# Gingrich, We Hardly Knew Ye. . **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 9, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898 "2011-06-09T19:14:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/182 "2011-12-13T06:38:38Z")
Or he could have made a symbolic bet, like for a bottle of scotch or the like. The press loves to follow things like that, and it’d be sure to be a story when the bet was settled, and realistically, the publicity is worth more than the money in a case like this. But at the same time, it would feel more like the sort of bet an “ordinary guy” would make. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/183 "2011-12-13T12:50:52Z")
If Romney had the political instincts of a hamster he would have said something like “I’ll bet you a bowl of Boston baked beans against a bowl of Texas chili”. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/184 "2011-12-13T14:39:30Z")
I can’t believe this “I bet you $10k” shit is what my brethren on the left are flogging. People - Romney wasn’t actually expecting to either put up or win ten thousand dollars. It was fucking rhetorical. Going after this is pretty weak tea. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/185 "2011-12-13T14:41:29Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > I can’t believe this “I bet you $10k” shit is what my brethren on the left are flogging. People - Romney wasn’t actually expecting to either put up or win ten thousand dollars. It was fucking rhetorical. > > Going after this is pretty weak tea. It ain’t the people on the left flogging it. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/186 "2011-12-13T15:23:56Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > So far as I could tell (it wasn’t super clear), Romney wanted to bet on Perry’s ability to prove what Romney meant by changing some of the wordings in his book, which is way too subjective, there’s no way anyone could arbitrate that objectively. > > I don’t think the 10k thing is that big a deal. Its no big secret he’s rich, and it would look kinda weak for a millionaire to be offering to bet 50 bucks. > > He was responding to an attack from Perry. Its not like he could just say “yea your right, I’m a flip-flopper”. How subjective would it be to look at two copies of a book and compare the passages in question to see if it was changed? Sounds pretty cut and dry to me, either it was changed or it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/187 "2011-12-13T16:42:49Z")
Every time I think it can’t descend any further into theater of the absurd, it does: > [@](#): > > Conservative radio host Michael Savage is offering Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich $1 million if he drops out of the GOP race within the next 72 hours, according to a message on his website… (One million? Pffft! Get in touch with Newt’s people when you have some real money!) ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/188 "2011-12-13T16:51:34Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#): > > How subjective would it be to look at two copies of a book and compare the passages in question to see if it was changed? Sounds pretty cut and dry to me, either it was changed or it wasn’t. It was changed, and Romney wasn’t contesting that point. He was contesting his motivation in changing it, which is pretty much impossible to prove either way. If he’d actually contested some claim that was actually provably false, then I think the headlines would’ve focused on the contents of the bet a lot more (presumably to Perry’s detriment) and less on Romneys wallet. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/189 "2011-12-14T15:16:39Z")
[Why Newt Gingrich Hates the State Department:](http://www.thenation.com/blog/165114/why-newt-gingrich-hates-state-department) > [@](#): > > Why does Gingrich harbor such strange antipathy for the nonpartisan, apolitical analysts in Foggy Bottom? > > It is an often overlooked aspect of Gingrich’s history that he was a leading advocate of the disastrous Iraq War. In April 2003 he delivered at broadside against the State Department at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. (USA Today described Gingrich at the time as “a close associate of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board.”) The State Department produced honest intelligence assessments in the run-up to the invasion, rather than the politicized fear mongering about imaginary weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda that the Bush-Cheney White House wanted. Secretary of State Colin Powell was also more cautious about invading Iraq than his colleagues in the White House and Defense Department. > > In June 2003 Gingrich wrote an article for Foreign Policy that scathingly attacked the State Department for failing to back the Iraq invasion. FP’s Josh Keating recounts that Gingrich’s piece “accused the department of undermining the Bush administration’s foreign policy and argues that it needs to ‘experience culture shock, a top-to-bottom transformation that will make it a more effective communicator of U.S. values around the world.’ ” As Keating notes, “Published just weeks after Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech, the piece feels a like a bit of a relic of the short-lived triumphalism of the early Iraq war.” Gingrich’s recent statements suggest he has not rethought his discredited worldview. > > The ideological roots of Gingrich’s views go back quite a bit farther than 2003. “It’s a critique we’ve heard periodically from the right since the McCarthy witch hunts,” says Jeffrey Laurenti an expert on international affairs at the Century Foundation. “They want to ensure that only people loyal to supposed ‘Americanist’ values work in the State Department and that it should not be contaminated by understanding the way others think.” > > When implemented, these ideological purges have damaged the effectiveness of the State Department and American foreign policy. “It blinded American policymakers to what was happening in China [in the late 1940s and early 1950s],” says Laurenti. According to Laurenti, John Foster Dulles chased out the analysts who best understood the civil war that was going on China because their correct analysis, that the communists would win, was not what politicians wanted to hear. Some would argue that the resulting chilling effect on the way civil servants approached their job had terrible reverberations in years to come, possibly causing Washington to misunderstand the situation in Vietnam in the 1960s by believing that Hanoi was a puppet of Beijing. “This is a formula for blinding America’s leadership to what is happening on the outside,” says Laurenti. “When the State Department has been cowed by the political class in Washington to not report what it sees, we’ve had catastrophic failures: not just China in ‘49, but Iran in ’78–’79.” ---
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/190 "2011-12-14T20:01:16Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > Evangelicals don’t approve of gambling. > > [Mormons, _really_ don’t approve of gambling.](http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/doctrines/gambling_eom.htm#_ftnref1) > > Care to 'splain that one Willard? It’s not gambling _if you know you’re going to win_. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/191 "2011-12-14T22:25:49Z")
> [@neuroman](#): > > It’s not gambling _if you know you’re going to win_. Yeah, try that one on your wife . . . ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/192 "2011-12-14T23:07:10Z")
[Do you think Fox News is cheering for Gingrich?](http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201112140011) ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/193 "2011-12-15T07:02:22Z")
I have to say this is shaping up to be a fascinating race. A month back the conventional wisdom was that Romney was going to win in a cakewalk but I was skeptical and believed that a serious challenge had to come from someone on the right. Newt was the last conservative standing so it was him. But can he actually go all the way? A whole range of right-wing commentators like George Will are setting their targets on him and that has to slow him down. What’s going on behind the scenes in the “invisible primary”. Are the more conservative GOP moneymen and operatives moving to him or is he still running a shoe-string campaign? Gingrich is a target-rich environment but Romney has to be disciplined in his attacks and should mainly attack Gingrich from the right. This makes Romney looks more conservative and in Rovian fashion helps undermine Gingrich’s biggest strength: that he is the last conservative who can stop Romney. Romney has the money to launch a massive barrage of ads at Gingrich and the weight of mainstream Republican commentary is also against him. That has to to hurt him in the next few weeks ,especially since debates become less important, but how quickly and how much? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/194 "2011-12-15T07:15:13Z")
I’m wondering why Santorum isn’t getting his week at the top. Sure he’s bonkers, but so what? Pretty much all of them are. I feel bad for him. But Republican voters apparently don’t like the taste of santorum. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/195 "2011-12-18T11:07:09Z")
Gingrich is fading according to the daily Gallup tracking poll; his lead is just 28-24 compared to 37-22 at the beginning of the month. Not surprising since the debates are over and he is facing a massive ad barrage as well as massive attacks from mainstream conservative commentators. But note that Romney hasn’t moved up much and his support seems to have a ceiling of 25%. If Gingrich can hang on and win Iowa and knock out Perry or Bachmann he could still make a race out of it. But he needs to change the current trajectory of the race where he is completely on the defensive. Either he needs to raise money quickly online and fight back with more ads or he needs a big endorsement from someone like Rush Limbaugh. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/196 "2011-12-18T11:44:05Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Why Newt Gingrich Hates the State Department:](http://www.thenation.com/blog/165114/why-newt-gingrich-hates-state-department) No offense, but I think that was just more fuel on the fire. Hating the State Department is a traditional Republican pastime going back at least as far as Joe McCarthy. I remember when Nixon was gearing up to run for President in 1968, he said he was going to clean up the State Department. The State Department’s reasoned assessments of what’s going on with the various nations tends to work against the perennial desire of conservatives to declare that a given Third World strongman is at the right hand of God, and that another is evil incarnate. And works even more against their desire to have the U.S. take strong action based on those opinions. Hating on the State Department is simply in the right wing’s blood, and I’d bet a metaphorical $10,000 that Newt’s on record across the decades with plenty of State Department hate. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/197 "2011-12-19T20:36:37Z")
The Republican old pols seem to be scared of Newt, and they are trotting out the old House veterans to testify as to what a poor leader he was. Be interesting to see if this backfires. Some Tea Party person was quoted in the Times yesterday as wanting a brokered convention to get a “real” conservative nominated. Both frontrunners have had heretical positions in the past so I can see why the Tea Partiers are having a fit. I still have this sneaking suspicion that somewhere in Alaska Sarah Palin is plotting to be the dark moose candidate. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/198 "2011-12-19T23:33:10Z")
Latest buzz is that that seems to be working **Voyager** , but not as they expected it seems, pollsters are reporting that at least in Iowa Ron Paul is the new “not [del]Mittens[/del] Romney” > **[What if Ron Paul wins Iowa?](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2011/1219/What-if-Ron-Paul-wins-Iowa)** > > Two new polls show that Ron Paul is the leading Republican candidate in Iowa. If Ron Paul wins Iowa and finishes strong in New Hampshire, he could change the election's calculus. > [@](#): > > Two new polls show that Ron Paul is the leading Republican candidate in Iowa. If Ron Paul wins Iowa and finishes strong in New Hampshire, he could change the election’s calculus. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/199 "2011-12-20T00:41:00Z")
I like how this thread (regarding its title) was started when ol’ Newt was way down in the polls; he then skyrocketed to a (brief) peak, and now has come back down again. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/200 "2011-12-20T00:50:45Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Latest buzz is that that seems to be working **Voyager** , but not as they expected it seems, pollsters are reporting that at least in Iowa Ron Paul is the new “not [del]Mittens[/del] Romney” > > [What if Ron Paul wins Iowa? - CSMonitor.com](http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2011/1219/What-if-Ron-Paul-wins-Iowa) _crosses fingers_ ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898/201 "2011-12-20T01:40:04Z")
Be still my heart – could my Republican dream ticket of Paul-Palin happen? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-we-hardly-knew-ye/584898.md?page=11)