jeffreymark

A NEWT REBUTTAL

Trashing Newt certainly is in vogue among bluebloods this season. All this talk about his lack of credentials as a conservative and his disparaging the Reagan administration are complete nonsense and borderline evil. They certainly confirm the immature character of those seeking to destroy Newt. Therefore, below I wanted to post articles that refute and enlighten the trash talk. These I previously posted on my Facebook.

I know I'm posting lots of stuff on Newt Gingrich. I'll get over it. But, for anyone who passionately cares about our nation and what our children may inherit from us they need to pay attention to those who may set the future direction of the country. 
The Romney camp has posted a legion of distorted facts about Gingrich. One publication that appeared yesterday was Newt supposedly disparaging the Reagan years. I never heard him do this. It seemed out of character. Plus, given Romney's record for waffling I immediately looked for the full interview so as to hear Gingrich's words in their context. And, what do you know? I found it. Follow the link below. 

Riehl World View: Video Of Newt Bashing Reagan Is Bogus

www.riehlworldview.com

There's a short excerpt of a 1988 C-SPAN video purportedly showing Newt Gingrich bashing Reagan when talking about how Bush, Sr. should run. As I suspected, it's edited to give a false impression. What you don't see is immediately after...

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While Ms.O'Sullivan may not possess the credentials of those previously referred to on this page, she writes a compelling op.ed. piece in favor of Newt Gingrich. Yes, indeed I flooded today's posts with pro Newt articles. Yet, I hate to see the man lose as a result of smear campaigns. One thing I firmly believe-Gingrich is a principled conservative. Those influential pundits like Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter, who deceptively label him a liberal ought to take that one off the table. He has many flaws, but liberalism is not one of them.

Send Us Newt

Melissa O’Sullivan writes on NRO: Last fall, people in Washington told me, “Get over it, Melissa. Newt’s not going to be the nominee.” Later, in New York City over Thanksgiving, I was told, “Get over it, Melissa. It’s going to be Romney. There’s still so much stuff out there on Newt that’s just wait...

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I was quite engaged in politics during the 80s myself. I agree with Limbaugh. I don't remember this stuff. Everything I recall about Newt leaned toward one who was ultra conservative to a fault.

 

 

Coordinated Avalanche Against Newt Doesn't Match My Memory of Reagan Years - The Rush                Limbaugh Show

RUSH: I'm not denying it happened. I'm just telling you, this stuff was a total shock to me last night when I learned that Newt had said this stuff.

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More conservative support for Newt Gingrich. Michael Reagan exclaims: (via Dallas Morning News)

“I am deeply disturbed that supporters of Mitt Romney are claiming that Newt Gingrich is not a true Reaganite and are even claiming that Newt was a strong critic of my father.

“Recently I endorsed Newt Gingrich for president because I believe that Newt is the only Republican candidate who has both consistently backed the conservative policies that my father championed and the only Republican that will continue to implement his vision.

“It surprises me that Mitt Romney and his supporters would raise this issue — when Mitt by his own admission voted for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale who opposed my father, and later supported liberal Democrat Paul Tsongas for president. 

“As governor of Massachusetts, Romney’s achievement was the most socialistic healthcare plan in the nation up until that time. 

“Say what you want about Newt Gingrich but when he was Speaker of the House he surrounded himself with Reagan conservatives and implemented a Ronald Reagan program of low taxes and restrained federal spending. 

“Newt’s conservative program created a huge economic boom and balanced the budget for the first time in more than a generation.” 

Mike Reagan concluded: “I would take Newt Gingrich’s record any day over Mitt Romney’s.”

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I have not endorsed Newt Gingrich. I do, however, like his conservatism. The attacks against him are deliberately designed to get Romney nominated. Most of the attacks on Newt grossly misrepresent him and take his rhetoric out of context. For every attack on Newt I can find a counter by "elitists" who support him-people like Nancy Reagan and Michael Reagan. I encourage anyone who runs from Newt because of all the confusing half truths out there to do some investigative work themselves.

Newt Backed Reagan, Romney Opposed Him

www.newsmax.com

A newly surfaced video shows that no less a figure than Nancy Reagan asserted that President Ronald Reagan passed the “torch” of Reagan conservatism to Newt Gingrich — belying efforts by Mitt Romney supporters to cast Gingrich as anti-Reagan.

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Of course Newt is greatly flawed. Yes, he indeed tosses hand grenades. And, he probably chased a few women in his day. I'm not denying that. But, my favorite historian Victor Davis Hanson offers a provocative look at private morals vs. public political practice.

Fidelity and the Presidency

www.nationalreview.com

Victor Davis Hanson writes on NRO: The news media seem obsessed with the serial affairs of a younger Newt Gingrich back in the last century. The anger of his second of three wives mysteriously became national news on ABC’s Nightline on the eve of the South Carolina primary. Millions watched Mrs. Gin...

 

 

 

 

 

TEA PARTY STEALTH

I repeatedly and openly posit the hunch to my friends that the Tea Party seriously provides the tools for our nation's salvation. Or, salvation in terms of her traditional character. Some believe because the latest Republican front runners failed to kiss the Tea Party ring that this movement has petered out. Not so! The unique movement knows how to win the end game. All politics is local. Tea Party gurus everywhere now invest more in local organization than national. Ascension from the grassroots works. In fact, most paradigm shifting radical movements work like seeds in a garden. The plant grows and one by one pollinates other plants, which in turn pollinate more plants etc... Church leaders get it and even our own Savior knew this. He took a small band of grassroots ragtags, invested his life in them, turned them loose, and look what happened.

Meantime, those frustrated with our current candidates must exercise cautionary patience. Rome does not get built in a day. It took one hundred years (beginning with Teddy Roosevelt) for progressives to get to their icon Obama. One hundred years of enlightenment education, unchecked idealism, and bratty affluence to get where we stand today. Washington Post columnist Dr. Milton Wolf gets it when he opines:

First, however, conservatives must face reality and choose one of these three options: (1) Decide between Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Romney, (2) devise some near-magical electoral path in the 11th hour that leads to a different nominee or (3) brace for Barack Obama’s second term. A rule to remember: Manage the situation you have, not the one you want, or someone else will manage it for you.  

That's it, plain and simple. To compromise ones pace does not mean they must concede their principles. Conservatives often want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If they mindlessly sabotage the two front runners this writer predicts they will tragically dig a deeper pit for conservatives to rise out of. The recent barrage of criticisms toward Newt Gingrich in particular, provide nothing more than fodder for the Dems. To be sure, they have remained relatively quiet, keeping their salivating rhetorical attacks clandestine. Dr. Wolf offers compelling wisdom at this point:

It’s time for conservatives to quit playing checkers and start playing chess. Stop sabotaging our own candidates and instead create a path that rewards conservatism no matter who our nominee is. Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are both smart enough to know that while the Tea Party lights a path to the White House, the harsh reality follows that should one of them receive its support and betray it, his presidency would be over before it began.

Kudos to Dr. Wolf. Our movement needs more politically astute voices like his. 

CONFESSIONS OF A HOMOPHOBE

I acquiesce. I'm a homophobe. A genuine, modern day ignoramus. I'm worse than a Texas Aggie. (all in fun you Aggies realize) Problem is, I'm hopelessly terminal. This disease shall not wane in my lifetime. I shall always be pathological. But, thank God Southern Seminary president and radio reverend Albert Mohler assures me I'm not alone:

Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.

This is not a concern that is easily expressed in sound bites. But it is what we truly believe.

It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of homosexuality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.

We have demonstrated our own form of homophobia—not in the way that activists have used that word, but in the sense that we have been afraid to face this issue where it is most difficult . . . face to face.

While I sometimes find Mohler a bit too tenacious when offering his credo, I must admit I take comfort in his Biblical essentials, particularly the high view of Scripture which forms the basis for our so called "phobias." Some things are true even when the polls suggests 99% of the public thinks otherwise. I'm reminded of Pilate, the crowd, the thief, and Jesus. The herd mentality, often essentially evil, gets it wrong. History, the unmerciful lie detector, confirms this. 

Read more Mohler here.

 

THE DICK MORRIS TAKE

Former Clinton consultant Dick Morris, a libertarian, traded camps a few years ago. Now he works for Fox News and Republicans. While Morris remains an enigma, I often find his political commentary useful. As a part of his on going analysis Morris releases his own polling data on a regular basis. Below is his latest interpretation of the national political landscape.

My gut, unrelated to empirical data, savors Morris's assessment. Evangelicals remain skeptical of Romney, but less so than the last campaign, because of his Mormonism. Many evangelicals still erroneously view Mormons as wild-eyed Martians seeking to overtake the world. Whatever one thinks of Mormons, they need to do a little homework and recognize that Mormons stand with evangelicals on the social issues. And, isn't that the essence of evangelical litmus tests? My own experience as an active evangelical suggests that Romney's largest hurdle now with conservatives is his apparent left leaning record as governor of Massachusetts. Michele Bachman fares as a conservative's conservative. She's got the right philosophical stuff. Yet, her one hurdle, confirmed in the back alleys of conservatism, remains her gender. Male evangelicals tend to secretly disdain female authority. While that sounds a bit far fetched to our modern libertine culture, it continues to rumble in our collective conservative subconscious.

Exciting days lie ahead as we anticipate the outcomes of these particular prejudices. I, for one, agree with Morris. Conservatives ought to take courage in the fact that they have two potentially excellent candidates.  

AN HONEST LOOK AT PUBLIC CONSERVATISM

One of my mentor bloggers, Professor Bainbridge, seems a bit embarrassed today at the current state of so called conservatism:

Let's tick off ten things that make this conservative embarrassed by the modern conservative movement:

1. A poorly educated ex-sportwriter who served half of one term of an minor state governorship is prominently featured as a -- if not the -- leading prospect for the GOP's 2012 Presidential nomination.
2. Tom Tancredo calling President Obama “the greatest threat to the United States today" and arguing that he be impeached. Bad public policy is not a high crime nor a misdemeanor, and the casual assertion that pursuing liberal policies--however misguided--is an impeachable offense is just nuts.
3. Similar nonsense from former Ford-Reagan treasury department officials Ernest Christian and Gary Robbins, who IBD column was, as Doug Marconis observed, "a wildly exaggerated attack on President Obama’s record in office." Actually, it's more foaming at the mouth.
4. As Doug also observed, "The GOP controlled Congress from 1994 to 2006: Combine neocon warfare spending with entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects and you end up with a GOP welfare/warfare state driving the federal spending machine." Indeed, "when the GOP took control of Congress in 1994, and the White House in 2000, the desire to use the levers of power to create “compassionate conservatism” won our over any semblance of fiscal conservatism. Instead of tax cuts and spending cuts, we got tax cuts along with a trillion dollar entitlement program, a massive expansion of the Federal Government’s role in education, and two wars. That’s not fiscal conservatism it is, as others have said, fiscal insanity." Yet, today's GOP still has not articulated a message of real fiscal conservatism.
5. Thanks to the Tea Party, the Nevada GOP has probably pissed away a historic chance to out=st Harry Reid. See also Charlie Crist in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky, and so on. Whatever happened to not letting perfection be the enemy of the good?
6. The anti-science and anti-intellectualism that pervade the movement.
7. Trying to pretend Afghanistan is Obama's war.
8. Birthers.
9. Nativists.
10. The substitution of mouth-foaming, spittle-blasting, rabble-rousing talk radio for reasoned debate. Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, and even Rush Limbaugh are not exactly putting on Firing Line. Whatever happened to smart, well-read, articulate leaders like Buckley, Neuhaus, Kirk, jack Kent, Goldwater, and, yes, even Ronald Reagan?

After watching Chris Wallace interview Sarah Palin today on Fox (Bainbridge refers to her in #1 above) I tend to find myself perhaps temporarily agreeing with the good Professor. While she brings the ardent dreams and wishes of street smart conservatives to the public domain, she lacks the skill to articulate the complexities of current issues. I squirmed a bit today while I listened to her nervously stutter her way through the interview. God help Sarah Palin. We need her. She possesses the soul of a true conservative and lights a fire under the masses. But, she need not take part in any serious media driven debates.  

Furthermore, I agree with the Prof's assessment of a few of our more well known media pundits. Yet, I have listened to Rush Limbaugh since the 80's. He's different. He dared bring to the public eye a boiling interior frustration many conservatives held at bay for years. And, he knows his stuff. Limbaugh possesses a keen ability to think like a liberal. His braggadocio is sort of an "in your face" response to pompous, pseudo intellectual liberals. Those who know liberals get it. 

I do agree with Bainbridge concerning a desperate need for more conservative thinkers who live in the same camp as Russell Kirk and William Buckley. Men of letters, however, often fail to connect with the general public. Its much like musicians in the church. Many of our trained organists love the complexities and wonders of Bach. But, the real world lives in a Merle Haggard society. We need a few Bachs and we also need plenty of Haggards who can slide Bach on down to the commoner's level. Thus, enters Palin, Limbaugh, and other apparent rough edged conservatives.      

DEATH OF AN INSTITUTION

The NAACP recently audaciously accused the tea party of racism. The baseless accusations exemplify institutional decay. In fact, we create institutions to meet human needs. But, institutions often live past their prime, spawning circumstances which counter the very principles that birthed an institution in the first place. Thus, creating institutionalism. We ministers in the church call this Phariseeism-a phenomenon whose sole purpose evolves into maintaining the institution with the exclusion and degrading of human need. As a result, the human issue becomes a question of what to do about the decaying institution which served its purpose. 

The NAACP, with their baseless charges of racism now throws the very people it first protected under the bus, by exasperating a problem it, at one time, pretty much resolved. Both white and black leaders appear angry at the institution's race baiting for the extreme purpose of propping up a dead horse. Andrew Breitbart challenged the NAACP to put its money where its mouth is. Of course this old dying horse cannot rise to the challenge, illustrating the infallibility of my point.

A PARABLE ABOUT OBAMA

Folks today seemed shocked that Obama fails to keep his word. His fiscal irresponsibility, embarrassing apologies to foreign nations, and worship of academicians speaks of a progressive utopian existence. Speech writer Peggy Noonan thinks he's snake bit. I think, however, we are the ones getting bit in the ever loving butt by a serpent. Our complaints and confusion over Obama's nefarious actions sort of blindsided us-some of us that is. Our dismay reminds me of an old Indian parable: 

A little boy was walking down a path and he came across a rattlesnake. The rattlesnake was getting old. He asked, "Please little boy, can you take me to the top of the mountain? I hope to see the sunset one last time before I die." The little boy answered "No Mr. Rattlesnake. If I pick you up, you'll bite me and I'll die." The rattlesnake said, "No, I promise. I won't bite you. Just please take me up to the mountain." The little boy thought about it and finally picked up that rattlesnake and took it close to his chest and carried it up to the top of the mountain. They sat there and watched the sunset together. It was so beautiful. Then after sunset the rattlesnake turned to the little boy and asked, "Can I go home now? I am tired, and I am old." The little boy picked up the rattlesnake and again took it to his chest and held it tightly and safely. He came all the way down the mountain holding the snake carefully and took it to his home to give him some food and a place to sleep. The next day the rattlesnake turned to the boy and asked, "Please little boy, will you take me back to my home now? It is time for me to leave this world, and I would like to be at my home now." The little boy felt he had been safe all this time and the snake had kept his word, so he would take it home as asked. He carefully picked up the snake, took it close to his chest, and carried him back to the woods, to his home to die. Just before he laid the rattlesnake down, the rattlesnake turned and bit him in the chest. The little boy cried out and threw the snake upon the ground. "Mr. Snake, why did you do that? Now I will surely die!" The rattlesnake looked up at him and grinned, "You knew what I was when you picked me up.

MY MEMORIAL DAY TRIBUTE

The blogosphere busily buzzes this hour with legions offering emotional tributes to brave men and women who served our nation, bolstering freedom. Indeed, I salute those noble heroes. Today, however, I want to offer accolades to a couple of men who shaped my conservative thinking. My conservatism provides the lens through which I view this day and all other American historical events. My dad was my first ideological mentor. He served during WWII in the Pacific aboard a little known submarine called USS Apogon. My dad grew up during the depression, and like so many of the WWII veterans he barely had a pot to pee in. He began picking cotton at about six years of age. He often praised President Roosevelt for supposedly steering us out of a depression. He admired Truman as well. Somewhere he changed his party affiliation. My dad died in 1980 so I cannot ask him the details. I know he complained about Kennedy’s weak foreign policy. He believed Kennedy acquiesced to the communist in building of the Berlin wall. He also displayed disappointment with Kennedy's weak inability to run Castro out of Cuba. My dad also complained about Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban missile crises. He often said that the President did not get all of the missiles out of Cuba. He loved Governor Reagan and wanted him to serve as President. He never lived to see that day. My dad’s simple yet, profound wisdom instilled in me a sense of history and American moral superiority. His old fashioned, straight laced demeanor gave rise to my early realization that freedom comes with a price tag.

Another person who profoundly influenced my thinking was Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Solzhenitsyn lived through Stalin’s concentration camps . He wrote several documents and books detailing with the dangers of Communism. Eventually he came to the U.S. In 1978 he gave a provocative speech to the Harvard class of 78. That speech, critical of the West, sent a prophetic shout heard around the country. Solzhenitsyn outlined what he declared at the time kept the U.S. from confronting Communism head on. He thought the cold war might end in violence. Even though he delivered this profound speech almost 30 years ago, his assessment of the American character continues to ring true.

Consider these stinging words from his address:

The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course there are many courageous individuals but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and in their statements and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice.

Again he hits a home run with these statements:

When the modern Western States were created, the following principle was proclaimed: governments are meant to serve man, and man lives to be free to pursue happiness. (See, for example, the American Declaration). Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: the welfare state. Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory the achievement of happiness, in the morally inferior sense which has come into being during those same decades. In the process, however, one psychological detail has been overlooked: the constant desire to have still more things and a still better life and the struggle to obtain them imprints many Western faces with worry and even depression, though it is customary to conceal such feelings. Active and tense competition permeates all human thoughts without opening a way to free spiritual development. The individual's independence from many types of state pressure has been guaranteed; the majority of people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about; it has become possible to raise young people according to these ideals, leading them to physical splendor, happiness, possession of material goods, money and leisure, to an almost unlimited freedom of enjoyment. So who should now renounce all this, why and for what should one risk one's precious life in defense of common values, and particularly in such nebulous cases when the security of one's nation must be defended in a distant country?

Solzhenitsyn continues with a shot at the press:

Because instant and credible information has to be given, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none of them will ever be rectified, they will stay on in the readers' memory. How many hasty, immature, superficial and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, without any verification. The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters, pertaining to one's nation's defense, publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: "everyone is entitled to know everything."

There is yet another surprise for someone coming from the East where the press is rigorously unified: one gradually discovers a common trend of preferences within the Western press as a whole. It is a fashion; there are generally accepted patterns of judgment and there may be common corporate interests, the sum effect being not competition but unification. Enormous freedom exists for the press, but not for the readership because newspapers mostly give enough stress and emphasis to those opinions which do not too openly contradict their own and the general trend.

Finally consider his comments on the West’s loss of willpower:

And yet -- no weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower. In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being. Nothing is left, then, but concessions, attempts to gain time and betrayal. Thus at the shameful Belgrade conference free Western diplomats in their weakness surrendered the line where enslaved members of Helsinki Watchgroups are sacrificing their lives.

Read this social prophet’s full address to the Harvard graduating class of 1978 here. (originally posted 9-11-2006)

HARD KNOCKS UNIVERSITY

My WWII hero dad taught me much about wisdom of the ages. He never graduated from college, but he reminded me that the university of hard knocks provided some of the best, deepest, securely ingrained wisdom. He was right. In fact, our politicians and academicians live with the false premise that a finely university tuned intellect guarantees spiritual prosperity. Problem is-most intellectuals live in what we ex seminarians call ivory towers. Far removed from the interweavings of social networks and collective wisdom, ivory towerism produces compelling theses and rather impotent working knowledge for life's complexities. Today I post a few of the gems I picked up along the road of hard knocks.  

1. Proverbs proclaims a centuries old proven truth when it declares, “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.”  My fear has nothing to do with what God might do to me. It has everything to do with what I bring on myself when I walk outside God’s will. 
2. We Methodist believe in prevenient grace. This goes along with number one above. God’s grace walks with us even when we reject him. It beckons us to follow him and actually aids in saving us from ourselves. John Wesley described this grace as a wooing sort of impetus designed to take us to our knees.
3. Everyone is bluffing.
4. Character and humility go hand in hand. Good people know much of the good that happens to them is not of their own doing, and they often feel undeserving. 
5. Arrogance and confidence often appear one and the same. They are not. Arrogance is based on  compensating for unconfessed wrongs or subconscious insecurities. Confidence stands on the solid rock of knowing one’s self and admitting to short comings. Confidence’s theme remains, “By the grace of God, there go I.” 
6. Group think reigns in a person’s life no matter what his/her age. Be careful who you bond with. You may begin to look like them. That’s why God told the Hebrews to stay away from those who worshiped idols. They failed to heed the warning and it led to their self destruction. Methodist missionary E.Stanley Jones called this phenomenon the "Herd mentality." He assures us the herd stands as one of the most potent motivators in life. If you don't believe it just enter the political world. 
7. Materialism produces a false self-a walking robot who must always put forth an unnatural public image. Historically nations have fallen because of their materialistic facade.
8. If one has a family and a God that loves them they have all they need. 
9. Always do more than what you get paid for and eventually you will get paid for more than you do.

OBAMA RECEIVES TELLING ENDORSEMENT

Used to, the very name Fidel Castro was synonymous with evil communist empire. The mystery surrounding Castro's enduring presence, however, prompts infatuated liberals to worship this man as if he represents some mysterious deity. Reminds me of Ancient Egypt's hypnotic worship of a mere mortal named Pharaoh. 

Almighty Castro recently applauded Obama's health care plan:

"We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama's) government," Castro wrote in an essay published in state media, adding that it would strengthen the president's hand against lobbyists and "mercenaries."

Oh how I eagerly await the day I can live in squaller like most who reside in communist Cuba. Thanks, Mr. Castro, for hastening that coveted day.