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alp227

(31,961 posts)
Fri Jan 20, 2012, 12:00 AM Jan 2012

Gingrich Attacked on Topics Professional and Personal

Newt Gingrich angrily turned aside questions Thursday about his marital history at the outset of the final Republican presidential debate before the South Carolina primary, and then aggressively took on Mitt Romney and the other remaining candidates in a raucous confrontation about immigration, abortion, conservative credentials and electability.

With the field of candidates down to four and Saturday’s primary here just two days away, the candidates engaged in intensely personal verbal combat fittingly set in a sports coliseum, where Mr. Gingrich, the former House speaker, was usually the prime target.

Mr. Romney told Mr. Gingrich that for all his talk aligning himself with Ronald Reagan during his days in Congress, “I looked at the Reagan Diary, you’re mentioned once.” Rick Santorum questioned Mr. Gingrich’s grip on logic, at one point telling him, “These are not cogent thoughts” and saying if Mr. Gingrich were president voters would have to perennially worry “something’s going to pop” about his personal life.

Mr. Gingrich gave it right back to both of them, reprising his attacks on Mr. Romney for his time at the buyout firm Bain Capital — and job losses caused by some of its deals — and telling Mr. Santorum his ideas were too small for the challenges of the times.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/us/politics/republican-debate-south-carolina.html?pagewanted=all

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ChadwickHenryWard

(862 posts)
1. If he truly feels this way, he owes President Clinton an apology.
Fri Jan 20, 2012, 02:51 AM
Jan 2012

If he truly feels a man's marital infidelities are not a matter fit for public discussion, he owes the Clintons an apology. There is one man in the world that made the most hay out of Clinton's Oval Office blowjob, and he was at one of those four podiums tonight.

Of course, this was an obvious attempt at recreating Nixon's "Checkers speech" moment, wherein he completely disregards any discussion of his own obvious wrongdoing, and weepily implores the American people to think about his daughters. It is a deeply cynical exploitation of the American people's tender sensibilities in order to deflect attention from a very serious accusation. He had the definite air of a cornered animal tonight, and the idiots that make up the American electorate ate it up.

 

dballance

(5,756 posts)
2. Oh please. How self-serving
Fri Jan 20, 2012, 04:56 AM
Jan 2012

Skewer Clinton while you were busy cheating on your wife. Did anyone ever read you the definition of hypocrisy? I just really can't understand how you have the audacity to present yourself as a candidate. I guess your narcissism and megalomania just know no bounds.

In case no one has informed you you are a complete turd and a waste of human flesh. The world would be so much better without you since you really don't contribute anything. Why you got paid a million bucks for your alleged historical knowledge is a real mystery.

No one can dignify or justify paying you. Go away, just go away. You are one of the least deserving people ever to be president.

ScottLand

(2,485 posts)
3. Naturally, the new Newt mistress revelations are not relevant
Fri Jan 20, 2012, 05:01 AM
Jan 2012

(according to all the RW pundits), partly because it was so long ago, so I can't help but wonder why it's so important to them that Obama brushed up against Bill Ayers 40 years ago. They certainly think THAT is relevant.

I agree with the gay guy on this one - with Newtie in the White House, his dysfunctional family would be the focus.

underpants

(182,273 posts)
5. oh how DARE John King ask Newt about THE news story of the day
Fri Jan 20, 2012, 07:15 AM
Jan 2012

Newt of course went the belligerent asshole AND playing victim route.

"I can think of nothing more dispicable"??? I can. The hospital divorce of the first wife. The open marriage request to his recently diagnosed second wife (who he cheated on while his first wife was sick) and when she said no he asked for a divorce on the phone ....while she was visiting her sick mother.


Hubert Flottz

(37,726 posts)
7. He should have ask...
Fri Jan 20, 2012, 09:49 AM
Jan 2012

Is it true that you're a very dirty old man?

I wouldn't trust him in my chicken house with the hens!

olegramps

(8,200 posts)
10. The Republicans' reaction to Newt's defense of his despicable marital behavior says it all.
Fri Jan 20, 2012, 12:12 PM
Jan 2012

I am rapidly losing any respect for anyone who says that they are a Republican.

One, they are either immoral bastards that worship money or idiots that cooperate in their own economic destruction.

I once thought that this nation was steadily improving in providing opportunities for all of its citizens to prosper. I have totally abandoned this position in realization that we are at the mercy of a tyranny of the wealthy with little hope of recovery before there is a total collapse.

The hypocrisy of so-called evangelicals to dismiss Gingrich's moral depravity and the complacency of his present wife to such an arrangement makes me what to vomit. Republicans' sense of Christian morality is the height of hypocrisy as they worship Newt "Caligula" Gingrich who would turn the White House into Roman brothel.

yellowcanine

(35,692 posts)
11. Maybe not all Republicans. Richard Land (Southern Baptist Convention) sounds a little wary.
Fri Jan 20, 2012, 03:52 PM
Jan 2012

“The press is so unpopular with Republican voters that his answer helps him in the short term - it was a tactically brilliant answer,” said Richard Land, the public policy chief for the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest evangelical denomination.

“Whether it will work strategically is another question,” Land said.

Land said the allegation from Gingrich’s ex-wife may hurt the candidate in the long run because it reminds voters that he was seeing his current wife, Callista, while married to his second wife.

Gingrich has admitted to his affair with Callista, whom he married in 2000.

“This reminds people that Callista is the other woman,” Land said, “and that the other woman could become the first lady.”

“Forgiveness is not the issue here, trust is the issue,” Land said. “Redemption is something that’s in our code as evangelicals, but trusting someone with the presidency is something entirely different.”

olegramps

(8,200 posts)
16. Sounds rather lukewarm to me. He doesn't even address the "open marriage" crap.
Sat Jan 21, 2012, 11:29 AM
Jan 2012

I couldn' t help from thinking he is the modern equivalent of David.

Rhiannon12866

(202,970 posts)
14. LOL. Isn't she already?
Fri Jan 20, 2012, 07:21 PM
Jan 2012

I just can't imagine what she could possibly think about anything. What would her issue be? Lady Bird had highway beautification, Hillary had health care, Michelle has healthy eating, what's closest to Callista's heart?

japple

(9,773 posts)
13. Whoa, Mr. Romney got a bit excited!!! Here:
Fri Jan 20, 2012, 07:20 PM
Jan 2012

“I know we’re going to get hit hard from President Obama,” Mr. Romney said, “But we’re going to stuff it down his throat and point out it is capitalism and freedom that makes America strong.”

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