Joe Scarborough asked Andrew Card about it this morning, and even Card had to admit that he's "disappointed".
Via Thinkprogress
SCARBOROUGH: What about Newt Gingrich’s statement. What Newt Gingrich’s statements, are they hurtful for Republicans that are trying to provide strong leadership?
CARD: I don’t think they help. I don’t think that the statements that Newt Gingrich made are helpful, no. [...]
SCARBOROUGH: Andy, are you disappointed by Newt Gingrich’s words? [...]
CARD: Yes, I’m disappointed.
We all have to recall that Newt Gingrich was the original architect of the 1994 take over of Congress (which is how Joe Scarborough became a Congressman) and that during his GOPac strategy sessions he advised his crop of rabid and ready to rumble congress-critters to... "Go Negative Early" and "never back off".
What can we expect from this rising army? The Gopac's record provides some evidence. Much has been written about the tactics that Gopac suggested to its candidates. An article about Gopac leader Joe Gaylord (Wall Street Journal, 8 December 1994, page A18), for example, says:
Mr. Gaylord is one of the brains behind Gopac ... . [He] wrote its how-to textbook, which urges challengers to "go negative" early and "never back off". They must sometimes ignore voters' main concerns because "important issues can be of limited value". The book suggests looking for a "minor detail" to use against opponents, pointing to Willie Horton as a good example. Though it says a
positive proposal also can be helpful, it counsels candidates to consider the consequences: "Does it help, or at least not harm, efforts to raise money?" Mr. Gingrich has called the book "absolutely brilliant".
The core of Newt's current "Go Negative" strategy is this from NRO...
“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”
“This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president,” Gingrich tells us.
“I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true,” Gingrich continues. “In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve . . . He was authentically dishonest.”
“[Obama] is in the great tradition of Edison, Ford, the Wright Brothers, Bill Gates — he saw his opportunity and he took it,” Gingrich says. Will Gingrich take it back in 2012? “The American people may take it back, in which case I may or may not be the recipient of that, but I have zero doubt that the American people will take it back. Unlike Ford, the Wright Brothers, et cetera, this guy’s invention did not work.”
“I think Obama gets up every morning with a worldview that is fundamentally wrong about reality,” Gingrich says. “If you look at the continuous denial of reality, there has got to be a point where someone stands up and says that this is just factually insane.”
These guys can't argue with Obama as he presents himself to the public, and as he makes his points on the campaign trail or when necessary - in their faces - so they instead argue that Obama is All An Act. That he simply isn't the person he's pretending to be, he's some kind of stealth Kenyan - even though his father left him when he was two years ago and only returned once during his entire life. He's some kind of Non-American, and Anti-Colonialist. They have to "shadow box" with this Phantom Obama, since they can't be the real Obama.
What's even funnier is that he's getting all this from Dinesh D'Souza, who actually isn't an American - he's an immigrant from India. (And Laura Ingraham's ex-boyfriend from Dartmouth) D'Souza is such a raging Libertarian that he wrote an entire book which essentially argued that the only racism in America comes from Black people and Liberals, and the only way to truly fix it is to Completely Repeal the Civil Rights Act and just let the "Free Market" sort it all out. (Yeah, cuz that whole "let the free market fix it" idea worked out so wonderfully in the 190 years prior to the Civil Rights Act!) He actually dared to call this "insight" - The End of Racism. His more recent books have attempted to lay the blame for 9/11 at the feet of "The Left".
The left is responsible for 9/11 in the following ways. First, the cultural left has fostered a decadent American culture that angers and repulses traditional societies, especially those in the Islamic world that are being overwhelmed with this culture. In addition, the left is waging an aggressive global campaign to undermine the traditional patriarchal family and to promote secular values in non-Western cultures. This campaign has provoked a violent reaction from Muslims who believe that their most cherished beliefs and institutions are under assault. Further, the cultural left has routinely affirmed the most vicious prejudices about American foreign policy held by radical factions in the Muslim world, and then it has emboldened those factions to attack the United States with the firm conviction that "America deserves it" and that they can do with relative impunity.
So his solution here is that in order to make the Radical Muslims dislike us less, we should act more like Radical Religious Extremists so they can see we have their intolerant and repressive values in common?
What was that Gingrich was saying about being Factually Insane?
GOP Rule #1: Always accuse your opponent of what you're already getting away with, so when they point out the truth - they just look like whiners.
D'souza is such a rabid Liberal Hater, he would find a way to blame "the Left" for the kidnapping of the Lindbergh Baby if he could (and I'll bet he eventually will, just like Jonah Goldberg who pretty much blames the left for Nazism, the original spread of Polio and Sunspots)
It's also more that a touch ironic that this latests wave of pararacist, xenophobia, and 9/11 Trutherism being ginned up on the Right, is coming from a Non-White Non-American.
Robert Gibbs - correctly - thinks Gingrich is just Birther Baiting.
Gibbs: (Gingrich) is trying to appeal to a fringe of people who don't think President Obama was born in this country.
You can say that again.
I was listening to Thom Hartmann today and he was getting piled on by birthers. One woman argued that Obama isn't a "Natural Born Citizen" because both of parents weren't American citizens, and that instead he has dual citzenship - which I guess would be American and English since Kenya was still a British Colony in 1961. So now there's some "third" kid of citizenship besides being naturalized or born in America, in order to be a "Naturally Born Citizen" both of your parents have to be Citizens too? Thom pointed out at between six or seven of our Presidents only had one parents who had been at citizen when they were born, and that John McCain was actually born in Panama and acquired his Citizenship through his parents. (So did George Romney, Mitt's Father, who was born in Mexico - but was still able to run for Vice-President.)
I called in myself and after pointing out that the 14th Amendment (at least until Rand Paul & Tom Tancredo get ahold of it) says that "all persons born in the United States are Citizens" - and that in order for the core Birther argument to be true, that Barack Obama was actually born in Kenya - how exactly did his 17 year-old mother travel 12,000 miles to Africa while 9-months pregnant, give birth in a 3rd World Country and then smuggle a new born baby Barack all the way back to Hawaii in time for the next School semester and Not Leave A Trace!
Not to mention the two birth announcements in the local Honolulu papers.
Factually Insane Much?
Vyan
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