December 15, 2011--Everything Old Is Newt Again

The more the Republican establishment lines up against Newt Gingrich the more this 68-year-old ultimate Washington insider and influence peddler seems a remarkably fresh outsider.

Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor at the National Review, endorsed Mitt Romney on Friday while knocking Gingrich as "a constant reminder that political leaders can have too much, as well as too little, imagination." On immigration, for instance, Ponnuru wrote that Gingrich's proposals are "innovative-sounding, accompanied by high-tech gadgetry, and wholly absurd."

If that weren't enough, the same day George Will wrote that Gingrich is the "least conservative candidate" in the Republican field. It only gets worse from there. Gingrich, he wrote, "embodies the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive" and even "would have made a marvelous Marxist."

A Marxist? Isn't Obama's the Marxist? It's all so confusing.

Then there's Charles Krauthammer. He also has called into question Gingrich’s conservative credentials. He recently described him as "a man [who is] . . . conservative by nature but possessed of an unbounded need for grand display that has already led him to unconservative places even he is at a loss to explain, and that as president would leave him in constant search of the out-of-box experience--the confoundedly brilliant Nixon-to-China flipperoo regarding his fancy of the day, be it health care, taxes, energy, foreign policy, whatever."

Now that's some fancy writing.

Joe Scarborough, a former Republican representative from Florida who swept into office during the 1994 Gingrich-led GOP takeover of the House and then helped lead the successful fight to oust him, now routinely criticizes the former Speaker on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." And in a Monday Politico column, Scarborough described Gingrich’s leadership skills as "deplorable" and said he found his "ideological inconsistency to be even more troubling."

Things for the GOP elite are getting so desperate that Morning Joe said he would seriously consider voting for Ron Paul if he ran as a third party candidate. The Ron Paul who wants to get rid of most of the government, eliminate the Federal Reserve, and allow regional banks to print their own money. The same Ron Paul who wants to repeal the 21st, 20th, and 19th centuries. Just what we need in a globalized world.

Erick Erickson, the influential editor-in-chief of RedState.com, has found it difficult to talk himself into the idea of a Newt nomination, despite being vehemently anti-Romney. He recently titled a post, "Are Conservatives Ready to Forgive Newt Gingrich His Sins?" without subsequently answering the question. He, like the rest of us, plans to stay tuned.

In the Wall Street Journal, Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan telegraphically wrote--"Ethically dubious? True. Intelligent and accomplished? True. Has he known breathtaking success and contributed to real reforms in government? Yes. Presided over disasters? Absolutely. Can he lead? Yes. Is he erratic and unreliable as a leader? Yes. Egomaniacal? True. Original and focused, harebrained and impulsive—all true."

And, not to be outdone, in the New York Times conservative op-ed columnist David Brooks cut Newt loose--

In the first place, Gingrich loves government more than I do. He has no Hayekian modesty to restrain his faith in statist endeavor. For example, he has called for “a massive new program to build a permanent lunar colony to exploit the Moon’s resources.” He has suggested that “a mirror system in space could provide the light equivalent of many full moons so that there would be no need for nighttime lighting of the highways.” I’m for national greatness conservatism, but this is a little too great.

Furthermore, he has an unconservative faith in his own innocence. . . . In the two main Republican contenders, we have one man, Romney, who seems to have walked straight out of the 1950s, and another, Gingrich, who seems to have walked straight out of the 1960s. He has every negative character trait that conservatives associate with ’60s excess: narcissism, self-righteousness, self-indulgence and intemperance. He just has those traits in Republican form. [My italics.]

Even on Fox News--where Gingrich worked as a political analyst for a decade--there's been "Newt-bashing," as "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace recently observed.

And another Fox alum, Glenn Beck, since he claims Newt is as progressive as Mitt Romney and, incredibly, Barack Obama, if Newt is nominated he too may support a third party run by Ron Paul.

It's gotten so bad that last week Rush Limbaugh said, "Today there is a coordinated--well, I don't know that it's coordinated [GOP attack on Gingrich]--but it sure appears to be. Regardless, no matter where you look in the Republican establishment media today, there looks to be a coordinated attack on Mr. Newt." And as a result, he worried, this could lead to a second term for Barack Obama.

But the more folks like Charles Krauthammer, George Will, and David Brooks pile on, the more Gingrich can say "Bring it on" and thereby showcase his bad-boy, tell-it-like-it-is personality and claim to be the kind of outsider the GOP base craves. Brilliant!