s argument for divesting from Afghanistan.”

Huntsman stood out from the crowd in his stark common sense on China too, both because Ron Paul’s positions were not solicited, and because, had they been solicited, Paul would have rambled. Naturally, Huntsman, a former ambassador to China, is not Sinophobic, as all the other candidates are, and grasps that a trade war with China will hurt consumers in the US. No one mentioned the delicate issue of continuously dissing our largest creditor.

National Journal’s correspondents—they provided coverage like the real pros they are—write: Huntsman’s foreign policy experience has largely been overshadowed during the campaign, but he has made his mark for urging the country’s complete withdrawal from the Middle East. It’s a position that’s to the left even of President Obama.

More to follow.

UPDATE: Regarding the Facebook thread. Spare me. Did I say JH was the answer? Ridiculous. I said he articulates very well the American exhaustion with war and intervention abroad. You can’t just expect that, b/c you and I know Paul is better on the issues, everyone else knows the same. Ron Paul has to be able to explain why he is better. Has he done so?

I am not sure why individuals take commentary on a political performance as undying support for a candidate. Sigh. It isn’t; it’s a commentary about a performance.