Meet the Press 5/27/2012 -- Gregory is getting better

I was impressed with David Gregory this morning in his interview with Newt Gingrich and Gov. O'Malley from Maryland going at each other regarding the 2012 presidential campaign. Of course, O'Malley was defending Obama, and Gingrich was defending Romney. O'Malley was out-matched by Gingrich, but it's more because Obama's record is impossible to defend than Gingrich's debate skills. Gregory was objective in the discussion.

To David Gregory's credit, he did not join O'Malley to gang up on Gingrich. Gregory is seeing the light. Obama doesn't have much to stand on in this campaign. Gingrich simply pointed to unemployment, and when O'Malley said Obama has taken unemployment from 10 to 8 percent, Gingrich had only to bring up the number of people who've dropped out of the labor market, giving up on finding a job, and are no longer counted as unemployed. This is what Obama will face until November.

When Romney is attacked for his association with Bain, all the GOP has to do is point to Obama's relationship with Bain and private equity companies. When Obama attacks Romney on immigration issues, Romney can point to Obama's inaction and deportation numbers. When Obama attacks Romney regarding women's issues, Romney can point to the number of unemployed women in families that are losing their homes because they lost the needed income. When the question is asked why Obama should be given 4 more years, Democrats will not have good answers.

The discussion panel basically talked about these points, with E. J. Dionne saying, well, yeah, Obama sucks, but not as bad as Bush sucked, and it was Bush who left Obama such a mess. The GOP should push back hard on the blame Bush strategy and talk about Democrats such as Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who bullied and twisted arms for increased home ownership to the point of pressuring banks to make bad loans, and, when the housing bubble popped, all hell broke loose, so Democrats share equal, if not more, blame with Bush's big spending ways.

Newt Gingrich -- Sad way to end a political career

Gingrich is looking like a grumbling old fool as he attacks Fox and whines about the unfair campaign. It was ridiculous enough for Santorum to play the rebel outsider, but Newt? This is absurd. Gingrich has been a political animal all his life -- made his living in the unproductive pit of the political realm. Gingrich should move along -- the GOP has moved along, without Newt.

Say No To Newt

Gingrich is supported in the polls by name recognition and past accomplishments. As the Republican primary goes forward voters will learn more about Gingrich, and they will drop him. Gingrich is a rightwing progressive in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt. Gingrich has praised Woodrow Wilson and FDR, so any free market/limited government rhetoric now is only pandering, which should insult the limited government Tea Pary conservatives. Libertarians understand Gingrich's statist tendencies, but Gingrich still has some conservative cred, although as conservatives look more closely, they're getting the picture.

Gingrich has been frustrated lately because he's pulled out all his political tricks and he only has South Carolina to show for his manipulative efforts. For anyone who's followed politics and Gingrich's career since 1980 or so, they either share Gingrich's statist/progressive vision or they see through his present facade. I'm not sure how many rightwing progressives are in the Republican Party. I'm not even sure progressivism really explains Gingrich's political views. He's much like Obama -- he's an authentic statist who can't imagine a world of free choice in the private sector. Gingrich probably believes his interventions into the economy and the affairs of foreign nations would be better for Americans than Democrat/liberal/Leftist interventions, but they wouldn't.

Gingrichs's proposal to colonize the moon is one example of his grandiose statist vision. Some visionaries might defend Gingrich's moon idea in the spirit of thought experimentation and futuristic planning, but we are nowhere near a practical justification for this type of government spending. While Gingrich's mind is on the moon, we're sinking into financial ruin. Ron Paul has signalled the seriousness of our problem by promising to cut a trillion dollars from spending in his first year as President, if elected, and this is not enough.

Our statist system is convoluted, terribly inefficient, and it's reached the point, after decades of steady building, of being a roadblock to economic growth and wealth creation. We'll have to spend the next decade, at least, unwinding the statist knots which have tied the hands of investors and producers and educators. The American people face a global economic transition for which most are not prepared skill-wise or education-wise. A small portion of Americans have separated themselves from the rest of the population through the knowledge and skills they possess, and until enough catch up there will be great wealth disparity and way too much pressure on the welfare state to keep way too many people afloat.

To correct these problems, systemic changes are necessary. We can no longer tweak around the edges and demand more taxes from Fat Cats. Our greatest fundamental problem is the inability to sustain real economic growth and real wealth creation, two areas in which Gingrich has too little understanding to be of much help, but his statist grandiosity could surely do a lot of damage. I predict enough voters will realize this to neutralize any threat of a President Gingrich -- oh, I hope so.

The Psychology of Newt

Gingrich is the type person who loves power too much -- he's addicted to power. On one hand, Gingrich made his name as a conservative revolutionary, but Gingrich is not a limited government/free market true believer. I'm sure Gingrich has a general predisposition to "small" government, which means efficient and not too much meddling, but he is not a true believer as in the Old Right. Gingrich saw a political path to power which entailed promoting certain ideas which opposed Tax and Spend Liberals who placed more importance on socialistic, political solutions than economic, private sector solutions. The grand ideas espoused during the Reagan era struck a public chord, and Gingrich borrowed the rhetoric in order to enhance his political rise.

Gingrich believed he was oppressed by powerful, liberal elites, mostly envy on Newt's part regarding the elites positions of power. Gingrich could never compete in that closed circle, so he fought as an under-dog, champion of the people, defender of liberty. Gingrich happened to be in the right political place at the right political time and he achieved a position of power. Once in power, a need was temporarily fulfilled, and then the desire to fight as the defender of liberty was extinguished. Gingrich could then enjoy the benfits of power, prestige and position. Gingrich had no principled long-term vision to start with, just a vision of how to do what was necessary to attain power. Then, because Gingrich is a smart guy, intellectually restless and ambitious, he started working with anyone who could help him see his ideas come to fruition, even if the ideas entailed statist implementation and collaboration with liberals. Gingrich knew what would solve problems and he didn't care how his solutions became reality -- he had power and he was going to excercise his power. The concept of limits to power didn't occur to Gingrich, so he over-reached and was rejected by his party.

Now that Newt has decided to run for President -- The Real Power Prize -- he's gone back to his old playbook, even portraying Mitt Romney as an enemy of his "small" government conservative, underdog strategy. Newt has convinced himself that Romney represents the elite who're trying to keep him out of the circle of power. Gingrich is a power addict, and until he hets help, it will only get worse.

Morning Joe 1/17/2012 -- Republican Debate: Paul wins

On Morning Joe today they, of course, talked about the Republican debate. The guests were Donnie Deutsche, Peggy Noonan and Richard Haas. The consensus was that Newt Gingrich was great, Romney was off his game and Ron Paul was terrible on foreign policy. This is not true. Gingrich and the other candidates who lambasted Paul and the audience who jeered Paul were terrible on foreign policy. Yes, I know that readers of this statement will take a realist approach and say that Paul is running for President, and that if he doesn't please the crowd they won't vote for him, so Paul lost, even if his points have merit. No.

Morning Joe showed a clip of Gingrich at his righteous best describing how evil Osama bin Laden was, and how such a monster should be killed anyway, anyhow, anytime and anywhere. The problem with this approach is that it's emotional and reckless and dangerous to the security of the US. Perhaps in Hollywood and motivational speeches for troops it's appropriate to stir a visceral reaction, but the Commander in Chief, the POTUS, has to be rational, not emotional and carelessly vindictive. We don't need a President who will put on his Rambo gear everytime he's pissed off. The fact that bin Laden wanted to kill as many Americans as possible doesn't mean a President takes political advantage of this fact and stages an emotional operation that could have long consequences which put our troops or innocent citizens at risk. I'm not saying the bin Laden operation will put troops and citizens at risk, but the point is that international law and rational planning trump any yahoo, kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out strategy that Gingrich was proposing to get an applaud. No one has assessed the bin Laden operation thoroughly as far as I can tell, so we don't know -- but we should question it with courage and open-eyes.

Ron Paul was talking about doing the right thing. Paul is saying on a deeper level that just because bin Laden was a cold-blooded killer who cared nothing about liberal principles, that doesn't mean the US throws principles out the windw and becomes just as recklessly unprincipled and cold-blooded. America should do things the right way, the way of liberty and respect for law, or we lose our national soul and gain nothing but empty revenge. The audience has watched too many 24 episodes, and Gingrich is a pandering politician not a leader. Ron Paul is a principled leader who will use reason, not emotion, to deal with national threats. I'm sick of the faux-tough guy acts among the Republican candidates. The real tough guys who've been risking their lives and watching their friends die for a futile war have a different perspective -- they aren't itching to play Rambo anymore -- they've learned that war is hell. Our President doesn't need to feed into the blood-thirsty side of human nature in America -- our President should be strong and vow to defend America, but he/she should lead the nation to peaceful free trade with other nations not conflict, war and death. If war is absolutely necessary, then we go to war, but we don't invite it and we avoid it if humanly possible.

Great, bin Laden is dead, but could we have performed this operation differently? Does anyone care? Do we turn a blind eye and trust the all-powerful, all-knowing State to do whatever it wants to do whenever and wherever and however it wants to do it? If this is the American mindset, then Paul won last night and the nation lost.