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Newt Gingrich

Ringside Seat: Crossfrankly

Paul Waldman AND Jon CoumesApr 23, 2013

Turn on cable news at most times of the day, and you can find a "debate" in which a program's host throws questions to two guests, one a conservative and one a liberal, invited on for their ability to slog their way through five soul-deadening minutes of motive-questioning and oft-repeated talking points. If you've ever watched one of these and said to yourself, "Maybe they should just lose the host and have these two yell at each other directly. And extend it to a whole half-hour!", then there might be a job waiting for you at CNN.

Ringside Seat: Braaaaaaains for Freedom

Paul Waldman AND Jaime FullerApr 02, 2013

As big-government liberals, we're always heartened when the federal government undertakes ambitious projects to solve fundamental problems and better Americans' lives. Today, President Obama announced the BRAIN initiative, and no, it doesn't have anything to do with preparation for the inevitable zombie apocalypse, during which our precious gray matter will become food for the undead.

Lies Are the New Truth

Paul WaldmanAug 09, 2012

Being a campaign surrogate isn't easy. You have no say in what the candidate you favor or his campaign decides to say or do, yet you're called upon to defend their words and actions. That can put you in an extremely uncomfortable position, unless you're Newt Gingrich.

Yesterday, Newt went on Anderson Cooper 360 to talk about Mitt Romney's new welfare attack ad, which falsely accuses Obama of ending work requirements in welfare, and what he said was truly remarkable, even for him. Now, let me be absolutely clear about something. I've been paying very, very close attention to political ads for a long time. In my former career as an academic I did a lot of research on political ads. I've watched literally every single presidential general election campaign ad ever aired since the first ones in 1952. I've seen ads that were more inflammatory than this one, and ads that were in various ways more reprehensible than this one (not many, but some). But I cannot recall a single presidential campaign ad in the history of American politics that lied more blatantly than this one...

The Romney Death Star Is Not Operational

Jamelle BouieJul 17, 2012

It’s still too early to tell, but if the Washington Examiner’s Byron York is right, the vaunted “Romney Death Star” has an unshielded thermal exhaust port at the center of its super-structure:

Sally Quinn Laments The End Of (Her) Power

E.J. GraffJun 11, 2012

In the Washington Post Magazine this weekend, Sally Quinn—wife of former legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, former religion columnist and social lioness—wrote a jaw-dropping piece about How Washington Has Changed For The Worse. As a friend said, "Every time you think this column can't get more deranged, there's another paragraph." Here's a summary: Crude people like the Kardashians and the Gingriches are getting attention, instead of my husband and me. That's appalling. We important people used to be in charge of getting things done here in Washington.

Romney's Ambitious First Day

Patrick CaldwellMay 24, 2012

Perhaps Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign wasn't meaningless after all. During the Florida primary, I tracked Gingrich and his ludicrous proposals to overhaul the entire federal government so quickly upon taking office that he would barely have time to change into a tux for the inauguration parties. His extensive list of promises for day one was absurd, yet it seems to have influenced Mitt Romney. Romney's first general-election ad was titled "Day One," and now the Republican nominee revisits the same idea in a new ad, unimaginatively called "Day One, Part Two."

GloboNewtCorp Meltdown Update

Paul WaldmanMay 22, 2012
Newt in happier times.

A month and a half ago, we learned that in contrast to what usually happens to a not-entirely-unsuccesful presidential contender, the candidacy of one Newton Leroy Gingrich had seriously hampered the former Speaker's ability to get people to give him money for doing very little other than spout off his opinion on things. You see, Newt had carefully constructed a network of organizations whose main purpose was getting people to give him money for being Newt. In the course of the campaign, however, the world learned just how much people gave him, and how little they got for it, most notably in the case of Freddie Mac, which paid Newt $1.6 million for "strategic consulting" that consisted of little more than giving a couple of speeches and having a couple of meetings. It'll now be awfully hard for Newt to run that scam on anyone again, and as a result, GloboNewtCorp is well and truly disintegrating. The Center for Health Transformation, one arm of GloboNewtCorp, went bankrupt, and the other tendrils of the network are falling away like dust through Newt's stubby fingers. Here are some excerpts from a Reuters article on the proceedings:

Newton Gingrich's Passage to Power

Steve EricksonMay 03, 2012
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The existence of the Republican Party has been marked by five incarnations in its century and a half, peaking early with its first president and the country’s greatest, Abraham Lincoln. The second Republican age culminated at the outset of the last century with Theodore Roosevelt; the third age with Dwight Eisenhower; the fourth with Ronald Reagan—whose harbingers were Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon—and whose coda was George H. W. Bush. The fifth that ultimately would coalesce around the presidency of Bush’s son was inaugurated by Newton Leroy Gingrich of Georgia, and not even W. has better represented the party’s style and substance these past 20 years.

"Friends," By Which He Means Not Really Friends

Paul WaldmanMay 02, 2012

Via Andrew Sullivan, Fox News' Shepard Smith had some kind of weird brain event and burped out a bit of fascinating honesty upon reading Mitt Romney's statement on Newt Gingrich pulling out of the presidential race. We shouldn't treat Smith like a hero just for saying what a normal person might say upon reading this, although the fact that he works for Fox does make his implicit criticism of the Republican party's nominee a bit brave. Anyhow, let's watch:

A Toast to Newt

Bob MoserMay 02, 2012

The end of a campaign is too often treated like the death of a person—say something nice, at least for now, or keep your mouth shut. In the case of the much-belated official demise of Newt Gingrich’s presidential bid, the kid-glove treatment might be considered especially appropriate, given that it also represents the final passage of his long political career. But as Newt said himself, debating Mitt Romney, “Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?” As when a truly terrible human being expires, the only thing worth celebrating here is the death itself. And the thing to mourn is not the loss of Newt on the national political stage, but the time that he spent on it.

Scott Walker Raises More Than Newt Gingrich

Abby RapoportMay 01, 2012
(Flickr/WisPolitics.com)

It's only a week until Wisconsin Democrats decide who will be the challenger in the gubernatorial recall that's grabbed the national spotlight. But while the polling shows a tight race between Governor Scott Walker and the two leading Democratic candidates, the numbers are out and the war for dollars is already won. Walker's a national favorite for conservative donors.

Newt Gingrich, Bridge Burner

Patrick CaldwellApr 25, 2012
(AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

So much for a last stand. Newt Gingrich, who banked everything left in his shell of a presidential campaign on pulling off an upset victory in Delaware last night, failed utterly. With 27 percent of the vote, he garnered less than half of Mitt Romney’s Delaware vote share last night. Where does Newt go from here? On Wednesday, Gingrich hinted that he would turn his back on his pledge to campaign all the way through the Tampa convention. "You have to at some point be honest about what’s happening in the real world as opposed to what you would like to have happened," Gingrich said at a campaign stop this morning. It's hard to see any other path forward. Besides his surprise victory in South Carolina, Gingrich has only placed first in his home state of Georgia. At the same time, his campaign has been whittling away money with few new donations, putting the Gingrich campaign over $4 million in debt, according to finance disclosures filed with the Federal Elections Commission last week. Winning Our Future, the Gingrich-affiliated super PAC, still had $6 million floating around at the end of March, but its primary donor, billionaire Sheldon Adelson has moved on to other ventures.

Liberal Bias at Fox News?

Paul WaldmanApr 20, 2012
Mitt Romney on Fox News.

Over at the New York Times, Nicole Hemmer has a nice piece explaining some of the history of the right's "liberal media bias" charge and how it has left them incapable of seeing anything that happens in the media—even their own media—clearly. It turns out that supporters of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum (not to mention Gingrich and Santorum themselves) were shocked to find that their favorite news sources didn't validate everything they believed, including who should win the Republican primary: "this role reversal is the end product of a process that was set in motion by the conservative media. Having spent decades promoting the charge of bias, they have helped strip it of meaning. These days, bias translates roughly to 'reporting something I don't like,' a reflexive defense against stories that cut against conservative interests." Conservatives got so used to seeing bias everywhere that it reached the point where some of them began accusing Fox News of being "liberal" because it wasn't boosting their preferred primary candidate.

They're Just Not That into Romney

Patrick CaldwellApr 18, 2012
(Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

Yeeesh, what does Mitt Romney have to do to drum up a bit of enthusiasm from his party? Sure, he's got to be feeling pretty content as each day brings another Republican casting aside the somehow-still-going campaigns of Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul to accept the inevitable proposition that Romney will be the party's nominee. Yet few can seem to offer an explanation for why they like Romney beyond the fact that they’re stuck with him. Shortly after I noted John Boehner’s lackluster endorsement yesterday, reporters asked Mitch McConnell for his take on Romney and were given the same nod-and-sigh routine:

Does Congress Even Need to Pass a Budget?

The last time the U.S. passed a real budget was in 1997. Does this mean we don't need one?

Clare MaloneApr 18, 2012

As much as the Internet might try to fool you, the 2012 political season is about more than just Etch A Sketches and sweater vests. We’re up crap creek in a leaky canoe when it comes to the economy, and as the country heads into the general election, the debt and budget will be at the fore of public debate. 

With competing budget proposals flying in from all sides, much of the political talk these days centers on the endless delays and extensions that Congress has thrown in the path of approving a long-term federal budget.  Which might lead one to wonder: Would it matter if we never passed a budget plan ever again?

What exactly is the federal budget?

The federal budget is one big ’ol nasty bill thousands of pages long that determines the fiscal future of the country over the course of a year by allocating money to various programs like Medicare and Medicaid as well as to things like defense spending. 

When was the last time we had a budget bill that was approved?

April of 2009. But technically it was just an “omnibus spending bill,” and President Barack Obama was none too thrilled to be signing it, citing the excessive number of earmark projects. The following year, Democrats chose not to put forth a budget bill because they deemed it politically imprudent during the hotly contested midterm elections. Same thing happened the next year. You get the point. 

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