The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    NEWT Gingrich: Thought Leader for Hire.

    By Oxy Mora on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 12:15pm |

    For the past decade Newt Gingrich has been called a "Thought Leader"—a glib PR term coined in the '90's and one which in my opinion should be stood up against a fence and shot along with gag-response phrases like "nuanced argument", "heavy hitter" and "core competency". Since his Speakership, Gingrich has amassed a fortune speaking and writing his thoughts on issues as diverse as home ownership, health care, abortion, cap and trade, and education—to name a few. It seems that Gingrich's thoughts matter. Stanley Elkin in his essay, "Some Overrated Masterpieces", stated that, "... the odd thing about words is the cockeyed weight they're permitted to bear." In Gingrich's case—even more so. He's quotable and printable.

    What Gingrich's thoughts are worth in a Presidential run we are about to find out. His speaking style is facile. He is the invented character—used car salesman with a PHD. His followers regard him as very, very smart. His numerous segues from arcane references, to the appearance of moderation and then to hell-fire-demonizing of the Left occur at lightning speed. A reference to the Transcontinental Railroad will send his followers rummaging around the labyrinths of their minds to find an association and finding none they conclude that the man must be brilliant.

    What may trip up Gingrich in his bid for the nomination as well as his potential election as President are things like his penchant for demonizing others, as in the case of OWS—they need to take a bath. There is a nasty quality which pervades his actual words—a quality which reinforces character flaws like divorcing a cancer victim. Moreover, the sheer volume of his recorded speeches and editorials is a data base of changing positions and controversial view points—useful to his primary opponents, and to Obama should Gingrich get that far. Finally, the PR thrust in the posit of a thought leader is as expert—someone who has nailed down a major subject and therefore deserves an audience. Gingrich is an expert on everything which makes him simply opinionated.

    I was on my property up on the Red River yesterday talking to my neighbor, Jonas, as he repaired a fence. We occasionally talk politics. Jonas said, "I lost a lot of respect for James Garner when he went and said Obama was the smartest guy next to Adlai Stevenson. The smart one is Gingrich—I love to hear that man talk".

    Sensing an opportunity to be a thought leader and, like Gingrich, reaching for the arcane I said, "Speaking of actors, Stanley Elkin kind of described Gingrich when he talked about Hamlet being an overrated masterpiece."

    "Un-huh", Jonas said, "can you hold that bob warre taunt till I nail it." 

    I continued, "Elkin said Hamlet was a 'whiner' and seemed like a "keener at an Irish funeral".

    Jonas spat and tamped the dirt down around a cedar fence post. "Sounds more like Obama than Gingrich".

    So much for my attempt to be a thought leader in the rural counties along the Red River. But Jonas' grass roots feel for politics made me think Gingrich may wiggle through the primary successfully. Any man who can earn thirty million dollars for taking both sides of a half dozen major issues is some kind of a masterpiece, thought leader or not.    

    Comments

    Some Iowa 'forum' going on last nite:

    The question got tossed to Newt Gingrich first. As a Catholic for the last 15 minutes or so of his life, Gingrich presumably knows what “common good” means, since it is in no small measure a Catholic idea, and a liberal, social-justice Catholic one...

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/20/gop-candidates-get-pers...

     


    by Richard Day on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 1:53pm

    Thanks, Dick. Interesting take--"The best GOP debate so far"---not much of a standard! 


    by Oxy Mora on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 7:42pm

    What a coincidence.  From my reader just before checking in here:

    The myth and fact behind Newt Gingrich’s 1980 divorce | Political Insider

    ​I do not care much for Newt but I do care about accurate information  So much about politicians on both sides gets so badly distorted it is always good to see reporters take time and try to separate fact from fiction.  I appreciate it so much that I am passing it on.  

     

    [Funny, the text editor is telling me that ' I ' is misspelled.}


    by EmmaZahn on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 3:03pm

    Thanks for your comments, Emma. The story might have had some inaccuracies---yellow pad, and so forth-- but I don't see how the daughters' comments much change the essential facts of Newt's behavior and timing. Also, I think you have to take into account the recollections of a thirteen year old plus the need to view both parents in a favorable light.  


    by Oxy Mora on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 7:53pm

    Did his daughter's account written this year for Newt's campaign site, 31 years after the hospital visit, forget to include that, according to him, it was Newt's Love for America that caused his philandering?  Or was that the excuse for his other failed marriage? Isn't that a pretty big fact, at least for Newt supporters?


    by NCD on Mon, 11/21/2011 - 12:13am

    The GOP Party apologists will never tell you the REAL record of the Newtster which makes it unsafe to see him leading America back to liberty:


    http://chasvoice.blogspot.com/2011/11/real-newt-gingrich-part-1.html


    by Charleston Voice (not verified) on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 3:03pm

    Thanks very much. I visited your website. Not in recent history have I seen such a repository of hateful commentary. You make Newt Gingrich look like Jesus Christ.


    by Oxy Mora on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 8:12pm

    Thanks for the John Birch Society take on Newt, apparently they don't like him, although he has good company, the JBS thought President Eisenhower was a tool of the communists. Who are the Birchers pulling for?

     


    by NCD on Mon, 11/21/2011 - 12:28am

    Loved Krugman's comment on Christiane Amanpour's program today:

    Newt Gingrich is a stupid man's idea of what a smart man sounds like.


    by Red Planet on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 7:20pm

    Thanks, Planet. It's remarkable how people think he is such a brain trust. Aside from the religious fest in Iowa I think it will be interesting to see how the other "candidates" will now interact with Gingrich. It may actually help Romney as the others have essentially been push overs and Romney now has a more knowledgeable opponent. If Romney is able to dodge the flack and stay on point he might look good by comparison. 


    by Oxy Mora on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 8:19pm

    The blend of Elkin, Shakespeare, fence repair, and Texas compels me to repeat a joke:

    A rancher in New Mexico was pulling some barbed wire next to a state road when an SUV with Texas plates stopped nearby and a man in a ten gallon hat stepped out and introduced himself as a fellow rancher. They talked generally about cattle, markets, and what not and then the Texan began to talk about his spread: "It takes me an entire day to drive around my ranch."

    The New Mexican replied: "Yes, my truck is the same way."


    by moat on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 10:06pm

    That's a great story, Moat. My experience with my neighbors is that many times they are well over my head in ways I don't realize until it hits me the next day.

     


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 11/21/2011 - 9:58am

    You forgot to mention that Gingrich is a modern day sophist.  He made a fortune selling big-government liberal ideas as conservative ideas to Republicans on behalf of large corporate interests that benefit from big-government.  How can a 'conservative' support such things as cap-and-trade, healthcare mandates, prescription drug benefits, ethenol subsidies, ect...  A real conservative cannot, but Gingrich was paid a fortune to make conservatives believe that these were conservative ideas.  If you want to know why Republicans became reckless spenders under President Bush, you only need to look at Gingrich as the reason.  It was people like him who ruined the credibility of conservatives and Republicans when it comes to limited government.  This article documents what I'm talking about: http://blogforliberty.com/2011/11/21/newt-gingrich-and-the-selling-out-of-conservatism/


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 11/21/2011 - 11:20am

    Much obliged, Anon. An interesting site, there. Why do some conservative ideas sound so reasonable on paper but by the time they are given life via an actual Republican politician they aren't worth the paper they're written on. I'm not excusing Democrats but that's a different subject.

    It will be fascinating to see whether any of the other "candidates" can successfully attack Gingrich's M.O.

    I'm going to run some of these Gingrich inconsistencies past my neighbor, Jonas. I think the fees from the pharma industry trade group re the drug benefit debate are particularly egregious and easy to understand. I need to find a synonym for "sophist".


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 11/21/2011 - 2:34pm

    Looking at Newt's style, you raise an interesting point about "sophistry". I've always thought of it as based on tight reasoning---a la a Jesuit, for example, going deeper into the subject in the way that so many here do so well. It seems that what Newt is doing is simply changing subjects, and not necessarily in a pre-planned method. In the world of sound bites and short debate exchanges his style appears to be effective.  


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 11:57am

    Don't expect too much from Jonas, O. He's more likely to trust what hears from G now and will be disinclined to untangle the historical record.

    The most interesting Newtism (to me) occurred at the beginning of the campaign, before his staff left him.

    He was asked about his support for the individual mandate back in the 1990s. He said, in so many words as I recall, that yes, he supported it, but ONLY as a way to defeat HillaryCare.

    Republicans had to APPEAR to care about health care and have alternative proposals to reform it, because public opinion, as you may recall, was very much in favor of reform and the Republicans, at least initially, were thrown back on their heels.

    This strikes me as representative of the conservative or Republican strategy as a whole. All "positions" (except the feed the rich ones, which are disguised because they are too unpalatable) are simply temporary holding patterns designed to defeat liberal positions and programs. They don't hold any value in themselves. And once the enemy is defeated (HillaryCare), they are discarded like a spent bullet shell.

    The public doesn't remember and the news cycle moves on to some other issue.


    by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 9:34am

    Thanks, Peter. That's a very intriguing theory of their strategy; I have never heard it expressed in exactly that way. It works on so many levels against Democrats and Progressives who, mostly being logically minded, take the opposing position at face value. If at the same time the Republican party regulars saw it as a fake position to begin with they would harbor no ill will when it's reversed.

    I think Jonas, who is not a party regular, would be quick to see through it but I'm not sure he would care.   


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 9:36pm

    Newt says stuff like this, often very quickly and in passing. He's fascinating to watch because, in a way, he's truthful, or truthful now and then. But this is, I'm pretty sure what he said this time around, when he was asked about his former support.

    And there's good video of DeMint supporting Romney in 2008 and lavishing praise on RomneyCare, including the individual mandate, I believe.

    If you read Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind, you come to see that much of what conservatives do is in reaction to what progressives or liberals do or want to do. Left to their own devices, they'd do nothing except clear the way for the market to work.

    Q took me to task for leaving out that they seek to funnel money to the wealthiest. that's something they actually do. That's true, but I think they see it as a way of making the market work more freely. That is, unregulated capitalism tends to favor those who have money or have managed to get a lot of it. The rich get richer.

    So you see them saying things like, "We shouldn't prop up the housing market. We should let it crash and clean itself out. That's the fastest way to get beyond and rebuild a healthy market. Delaying the suffering only prolongs it."


    by Peter Schwartz on Fri, 11/25/2011 - 12:38pm

    The tether between the ready reaction to whatever progressives and liberals propose and the only agenda that matters to "conservatives" of the stripe Robin is describing is the idea of "false economy" put forward by Hayek. In terms of establishing the concept as a given in political discourse, Gingrich has been very consistent in his language since he put out a Contract on America back in the day.

    When you control what words can be used, flip flopping on issues is not going to have the same disastrous effect as it would on an ordinary human.


    by moat on Fri, 11/25/2011 - 2:04pm

    What is "false economy?"


    by Peter Schwartz on Sat, 11/26/2011 - 6:34pm

    Hayek opposed "central planning" on the basis that the market would always do a better job of bringing prosperity to the greatest number of people if left to its own devices. In his debates with Keynes, he described the efforts to stimulate the system with cash provided by the government as a false economy. He presented the matter as a function of the limited capability of any group of planners to deal with the complexity of the actual world of exchange. One could share his skepticism regarding such capabilities without agreeing there was a "true" market that would provide more in proportion to how little anybody interfered with its workings.

    After Keynes, the next heavy hitter to challenge Hayek's thought was JK Galbraith. In his New Industrial State, he explores the degree what seems unplanned in the market is actually mapped out in great detail.

    In my comment regarding Gingrich, I am not trying to pretend that I understand what this huge debate amounts to; only to say that Gingrich has steadfastly been treating a premise as a fact his whole career. His work has not been in vain.


    by moat on Sat, 11/26/2011 - 7:42pm

    Some interesting philosophy here. Seems there is a distinction between "unregulated" and "rigged". Theoretically in unregulated capitalism the concentration of wealth would continue until some breaking point is reached---perhaps there is not enough consumption to keep GDP at a positive level---or something along that line; then a reshuffling takes place. "Rigged" is the use of devices which hurry the process of wealth accumulation along, enabled by people like Gingrich. But we don't actually reach the breaking point because that is the worst thing the elites can imagine.


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 11/25/2011 - 11:56pm

    Gingrich hit at least three of his stylistic bases in the Republican debate.

    The arcane reference (depending on one's age I suppose) was to the WWII Selective Service Boards, offered as a mechanism for sorting through illegal immigrants, determining status, work permits, etc.

    The WWII era program was in support of his sudden jump to moderation with the word "humane" applied to immigration policy---we shouldn't break up families. This segue appeared to catch Romney off guard as he realized that Newt had suddenly played the general election drift to the middle card.

    Gingrich also demonized Obama in the usual manner---he doesn't think this is an exceptional country.etc.

    One wonders how Gingrich's programs like administering child janitor programs in public schools and running a World War II scale immigration board system exactly jibe with conservative repugnance for social engineering. Seems to me that "social engineering on the right is just as bad as social engineering from the left."

    Perhaps for efficiency's sake the child janitor boards and the immigration boards could be combined. Maybe enough illegal immigrant kids with work permits could be found that the white kids could be excused from cleaning toilets.

     

     

     

     

     


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 11:38am