One last post, simply as a point of fairness. On the VC, Jonathan Adler points to a proposal by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich for a law that would require the execution of those who imported a sufficient amount of marijuana or other drugs into the country. Given the libertarian bent of many of the VC’s readers, and for all I know the number of them who smoke dope, this might be taken as a disqualifying action by Gingrich in his current candidacy for the Republican nomination.
That hardly seems fair to me. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Gingrich meant it then, that he means it today, or that he will mean it tomorrow. True, there is also no reason to think that he wouldn’t denounce such a law today, champion it tomorrow, and go back to denouncing it on Wednesday. But I hardly think we can blame Gingrich for his views on any particular occasion, or at least not for long. That would be like blaming the wind for blowing in an easterly direction in the morning, when you know perfectly well it will blow in three other directions by sunset. Let’s be fair.
Posted by Paul Horwitz on January 23, 2012 at 10:01 AM
Comments
The penultimate sentence of the original post seems to have inspired a tweet by Saul Alinsky.
Posted by: Joseph Slater | Jan 24, 2012 8:26:00 AM
Check out “Newt” at Wikipedia. It’s an adult “Eft.” [Note: The site does not address adulterous Newts, just regular reptiles.]
Posted by: Shag from Brookline | Jan 24, 2012 8:08:22 AM
“Stewart skewers Gingrich for magnanimously offering to lecture the NAACP about food stamps last week. But oh, that’s hardly the only time Gingrich has said dumb things, Stewart points out. There was that time he called Spanish the “language of the ghetto,” the time he was skeptical about women serving in combat because of their periods, and the time he called Palestinians “invented.” And he’s puzzled why his once-high polling numbers didn’t have staying power.”
But let’s not rush to judgement about good ol’ boy Newt! Let’s be fair! I’m just sayin’!
Posted by: john | Jan 23, 2012 4:44:08 PM
You come to bury Newt, not to praise him?
Posted by: Christine Hurt | Jan 23, 2012 2:45:47 PM
It seems I was conspicuously lacking a satirical sensibility or sense humor this morning.
Posted by: Patrick S. O’Donnell | Jan 23, 2012 12:47:49 PM
I don’t quite see how we can assume he did not mean it, as I take that to be the default presumption in cases like this. Of course there’s nothing wrong with viewing it in proper perspective, as a fairly small piece of evidence that speaks to who Gingrich is as a politician. In that case, it’s merely one part of a much bigger, disturbing and rather ugly picture (one that includes, for instance, his utterance of blatant falsehoods, like calling himself a ‘Washington outsider’ and ‘populist’).” This man truly frightens me.
As an aside, I do find it odd that not a few Republicans expressed concern for virtues of character during Clinton’s presidency as evidenced by one’s behavior, in both private and public domains, and yet in a state with a significant number of “evangelical” Republicans with putative preferences for such character assessments, the “character thing” all but disappeared in the primary election.
Posted by: Patrick S. O’Donnell | Jan 23, 2012 10:36:48 AM