Why Gingrich is Bad (and Romney is Awesome): A Politico Megathread Spectacular

[BigSkyBob]

Yeah, I wonder what Paul thinks about Romney.

"I believe Romney’s candidacy is well-established. He’s a moderate, northeastern, don’t-rock-the-boat Republican, and I think everyone in the party clearly understands that."

[BigSkyBob]

Or how about the colonization of the moon? Because guess what: Newt Gingrich supports these Big Government initiatives...

Excerpts from David Brooks' latest editorial:

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. The crossroads where government meets enterprise can be an exciting crossroads. It can also be a corrupt crossroads. It requires moral rectitude to separate public service from private gain. Gingrich was perfectly content to belly up to the Freddie Mac trough and then invent a Hamiltonian rationale to justify his own greed.

Then there is his rhetorical style. He seems to have understood that a moderate Republican like himself can win so long as he adopts a bombastic style when taking on the liberal elites. Most people just want somebody who can articulate their hatreds, and Gingrich is demagogically happy to play the role.

Most important, there is temperament and character.

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.

As nearly everyone who has ever worked with him knows, he would severely damage conservatism and the Republican Party if nominated. He would severely damage the Hamilton-Theodore Roosevelt strain in American life.

It’s really too bad. We could have had a great debate about the progressive-conservative tradition. President Obama is now embracing Roosevelt. Gingrich has tried to modernize this tendency.

But how you believe something is as important as what you believe. It doesn’t matter if a person shares your overall philosophy. If that person doesn’t have the right temperament and character, stay away.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/opinion/brooks-the-gingrich-tragedy.html?_r=2&hp

The notion that David Brooks could be a spokesman for "conservatism," let alone "national greatness conservatism" is so absurd that only the NYT could take it seriously. I do not.

[BigSkyBob]

quoting from the NYT only serves to make the jmfcsts point for them

True enough. Gingrich should not receive the nomination because he is a moderate. That said, pretending that David Brooks is in an any way conservative, or that the NYT should take seriously as a source of political journalism is not the way to do it.

[Peeperkorn]

Politico, are you an agent provocateur trying that the jmcfdjhsgts hate Romney even more?

[Zarn]

quoting from the NYT only serves to make the jmfcsts point for them

True enough. Gingrich should not receive the nomination because he is a moderate. That said, pretending that David Brooks is in an any way conservative, or that the NYT should take seriously as a source of political journalism is not the way to do it.

Someone said he was conservative?

[Minnesota Mike]

How many anti Gingrich threads do we need?  We get the point already.

[Penelope]

Those programs sound pretty awesome actually.

[RogueBeaver]

How many anti Gingrich threads do we need?  We get the point already.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

How would this damage the "Hamilton-Theodore Roosevelt strain of the nation"? Yes, this scheme does seem Hamiltonian. But how would this damage said "strain" of the nation? Does such a strain exist? What is it? Some of what this article says is kind of weird. "Obama is trying to be Roosevelt. Gingrich is modernizing that". Just a simple couple of sentences, but they don't make sense to me. Strange and interesting article. Gives me a couple ideas...

[Yelnoc]

Mr. Morden, could you combine all of these threads into one, Mega "Gingrich Attack Articles by Politico" thread?  This is becoming spam.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Mr. Morden, could you combine all of these threads into one, Mega "Gingrich Attack Articles by Politico" thread?  This is becoming spam.

^^^^

This.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

BRTD:Music::Politico:Gingrich

[Negusa Nagast 🚀]

Those programs sound pretty awesome actually.

[memphis]

Not like Rand's dad is in the race or anything.  In any case, the Pauls are not representative of the rank and file Tea Partiers, who are just conservatives with a new name. The Pauls are like wormyguy and Tweed, perpetually dissatisfied with the status quo, no matter what.

I'm dissatisfied with this post.

Truth hurts sometimes.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

From what I know, Scozzafava was actually generally pro-gun.

[Averroës Nix]

From what I know, Scozzafava was actually generally pro-gun.

Yes, emphatically so. No one could get elected in her assembly district (in which I lived) without being adamantly pro-gun rights. In fact, the NRA endorsed her over Hoffman.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Mr. Morden, could you combine all of these threads into one, Mega "Gingrich Attack Articles by Politico" thread?  This is becoming spam.

^^^^

This.

BRTD:Music::Politico:Gingrich

[BigSkyBob]

quoting from the NYT only serves to make the jmfcsts point for them

True enough. Gingrich should not receive the nomination because he is a moderate. That said, pretending that David Brooks is in an any way conservative, or that the NYT should take seriously as a source of political journalism is not the way to do it.

Someone said he was conservative?

David Brooks: "I’m for national greatness conservatism."

[Averroës Nix]

Romney supporters [i.e. Politico]: Are you comfortable supporting a candidate whose favorite book is L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

While space mirrors lighting our highways is a bit impractical, largely because there are good reasons to have darkness most places at night, the idea of orbital solar energy satellites is a fairly standard trope of science fiction, and working to develop such things would certainly be a better use of the NASA budget than the useless boondoggle known as the International Space Station.  From an economic point of view, the main hurdle to such a system is the cost to lift the satellites into orbit.  If we ever do reach the point where it becomes desirable to engage in mega-engineering in space, it would be less costly to build a lunar base that would then build and launch the satellites from Luna than to build them directly from Terra.

[RI]

Those programs sound pretty awesome actually.

This. This thread makes me support Gingrich a little bit more than before.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Number 1 is the most absurd, but only because if we were to build space mirrors to collect solar energy for use, highway lighting directly from the mirrors is one of the more inefficient ways to make use of them, plus it would lead to widespread light pollution.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Well, these are two kinds of absurd. 1 and 2 are probably the product of several hours of illegal drug use, and 3 is just horrible.

[Mr. Morden]

Seriously folks? Colonizing the moon?!?!? How can #2 not be the most absurd?

I don't know about you, but I'd rather colonize the moon than reinstating child labor.

I'd like to colonize the moon with child laborers.  We could put them to work making mirrors to illuminate our streets.  That way, if any secular atheists tried to drive up to Ground Zero to build a mosque, we'd be able to catch them, and any plans they have to impose sharia law would wither on the vine.

Of course, I'd only sign onto this plan if I can go to the Moon myself to inspect the work of the child laborers.  But only if I can ride there in Moon Force One, in the front of the rocket, and we can take off from the Greek cruise ship I'll be on, where I'm doing some work for Freddie Mac as a historian, and yelling at reporters who ask me debate questions.

Yeah, that's the plan.  Call it a "Contract with the Moon".  What do you think?  Is this going to work or does it involve too much right wing social engineering?  As long as it isn't guided by a Kenyan anti-colonial worldview, I think we're OK.  Hopefully, this plan will preclude Bob Livingston from going after my job, or my having to pay any $300,000 fines for ethics violations.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Colonizing the Moon is fun! As for child labor laws, while I'm not in favor of American sweat shops and such, I shall play devil's advocate as usual. For one, it seems people automatically freak and assume that without child labor laws, kids would automatically be forced into said sweat shops. Two, they have prevented kidds from engaging in the marvelous art of capitalism, something I am still restrained from, though not by law as of the moment.