Powell dismissed it, saying that Gingrich is "simply pining for the spotlight," and he urged viewers not to fall for it or mistake it for a serious charge. He went on:
I think we have to be careful when we take things like Dinesh D'souza's book, which is the source for all this, and suggest that somehow the president of the United States is channeling his dead father through some Kenyan spirits. This doesn't make any sense. Mr. Gingrich does these things from time to time, with a big bold statement. He did it with [Sonia] Sotomayor, she's a reverse racist; he did it with Elena Kagan, she ought to be taken off the nomination for Supreme Court justice; and he does it occasionally to make news and also to stir up dust."Take that, Newt. Your fellow Republican is telling you off.
And while you're at it, take your pal Nathan Deal and just go away. Thanks a bunch for endorsing this man, who a member of his own Republican party called "a corrupt bigot."
Ralph
Good for Colin Powell. He's, of course, dead right about Newt trying to "make news and also to stir up dust." But this time, he seems almost desperate to find something that will catapult him into the limelight. In the run-up to 2008, he did everything in his power to con people into talking him into running [including financing a draft Newt movement himself]. This time is apparently his last chance for a shot at the presidency, so he's never far from the news [and increasingly outrageous].
ReplyDeleteHe seems to have forgotten that it was doing stuff like this after his success in 1994 that turned people away from him. Concerning a standoff with Clinton in which Newt shut down government for a time, Tom Delay later wrote: "He told a room full of reporters that he forced the shutdown because Clinton had rudely made him and Bob Dole sit at the back of Air Force One... Newt had been careless to say such a thing, and now the whole moral tone of the shutdown had been lost. What had been a noble battle for fiscal sanity began to look like the tirade of a spoiled child... The revolution, I can tell you, was never the same."
By 1998, shortly after his reelection, he petulantly resigned from Congress altogether - as Speaker and even his seat. "simply pining for the spotlight" is a perfect description for Newt Gingrich's pathology. Fortunately for us, it shows...
Thank god for the excesses of the narcissist. Newt is smart enough that he sounds like he knows what he's talking about, which is what makes him so dangerous. Michele Bachman, or any of their other bimbos, can say the same thing and just sound nutty.
ReplyDeleteBut, if you don't know better, Newt always makes it sound plausible, if not outright convincing. Like Dick Cheney -- always knows, always says it articulately, always in control.
Fortunately, Newt has a touch more of desperation and a lot more flamboyance -- so he flames out.