My personal theory holds that most politicians enter public life for the following reasons:
1. power for its own sake2. get things done that they care about3. attention4. money5. blowjobs
Newt Gingrich is a special case. I think his motives run this way:
1. attention2. blowjobs3. attention4. money5. get things done that he cares about6. power for its own sake
The man just cannot keep his mouth shut. Twitter is designed for someone like him. Every time big news is afoot, he can horn in by instantaneously sending his mental twitches to an audience that includes the national media. So, during the pirate standoff, he went on record against the very strategy that eventually proved to be a winner. Now he’s joining the Sotomayor debate.
Yeah, Gingrich is a particularly loathsome character. His approach has always been deeply cynical; I recall in the mid-nineties, he used all kinds of anti-NAFTA rhetoric in order to bring about the GOP sweep of the Senate, but quickly did an about-face.All the while he was a member of the CFR. He strikes me as a devilish, Machiavellian type character.
I think he played a huge part in running populist/Paleocon cover for insurgent Neo-Conservatives in the 90s’.
When Obama spoke of the GOP in the 90s as the “party of ideas”, I think he was talking about Gingrich. He seems to be there to add some kind of intellectual weight, or believability to the establishment opposition. I think it’s some kind of cover, basically. He’s some kind of operative, I think.
I don’t think anybody from the more scholarly Right- from Chronicles magazine, to Front Porch Republic- sees him in a positive light.
Who is paying this guys’ bills? Who is booking him for Sunday political talk shows?
-As far as Sotomayor goes, It seems like the race criticisms are being conflated with legitimate criticisms; critics will ‘look like’ reactionaries or bone-heads by opposing her nomination.