Newt #9

If I seem obsessed with exposing Newt's exploitative dishonesty and lack of integrity -- and if you're tired of reading about it -- that's OK. Just skip over my rants.

But I'm not alone in thinking that Newt is the most dangerous of the possible GOP nominees for President, as well as the one with the least integrity. The AJC's Jay Bookman, the local columnist that I most admire wrote his whole column about it today:

I've written about politics for most of my career now. Over that time, the single politician I've criticized most harshly was probably President George W. Bush. I thought -- and still think -- that he was a poor president who made disastrously bad decisions for the country. But through all of that, I never lost respect for Bush as a person. He had a moral compass, inaccurate though I thought it was, and he was doing what he honestly thought was right.

I can't say that about Gingrich, who has long struck me as an amoral man of no true conviction or character. . . . He has no inner core. . . .

Consider, for example, Gingrich's recent statements on U.S. policy in Libya. Earlier this month . . . . Gingrich was pressing the case for an immediate imposition of a no-fly zone. . . .

"The United States doesn't need anybody's permission. We don't need to have NATO, who frankly, won't bring much to the fight. We don't need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable," he told Greta van Susteren on Fox.

"This is a moment to get rid of him. Do it. Get it over with." And he said that with the absolute, deadpan conviction that is the Gingrich trademark.

However, once Obama decided to commit U. S. firepower to impose a no-fly zone, Gingrich suddenly reversed his position, condemning the policy he once advocated.

[On the "Today Show" he said:] "I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Gadhafi. I think there were a lot of allies in the region that we could have worked with. I would not have used American or European forces, bombing an Arab country."

And that, too, was uttered with typical Gingrichian certainty. No politician I've ever encountered -- and no one I've encountered in private life -- could put on such a performance without showing at least a tinge of shame. But that's our Newt.

In an earlier column on March 9th, Bookman had quoted Gingrich's own statement about qualities we need in a president, which Bookman summarized:

A unifier. Somebody who’s stable, with good judgment. A doer, not just a talker. None of that applies to Gingrich. The fact that the above statement comes from Gingrich himself . . . demonstrates just how little self-awareness the man possesses.

Meanwhile, as Bookman points out, Nathan Deal, Sonny Perdue, and an array of Georgia politicians are saying he would make a great president. Bookman adds:

"Personally I can't fathom the disconnect that allows a person to utter such words with a straight face."

Me neither.

Ralph