Newt VIII

Former House Republican Joe Scarborough on the bullet one hopes we're in the process of dodging:

Gingrich’s precipitous fall from power was the result of arrogance, self-satisfaction, and a fatal tendency to flit from issue to issue—and even from core conviction to core conviction—in the seeming belief that if he spoke well enough (and used as many adverbs as possible) no one would notice that he was doing something he had equally eloquently (and equally adverbially) opposed before.

Let’s be clear: Gingrich is an important figure. Regardless of what happens in Florida and beyond, he will be remembered as the man who brought the Reagan Revolution to Congress. Yet it will also be recorded that Newt compared the Great Reagan to Neville Chamberlain, dismissed Reaganomics as flawed and called Reagan’s approach to the Soviet Union an utter failure a few years before the U.S.S.R. was relegated to the dustbin of history.

These unpleasant facts do not stop Newt from trying to embrace the same policies he once denounced (one wonders if he even remembers the contradictions at this point), but that’s what makes my former colleague so fascinating. And so troubling.

Hat tip to fitnews.com for photo