Eric Alterman, The Center For American Progress, September 13, 2007
When a columnist needs to write a column and is lacking ideas (or reportage), they often, rather ironically, fall back on a column about “ideas” in general: Why there aren’t any good ones anymore, why the ones they like aren’t getting more attention, or, in this instance, why the people whose ideas they like aren’t being listened to. Case in point: Columnists on Newt Gingrich.
David Brooks of The New York Times wrote earlier this summer that Gingrich “articulates the transformational view [of the Republican party] in its purest form” and that he wishes “the GOP [had] Newt Gingrich’s brain lodged in Fred Thompson’s temperament.”
Jason Zengerle of The New Republic suggested a month later that the GOP install Gingrich as the “party ideologist.” He also cites Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley, Gingrich’s former spokesperson, who says that “Newt obviously has ideas, so he gains cachet from the contrast with people just wandering around repeating slogans.”
And believe it or not, an article in The New York Times invokes Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech to outline Gingrich’s commitment to changing the “sorry state of the Nation’s political discourse.” (Although I suppose it was fair, since Gingrich was speaking there and everyone who speaks there invokes Lincoln, including yours truly.)
The column is by nature such an abbreviated form that there’s no real opportunity to do justice to a genuine idea. But what exactly are Gingrichian ideas? After leaving Congress, Gingrich spent his years out of power writing and working at the American Enterprise Institute—and also posting a super-large number of reviews on Amazon. Flirting with (but apparently not consummating) the idea of a presidential campaign, he made statements such as:
“I’m going to tell you something, and whether or not it’s plausible given the world you come out of is your problem. I am not ‘running’ for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.”
Dear Adulterer Who Is Probably Cheating On Wife #4 AS I Write This:
Newt, haven’t you fucked this country up enough?
The only thing you really have a knack for doing is seducing Playboy bunny rejects whose IQ is lower than their bust size.
So go screw your mistress and stop screwing us.
Comment by JosephEBacon — September 13, 2007 @ 1:21 pm
Newt is really the face of the Republican party.
Screw anything and anyone you can. As long as you are doing the screwing it will be covered up.
Comment by greyhawk — September 13, 2007 @ 5:26 pm