Let me praise Newt Gingrich.
When nobody else could imagine a Republican House majority, New Gingrich saw it and made it so. If you are a backbench legislator doomed to decades in the minority, Gingrich is just the bomb thrower and innovator you need.
If a student finds history boring, Professor Gingrich will make it exciting. He will gallop across ideas until any dullard can see why old events still matter today. Professor Newt may not always be right, and one can question some of his connections, but nobody will leave class without knowing history counts.
If a radio show needs a guest with a comment on anything, Newt Gingrich is ready. He has thought about most things and can speak about all things. Gingrich may have a face made for radio, but even on television he has a crafted soundbite to sum up the world.
If the Republican Party needs a senior statesman to remind her of her better days, then Newt Gingrich can help. He remembers every day of the Republican Revolution as only an insider can.
If a conservative project needs a pitchman or an interest a lobbyist, Gingrich is effective. He has contacts all over Washington and will give a decent days lobbying for a good days pay.
In fact, there are so many things Gingrich can do that it is easy to forget that there are a few things he cannot do. He cannot use the bully pulpit to renew marriage, because he has been no gentleman. We have had cads, and recovered cads, in the White House, but nobody should vote for one knowingly.
As a sinner saved by grace, I need mercy and hope for it, but putting a man in the White House is not a necessary sign of our tolerance and mercy.
Gingrich cannot manage an office let alone a country. He has a record of creating chaos wherever he goes and running through staff like Sherman ran through Georgia. He was ineffectual as a leader of the Republican Party, routinely getting schooled by Bill Clinton. He does not finish what he starts, flitting from project to project.
Newt Gingrich has become a corporation in himself. He has done whatever he could to monetize his every breath. It it is a free market and he has a right do so, but as Palin and Trump discovered, we want our leaders like Lincoln and not Gantry. Lincoln did well by doing good, but he never wanted to be rich.
One cannot say the same for Gingrich.
Gingrich often has the right ideas, but he seldom incarnates them.
Newt Gingrich is fit for many things, but he is unfit to serve as President of the United States. He will never get my vote, but I look forward to seeing him again in the many roles for which his decisions and talents have so finely fitted him to serve.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
