Disappointed in Newt Gingrich

I have always liked Newt Gingrich.  He gave an address in 2002 at some dinner somewhere, and this was the first “Podcast” I ever heard.  This was perhaps the height of his oratory, in the days when “federal chipmunk” featured in many of his speeches.  I have long been impressed with his ideas and his presentation.

I saw him as a magnificent piece of field artillery, able to deliver withering fire in support of any truly conservative position from behind the lines, perched on the editorial pages with a commanding view of the valley below.  Military minds know not to scoff at the big guns in the rear of the battle area just because they are in the rear:  the ability to bombard the enemy at a time and place of your choosing can save an awful lot of your own troops–perhaps all of them.

His personal baggage has always meant that he could not return to the front lines, and only fools and those with a vested interest in a different belief see it otherwise.  Recently, Gingrich had been sounding more like his vested interests were winning than his good sense.  Over the course of this past week, it became clear that in fact vested interests do not explain it all–he has become a fool.

He has always been an establishment man, but one with a firm set of beliefs, rooted in well-defined values and braced into a sturdy tower with rigorous logic and the moral clarity that comes with knowing one’s first principles, at least as far as the political arena.  That his personal life compromised him fatally is beyond debate–any who last week  thought he had a real shot at winning even a primary, to say nothing of the general, were always bound to be disappointed.

There may even be an aspect of his personal life which drove him to this doomed candidacy.  His current marriage is shrouded in innuendo and ugly facts from a decade ago.  Perhaps a public referendum on Newt Gingrich appealed to him as a way to dispel the lingering odor.  Whether this is so or not, the results are the same.

Gingrich could have been an invaluable asset, supporting principles first, then candidates who to varying degree hew to those principles, and finally by blasting a path for the nominee who for better or worse must be supported by 100% of Republicans in the general.  This was my vision.

That vision now lies in ruins, as the massive and modern artillery unit was foolishly cast into battle on the front lines, and is now just so many bombed trucks full of twisted smoking metal.   Newt should not have run.

He can split hairs all he wants, and he may even be right, about how what he meant was a distinction between a jam-down and a bi-partisan process, or a mandate versus an incentive system, but that is all lost now.  His prowess in the editorial pages was no use on the front lines, where things are just plain different.

Another difference is the Tea Party.  The last time Gingrich was important in Washington, there was nothing like this afoot.  Newt Gingrich is in the leading wave of Republicans to discover that the rumored disappearance of the Tea Party is a cause for concern, not for relief on the part of the establishment.  Tea Party people like myself are in no mood for bullshit, and no mood for bullshit candidates.   We will not accept tired excuses and overly nuanced explanations from coiffed Washington experts.  After delivering the House to the GOP (for which I cannot share credit, as I am a latecomer to the Tea Party), we are fuming mad at the squandering of advantage.

Establishment Republicans have criticised the Tea Party because a few of their candidates lost elections.  It is amazingly short-sighted to view this without the context of all the republicans now in office who would be managing restaurants in their home districts if it were not for the Tea Party.  This fickle failure to dance with the ones who brought them is changing the trajectory of the Tea Party weapon.  We will burn through as many artfully posed GOP mannequins as necessary until the field opens up for some men and women with enough salt in their blood to get the job done.

This is why Newt’s apologies and explanations are not working.

He cannot now return to the heights and deliver supporting fire.  His credibility, which was awfully strong so long as he stayed on the ideas front, is gone.  He no longer has the capability to grab a headline with a barrage editorial and have it be anything other than one more footnote on the pathetic Gingrich friendly-fire incident.

He should not have shot at Ryan or allowed the perception that he shot at Ryan, or whatever this morning’s explanation is.  The fact on the ground is that Newt handed the Democrats a huge and powerful artillery piece of their own to smash republicans with in the primary, the general, and in fact for years to come.

[pullquote]There will be no forgiveness for Newt Gingrich[/pullquote]

There will be no forgiveness for Newt Gingrich.  He will be savaged by the right until he backs out not because we are fools, but because we won’t get fooled again.  He is not an exceptionally bad man, in fact, I still like him.  But he has conducted himself in an exceptionally bad way, and an example must be made of him.

Hal Rogers is beyond the reach of the Tea Party for now, protected by John Boehner, who can still get in the good graces of next year’s kingmakers.   But he should look to Newt’s sad and short story for a graphic depiction of what the Tea Party will do to Republicans who threaten a GOP victory in 2012.

Work together or fall together.  2010 was a gift.  2012 is a line in the sand.