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Monday, July 23, 2007
Come on in, Newt.
The water's fine...
The water's fine...
INSTAPUNK ALWAYS RIGHT, PART XIX. He's not sexy. He's not good looking. He's not popular. He's not charismatic unless you like blazing intellect. But he's the candidate the Republicans need if they're ever going to return from the valley of the shadow.
Questions for Dean Barnett: We're at war. Don't you sometimes yearn for a candidate who knows how to fight a war? Not smooth, not nuanced, Not polished and posed. But poised for the bulging jugulars of those who dare to defy him.
Here he is, warming up in the wings, twirling that damn ninja sword around his oversized head:
Dismissing the GOP presidential field
as a "pathetic" bunch of "pygmies," Newt Gingrich hinted Monday he
might step in to beat Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
"If, in mid-October, it's quite clear that one or more of the current candidates is strong enough to be a serious alternative to a Clinton-Obama ticket, you don't need me to run," the former House Speaker said at a breakfast sponsored by the American Spectator. "If it becomes patently obvious, as the morning paper points out, that the Democrats have raised a hundred million more than the Republicans, and at some point people decide we are going to get Hillary unless there's a radical change, then there's space for a candidate," he added. "So you'll know by mid-October one of those two futures is real."
Asked by the Examiner if he was prepared to commit to a run, Gingrich said, "I'm perfectly happy to do what I do," he said. "Whether that leads to the presidency is the country's problem, not mine."
Gingrich mocked Republican presidential candidates for subjecting themselves to a May debate hosted by Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball."
"You're watching an utterly irrelevant, shallow television celebrity dominate everybody who claimed they want to lead the most powerful nation in the world," he said.
Gingrich ridiculed "the idea of 10 or 11 people standing passively at microphones," and said he refused to "shrink to the level of 40-second answers, standing like a trained seal, waiting for someone to throw me a fish."
He added: "These are not debates, these are auditions. By definition, the psychology of an audition reduces the person auditioning and raises the status, for example, of Chris Matthews."
Pressed by The Examiner about whether his political baggage renders him unelectable, Gingrich compared himself to a famous French statesman. "This is like going to De Gaulle when he was at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises during the Fourth Republic and saying, 'Don't you want to rush in and join the pygmies?'" he said.
"I have no interest in the current political process. I have no interest in trying to figure out how I can go out and raise money under John McCain's insane censorship rules so I can show up to do seven minutes and twenty seconds at some debate." Still, he said he might enter the race before the deadlines to "start filing petitions.
"If, in mid-October, it's quite clear that one or more of the current candidates is strong enough to be a serious alternative to a Clinton-Obama ticket, you don't need me to run," the former House Speaker said at a breakfast sponsored by the American Spectator. "If it becomes patently obvious, as the morning paper points out, that the Democrats have raised a hundred million more than the Republicans, and at some point people decide we are going to get Hillary unless there's a radical change, then there's space for a candidate," he added. "So you'll know by mid-October one of those two futures is real."
Asked by the Examiner if he was prepared to commit to a run, Gingrich said, "I'm perfectly happy to do what I do," he said. "Whether that leads to the presidency is the country's problem, not mine."
Gingrich mocked Republican presidential candidates for subjecting themselves to a May debate hosted by Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball."
"You're watching an utterly irrelevant, shallow television celebrity dominate everybody who claimed they want to lead the most powerful nation in the world," he said.
Gingrich ridiculed "the idea of 10 or 11 people standing passively at microphones," and said he refused to "shrink to the level of 40-second answers, standing like a trained seal, waiting for someone to throw me a fish."
He added: "These are not debates, these are auditions. By definition, the psychology of an audition reduces the person auditioning and raises the status, for example, of Chris Matthews."
Pressed by The Examiner about whether his political baggage renders him unelectable, Gingrich compared himself to a famous French statesman. "This is like going to De Gaulle when he was at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises during the Fourth Republic and saying, 'Don't you want to rush in and join the pygmies?'" he said.
"I have no interest in the current political process. I have no interest in trying to figure out how I can go out and raise money under John McCain's insane censorship rules so I can show up to do seven minutes and twenty seconds at some debate." Still, he said he might enter the race before the deadlines to "start filing petitions.
And this:
Former house speaker and potential GOP
presidential candidate Newt Gingrich ripped conservatives and liberals
alike Monday at a breakfast sponsored by the American Spectator.
Here's how Newt unloaded on half a dozen newsmakers:
REPUBLICANS:
Fred Thompson, potential presidential candidate "I'm excited to see whether Fred turns out to be as decisive a front-runner as John McCain...The guy who wasn't even in the race is now the exciting new name, having decided that he would leave television for the purpose of entering television."
Sen. John McCain, presidential candidate "The guy who had spent the most on consultants is on the verge, I think, of dropping out of the race, right after he collects his FEC [Federal Elections Commission] money."
Robert Novak, conservative columnist and author "Sometimes he's right and sometimes he's just venomous....He was once a good reporter, he's now just a personality."
DEMOCRATS:
Al Gore, maker of documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" "[Not] in touch with reality. ... The advertisement for his movie was the most viciously anti-animal advertising that I've seen in a long time. They had these little penguins walking on sand. It was terrible."
Michael Moore, maker of documentary "Sicko" "I find Michael Moore so despicable I can't imagine looking at a movie by him. It would be like looking at a movie by Goebbels."
Here's how Newt unloaded on half a dozen newsmakers:
REPUBLICANS:
Fred Thompson, potential presidential candidate "I'm excited to see whether Fred turns out to be as decisive a front-runner as John McCain...The guy who wasn't even in the race is now the exciting new name, having decided that he would leave television for the purpose of entering television."
Sen. John McCain, presidential candidate "The guy who had spent the most on consultants is on the verge, I think, of dropping out of the race, right after he collects his FEC [Federal Elections Commission] money."
Robert Novak, conservative columnist and author "Sometimes he's right and sometimes he's just venomous....He was once a good reporter, he's now just a personality."
DEMOCRATS:
Al Gore, maker of documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" "[Not] in touch with reality. ... The advertisement for his movie was the most viciously anti-animal advertising that I've seen in a long time. They had these little penguins walking on sand. It was terrible."
Michael Moore, maker of documentary "Sicko" "I find Michael Moore so despicable I can't imagine looking at a movie by him. It would be like looking at a movie by Goebbels."
Come on, Dean. Tell me you wouldn't love this campaign. And then tell me how we could have had Reagan if we hadn't had Goldwater first. We have a dead party. We need more than a glossy 8 by 10 to resurrect it.
We need to rechart the whole terrain with guts and brains. I'll await your careful and pragmatic rebuttal.
UPDATE. Ah, the internets. What fun we have. Dean Barnett emailed to say, "I'm bored with the race at this moment. Newt doesn't quicken my pulse."
Dean is bored. He spends months building up the prospects of the most soporific presidential candidate since George Romney, and now he's bored?
Yesterday, PJM CEO Roger L. Simon. And the Blogfather, Glenn Reynolds (More about that at a later date.) Today, rising substitute talk show host Dean Barnett.
You see, it's just not interesting when the only things on the line are the fate of western civilization, capitalism, and Christianity. A book deal would be good. Or a contract for your own talk show. That would quicken the pulse. It might even make up for eight years of Hillary. In fact, we might be looking at eight GREAT years of Hillary. Something to talk about. On the show. You know.
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