In an article on President Obama’s first flight on AIr Force One, AP “reporter” Mark Smith couldn’t resist making some gratuitous digs at the president’s predecessor.  The article led the Yahoo! headlines and it made me wonder if, eight years ago, AP had commissioned a similar piece on that good man’s first flight on the presidential plane.

Did Mr. Smith need mention the “bitter 2000 recount battle” in recalling that flight?

But, here’s the real evidence on his animus against W.  Take a gander at the paragraph on the first President Bush’s first flight as president on the presidential jet:

In 1989, Bush’s father, a former Navy pilot, took his first Air Force One trip as president to the Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia. Long before his son’s notorious “Mission Accomplished” speech, Bush spoke on an aircraft carrier — about wasteful military spending.

What does that supposedly “notorious” speech have to do with his Dad’s flight on Air Force One?

Wow, just like Keith Olbermann, these guys just can’t let go of their hatred of George W. Bush.

The more I think about the election of Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican National Committee, the more hope I have for the future of my party.

Not only is the former Maryland Lieutenant Governor a bright man with a natural charisma and personal warmth, but he also conveys an image of a broader-based party than one to which the media has made us accustomed in recent years. And it’s not just his race. It’s the way he communicates conservative ideas.

Like Ronald Reagan, he can communicate conservatism to a diverse audience rather than satisfying himself by only offering up red meat for the party faithful.

As Thomas Sowell put it in heralding Steele’s election, “One of the huge and perennial handicaps of the Republicans is that they seldom have anybody who can articulate their case to the public”

Too many Republicans don’t even seem to understand the need to talk. They seem to think it is something you have to go through the motions of doing but, really, they would rather be somewhere else, doing something else.

. . . .

Steele not only knows how to talk, he seems to understand the need to talk. In his appearances on television over the years, he has been assertive rather than apologetic. When attacked, he has counter-attacked, not whined defensively, like too many other Republicans. And when criticizing the current administration, Steele won’t have to pull his punches when going after Barack Obama, for fear of being called a racist.

Assertive rather than apologetic indicates he understands and appreciates our party’s principles. Like Ronald Reagan, he doesn’t whine about the failure of the media to convey our message.  He just figures out a way to convey it with confidence.

As we prepare to celebrate the Great Communicator’s ninety-eigth birthday tomorrow, it is fitting that we now have a good communicator at the helm of our great party.

I have long believed (and social statistics bear me out) that no-fault divorce is a greater threat to social cohesion than gay marriage.  In most cases, when parents with children divorce, there are real victims of their choice.  Not so when two people of the same gender marry.

Now, it turns out that Hillary and Julie Goodridge, the named plaintiffs in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling 2004 mandating that the Bay State recognize same-sex marriages, are suing for divorce.  If they really value marriage, they should reconsider their choice, bearing in mind the welfare of their daughter.

As should any heterosexual parents with children who seek divorce as a means to deal with the difficulties of their relationship. If heterosexual parents weren’t seeking divorce, this might be a commentary on the fragility of same-sex relationships.

That’s why James Richardson is right that social conservatives shouldn’t crow as has Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.  Instead of showing that the Goodridges’ divorce is a setback for gay marriage, Richardson contends it helps make the case for expanding the defintion of that ancient institution:

Given the staggering heterosexual divorce rate and contemporary American’s pathetic social construct of life partnerships, gay divorce, if anything, legitimizes gay marriage as normal. Like it or not, divorce is as American as apple pie and baseball. Why? Americans cherish their freedoms, including the freedom to marry and the freedom to divorce without intrusive speculation.

We need repair that “pathetic social social construct of life partnerships.” If we were to enter into a serious debate on gay marriage, as some have, we could do just that.   Such a debate would allow us to better understand why marriage is a good thing, an institution to be embraced, and divorce not so good, something to be avoided.

NOTE: Bumped this post.

Just a few moments ago, while at my local Trader Joe’s getting my weekly supply of groceries, I overheard a woman bemoan “evil Republicans” in a rather audible tone.

No longer closeted about my politics in this “bluest” of enclaves, I said she should careful of what she said since I was a Republican.  Startled to find dissent in the heart of Hollywood, she said, oh, but not you, just but those Republicans “on the Hill.”  Well, I responded, they’re standing up for the taxpayers.

Now, this woman certainly has a right to her opinion and to express her criticism of Republicans in whatever language she deems appropriate.  And I might just dismiss her as some eccentric in the supermarket who used hyperbolic language to describe her political adversaries.  But, the mean-spirited language she uses corresponds with that I read in anonymous* e-mails from critics alerting me to posts on left-wing blogs

Why is it that so many on the left must describe their political adversaries as “evil” while accusing conservatives of playing the politics of hate?

And why need these people so berate Republicans when Democrats control both Houses of Congress–and the White House?  They could pass the “stimulus” without a single Republican vote.

RELATED: How Is It the GOP’s Fault if the Democrats Can’t Pass Their Stimulus?

* (more…)

Just over five years ago, as we Californians considered recalling our then-spendthrift Democratic Governor Gray Davis, I read that Davis had hired 40,000 new state employees since taking office.  I had hoped his successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, would fire all those recent hires, as would as business owner whose costs far exceeded income.

In the Golden State, just as in the federal government, Democratic politicians and public employee union leaders try to ignore such fiscal realities:

While the nation’s economy is reeling, as the United States, and California, plow into a recession, public employee union bosses continue to be advocates for the notion that somehow public employees are “more privileged” that their counterparts in the private sector and should be immune from the laws of economics — you know, that when less money comes in, less money can go out?  Unfortunately, that “Golden Rule” applies in government just like it does in the private sector.

At a time when state government is facing a huge financial shortfall, directly attributed, by the way, by an overspending orgy that was completely advocated by the state’s public employee unions (I do not recall any unions calling for less spending on new government jobs, and instead calling for increasing state reserves to deal with potential shortfalls such as the one we are facing today), the unions are pouring proverbial fuel onto the fire by opposing any cuts in pay or benefits for their employees, hiding behind negotiated contracts.

I’ve always thought public employee unions should be barred by law from contributing to political campaigns. If their candidate wins, when the times comes to renew employee contracts, they’ll find themselves on both sides of the bargaining table, leaving those who foot the bill for their policies, the taxpayers, out. Shouldn’t government officials represent the taxpayers?

State elected officials risk a loss of campaign cash if they defy the unions. And now our government is short of cash.

And it’s not just public employee unions to whom our state officials are beholden. (more…)

Husband of Rep. Solis, Labor nominee, settles tax liens

This is getting to be a pattern.  An interesting change President Obama has brought to Washington.

If you have any doubts that the mainstream media favors the Democrats, just take a gander at the way most major news outlets cover political scandal. If a Republican is involved, they identify his political affiliation early in the report. If a Democrat, they bury that affiliation, if they list it at all.

Google “Name that Party” to find a long list of links to conservative bloggers exposing this MSM double standard.  There, you can learn about a whole host of Democratic scandals, described just as political scandals with the politician’s party affiliation buried absent.  Guess these reporters don’t want people to know that Democrats are corrupt too.  Or to assume that Republicans have a monopoly on corruption.

Reader Peter Hughes alerted me to a short piece by Michael Medved summing up this phenomenon:

When Republicans get into trouble the media make a big point of their party affiliation — as in the cases of Mark Foley, Ted Stevens, Larry Craig and more. We heard all about a “Republican culture of corruption” and it became a major campaign issue. But with a flurry of jaw-dropping scandals involving Democrats, their party identification becomes suddenly irrelevant.

Here’s a very powerful perspective from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the out-of-control, special-interest spending bill that Congressional Obamaniacs are trying to shove down America’s throat:

To give the proposed economic stimulus plan some perspective, “if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.”

Jim Geraghty at National Review says, the math adds up…

Christ’s birth in year zero one, times 365, times 2009, gets you 733,285,000,000, or a bit over $733 billion. (Yes, I’m leaving out leap years.) You’re not even three-quarters of the way there. (Politifact calculates from 4 B.C.)

Yes, the stimulus is less than a trillion—$819 billion in the version passed by the House. But that’s still a bigger total than a million a day since the first Christmas.

That’s a soundbite that is going to resonate.

Damning, just damning.  Our 44th President leading America into financial ruin:  Jimmy Carter Hussein Obama.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

As I start this post, I’ve decided I’m going to do something a little differently.  Normally, when I have a hunch about how certain people to react to certain things, I check their web-sites first.

This time, I’m going to offer my hunch about how gay organizations are reacting at the outset and check their web-sites only after I have posted.  Their response to outrages against gays in the Islamic world are so predictable, that I’m certain that either this latest abusive use of gay sex escaped their attention or, if they had learned about it, decided not to comment on it because, well, it doesn’t fit their narrative.

Via Ace of Spades, a right-of-center blog, we learn that “Islamic terrorists are raping young men in order to drive them into suicide bombings.“  Because of  the “intense social stigma and fear of more gay sex attacks leaves Muslims prepared to die.”

Intense social stigma?  As that stigma increasingly fades in Western societies, shouldn’t gay organizations concern themselves with that stigma in other lands, particularly when it leads to the persecution and execution of people just because they’re gay.

Shouldn’t gay organizations want us to ramp up the war on terror to defeat those persecute gay people and use gay sex for nefarious purposes?

And it’s not just gay sex, these extremists have a problem with.  Michael Ledeen reports that one overzealous middle-aged female terrorist organized the rapes of young woman “so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.”

I wonder if NOW has anything to say about that?  Other left-of-center feminist organizations.

I am a gay blogger so I’m concerning myself with the reaction of the gay groups.  I predict silence.  Now that the post is up, I’ve got to search a few web-sites.  We’ll see if my hunch is correct.

HRC UPDATE:  All misty-eyed over the confirmation of Eric Holder, silent on gay rape as a terror tactic.

NGLTF UDPATE: Similarly silent.

NCLR UDPATE: More silence. This is getting to be a pattern.

Well, I guess this just goes to show that there’s really no need to check the web-sites of the national gay organizations because their responses to things are, well, just so predictable. They don’t want anything interfering with their narrative that the real evils in the world are Republicans in general and social conservatives in particular.

Glenn Reynolds links two articles which I believe are closely related (albeit linked in separate posts).  In one, Newsweek columnist Michael Hirsh, with a decidedly liberal slant, claims that the president has lost control of the agenda in Washington:

The reason Obama is getting so few votes is that he is no longer setting the terms of the debate over how to save the economy. Instead the Republican Party—the one we thought lost the election—is doing that.

Hirsh claims that GOP has turned the debate over the “stimulus” into, what he terms, a “decidedly stale, Republican-style debate over pork, waste and overspending” at a time when additional government spending (in his view) is necessary to lift us out of recession.

This isn’t, however, a stale or “nitpicking” debate, but an essential debate about the purpose of government. When Republicans stand against excessive government spending, they speak for a majority of the American people.

Which brings me to the second of Glenn’s links: Support for Stimulus Package Falls to 37%. The more people learn about this bloated boondoggle, the less likely they are to support.

Kudos to Republican leaders, conservative pundits and bloggers and those mainstream journalists who have highlighted its excesses.

Even with the appointment of New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg to his cabinet, President Obama has few, if any, top advisers with any significant entrepreneurial experience.  They have little exposure to the vicissitudes of the marketplace and the risks necessary to build a business and so market innovative ideas and products, create jobs, thus furthering economic growth and promoting prosperity.

What goods or services have any of the president’s cabinet produced?  How have they dealt the difficulty of decreased demand?  How have they learned to adapt to trying economic times?

I keep thinking of the president’s cabinet when I consider my brothers who built their own home-building business in my home town.  I’ve seen the long hours they’ve had to work when they’d rather be with their families.  I’ve accompanied them on site and they deal with potential home-buyers and their own staff.

I’ve listened as they had to deal with supply problems and troublesome employees, even heard them face the problem of asking a friendly supplier for a lower price.  Obviously, just by paying attention to their work, I’m not qualified to act in their stead.  But, I have been impressed by their efforts, observing that their success is based largely on the choices they have made–and how they’ve followed through on those choices.

In the current economic downturn, I know that the most difficult choice they have had to make has been to lay off employees, many of whom worked hard building their business, some of whom they counted as friends.  But, unless they laid them off, they couldn’t make ends meet and keep the business afloat.

In private enterprise, when receipts are down, an employer often has to reduce his work force.  So, why is it that when “[c]ompanies are cutting jobs by the tens of thousands,” Uncle Sam is hiring?   The “federal work force is growing.”

Maybe if Obama had more close advisers with entrepreneurial experience, he might understand the reality of the marketplace and the necessity of laying off employees as does a private employer.  Instead, with the president’s team experienced in government and academia, they seem more attuned to the realities of politics and the abstractions of ideas.

In the fall, when the scope of the financial meltdown was made manifest to the American people, various conservatives pundits, bloggers and even some mainstream journalists reminded us how reluctant leading Democrats had been of regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises (GSE), at the heart of the mess?

While those Democrats, led by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, decried Republican deregulation as the cause of the meltdown, they ignored their own past efforts (successful, I might add) to block Republican legislation increasing the regulations on and providing additional oversight over the GSEs.

Today, Michelle Malkin asks a question related to the Democratic defense of those quasi-public enterprises, well, now I guess they’re fully public since the federal government took them over last fall.  She has “no problem with limiting the executive pay and bonuses of corporations that take billions in taxpayer-funded bailout money,” and asks:

Where are the limits on Fannie and Freddie corruptocrats’ executive pay? Have those been passed yet? Are they equal to the limits on private executives’ pay?

Why, I wonder, isn’t Barney as eager to regulate the pay of Fannie and Freddie executives?  Is it that he has a higher regard for government employees than he does for those in the private sector?  Or might there again be further conflicts of interest?

(H/t:  Reader Peter Hughes)

With Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer withdrawing their nominations yesterday because they were too important of Americans to pay their taxes…. the time is NOW for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to step down.

The rationale is that “only Geithner” can somehow stop the slide into the Second Great Depression, so he is too invaluable to lose over some pesky tax thing.  Really?  Well just about a year ago was when we first started hearing about how the 2nd Depression was looming and Hank Paulson seemed to handle the job quite well — even if you disagree with the policies and speed in which he acted.   Hey, how about Larry Summers?  He’d be fine, if you have to put up with a Democrat manipulating economic policy.

My point — NO ONE is indispensible.  That’s how the private sector operates — for good or bad.  Just what gives the folks in Washington the idea that they are above the law or above accountability?   Secretary Geithner is a cancer on the Obama Presidency.

Geithner’s tax crimes are worse than anything that any member of the Bush Administration did while in office, including Scooter Libby.  No, I’m not defending lying under oath.  But I am asking for some relative comparison here.  Geithner broke the law and has never answered for it.  And HE is our Treasury Secretary?

Disgusting.

I’m calling my US Senator and the White House today.  Geithner must go.  President Obama is a complete hypocrite if he allows Geithner to remain in office.

[Ed. Note -- This rant was inspired by the excellent argument laid out yesterday by Larry Kudlow at The Corner; he being my "personal economic guru hero"... if there is such a title.]

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan): While I pretty much agree with Bruce, I should just say for the record that I don’t think Nancy Killefer should have stepped down due to her tax problem. As I wrote in my post on the revelation of her late tax deliquancy, she “resolved” it “before Obama tapped her.” Neither Daschle nor Geithner addressed their problems until after they had been tapped for positions in the president’s cabinet.

Awwwwww, poor angry liberals.  Your Messiah is suffering from a dose of realism by the American public.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval Index for Tuesday shows that 37% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing as President. That’s the lowest total to Strongly Approve of Obama at any point while he has been President-elect or President. Twenty-two percent (22%) Strongly Disapprove to give Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +15.

And this tidbit from Gallup:

Public satisfaction with the state of the nation remains in short supply just over a week after President Barack Obama was sworn in. Only 17% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the country in Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Jan. 27-29; 80% are dissatisfied.

EIGHTY PERCENT.  The honeymoon is OVAH.  THAT didn’t take long!

Barack — we have a problem.  Obamaniacs, please fasten your seat belts; there are exits in the front and rear of this Administration and in every ethics loophole your President can find; brace yourself for impact.

American Liberals — Welcome To The Political World That You Created On December 12, 2000. 

Sleep in the bed you made, all of you.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Last week, by all measures, was a good one for the GOP. The party united in opposition to the spendthrift “stimulus” and its national committee elected an intelligent and telegenic man as its chairman. We see thus a commitment to conservative principles and the elevation of a man who can communicate those principles to the American people.

Like Reagan in his era, it appears Michael Steele knows how to use contemporary media to communicate his message.

It’s not just leaders with good communication skills that our party has found wanting. GOP leaders have also failed to hold true to the principles which won them election, principles which, in the past, Americans counted on Republicans to defend.  Now, in coming out against the “stimulus,” Republicans once again are affirming the fiscal conservatism which supposedly defined the party.

When elected Republicans betrayed the trust of the rank and file, the rank and file stayed home or decided to give a chance to the new kid who promised to change the town whose ethos we (conservatives) never really liked.

Not just that, Obama sounded like a Republican.  Take a gander at this web-page, where the Administration promises to root out waste and unnecessary spending, things Republicans are supposed to be doing.  But, note that this page doesn’t provide the details of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (i.e., the “stimulus”).  Some transparency, huh?

It’s taken Republican leaders (as well as conservative bloggers and some enterprising reporters, not all conservatives) to expose this boondoggle for what it is.  John McCain may be leading the way, but he’s not alone.

Now, the polls show a Republican rebound, with the GOP closing “the gap on the generic Congressional preference poll to four points–down from seven points a week earlier.“  It seems that when Republican stand on principle, they rebound at the polls.  And let’s hope soon at the ballot box as well.

When two readers, within fifteen minutes, alert you to the same post, I always make sure to check it out.  And they were right.  This one is worthy of a link.

Michelle Malkin received a letter from a reader in Paducah, Kentucky who wrote to tell her just how bad things were in the Bluegrass State, “The situation is much more depressing for those who live in the rural area of our region as utility poles were snapped in half by the weight of the ice all over far Western Kentucky.”  According to the Paducah Sun:

The word from utility workers with direct Katrina experience is that ice storm devastation to western Kentucky’s power grid is worse than that inflicted by the infamous Gulf Coast hurricane.

“We’ve got linemen here from southern Mississippi who were there when Katrina hit, who worked the area after the hurricane,” said Kevin Inglish, a spokesman for West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corp.”

What stands out Michelle’s correspondent is that “no news anchors from any of the Big 3 or any cable news channel including Fox News” have flown in to cover the devastation as they ran to cover Katrina.

The president has yet to visit the region.

If you want to help out, FEMA lists volunteer agencies providing relief efforts.

Michelle details some of the relief efforts here.

Related:  Storm Hits Kentucky, FEMA Absent, Media Silent

UPDATE from Bruce (GayPatriot):   President Obama Reads Children’s Book While Poor White Folks in Kentucky Ignored After Natural Disaster.

Hey, this scene looks familiar…. My Pet Goat, Obama Style!  (h/t - Grande Conservative Blogress Diva Nominee, Ann Althouse)

Who would have thought that President Obama would make President Jimmy Carter look competent and in-touch?

One reason I thought John McCain would be a good president was that, unlike many in our party, he has always stood firm against wasteful government spending. True to his record, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee has come out swinging against his erstwhile opponent’s spendthrift “stimulus.”

In an e-mail to his supporters, McCain praised President Obama for having discussions with Republicans, yet faulted the Democrat for not giving them “the opportunity to be involved.”

The Arizona Republican didn’t mince words in criticizing the “stimulus:”

Unfortunately, the proposal on the table is big on the giveaways for the special interests and corporate high rollers, yet short on help for ordinary working Americans. I cannot and do not support the package on the table from the Democrats and the Obama Administration. Our country does not need just another spending bill, particularly not one that will load future generations with the burden of massive debt. . . . .

. . . we need to evaluate every bit of spending in this stimulus proposal with one important criteria – does it really stimulate the economy and help create jobs – if the answer is no, it does not belong in a so-called stimulus package. . . . Finally, we need an end game to this stimulus so that when our economy recovers, these spending programs do not remain permanent and saddle our children with a skyrocketing national debt.

Let’s hope other Republicans are equally blunt. It’ll help the American people see they’ve learned from their mistakes in the past years and are now committed to standing up to excess government spending.

Kudos to John McCain for leading the way.

Obama performance chief Killefer out, citing taxes.  As least Ms. Killefer “resolved” her tax issue before Obama tapped her.

If she withdraws her nomination due to a tax lien of less than $1,000, shouldn’t Daschle do the same for more than $100,000 in unpaid taxes?  And if he doesn’t, Republicans need follow thier new national chairman’s adivce and fight this nomination.

UPDATE:  A reader writes in:

3 nominees in 10 days who failed to pay back taxes. This is becoming a laugh riot….and I LOVE IT!!! So much for an open, honest, and ethical government with “shared burdens and responsibilites.” Of course, god forbid the media actually label them hypocrites. To them, it was a “simple mistake.” Any average Joe who did what these people did would be thrown in jail.

UPDATE: It’s official: Daschle withdraws as nominee for HHS secretary.

UPDATE:  Daschle withdraws as nominee for HHS secretary

Now that even the New York Times has called for Tom Daschle “to step aside” (via the Corner), it should be a no-brainer for Senate Republicans to oppose the former Senator’s confirmation as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

It’s not just his tax problems, it’s that he embodies everything Republicans are supposed to oppose. He is, as John Hinderaker puts it, a symbol of all that’s wrong in D.C. After John Thune ousted Daschle from the Senate in 2004, the Democrat didn’t return to his home state, but stayed in the nation’s capital where he made a mint “consulting” for a lobbying firm.

We’re supposed to be the party opposing the accretion of power in our nation’s capital.

Daschle is, in Jennifer Rubin’s words, “the consummate Washington insider who used his position to fatten his wife’s lobbyist portfolio.” And by tapping him for such an important post, Rubin believes, the president and his team have shown.

a tin-ear for corruption and venality. They, who marinated in the juices of Chicago, seem dense when it comes to this sort of thing. They didn’t know enough to stay away from Blago, nix Bill Richardson, stick to their own lobbyist rules, dump Geithner and now lose Daschle. And this comes from the campaign that ran against the Clintons and the Washington tradition of sleazy dealing.

The White House may assume its own lofty poll numbers and the President’s personal appeal have rendered it impervious to examination or criticism. But that, I think, is a mistake. The public’s disgust is not easily extinguished. They will be saddened and more than a bit angry that the President, who promised an end to all this, thinks there’s nothing wrong with business as usual.

It should be the policy of the GOP to run against business as usual in our nation’s capitol. Ronald Reagan dedicated our party to reducing the power of the nation’s capital.  If we don’t stand against a Democrat who embodies its excesses, against what will we stand?  Not just that, shouldn’t we hold him to the same standards he held Republicans when he was in the Senate?

Silence now further distances the GOP from the American people long disgusted by business as usual in Washington, D.C.

So, the GOP would do well to heed Rubin’s advice:  “For those Republicans who are remaining mute, they may want to reconsider. Silence is a dangerous game, giving the appearance that Republicans are behind the curve and out to lunch.”

UPDATE:  Good news.  New RNC Chair Michael Steele thinks Republicans should oppose Daschle’s nomination.

UP-UPDATE: More good news. Guess Republicans won’t need to oppose the South Dakota Democrat: Daschle withdraws.

While I’ve always been impressed with the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s intellect, I see him more as a philosopher than a president.

In his post yesterday which I highly (***HIGHLY***) recommend, Rick Moran offers a similar view, calling the Georgian, “one of the most brilliant conceptualists in the conservative movement.” Despite his appreciation for Gingrich’s understanding of the sweep of history and the mechanics of politics, Moran identifies Newt’s principal flaw:

Gingrich never concerns himself with solutions, believing that identifying the problems clearly and concisely is enough — at least for him. But if he wants to be a force in presidential politics, he is going to have to get used to the idea that most people prefer a candidate who can both articulate what’s wrong and propose common sense solutions to fix it. To date, Newt is more enamored with that “next mountaintop” rather than slogging along, doing the grunt work of pushing solutions forward.

In that way, the former Republican Speaker is a lot like the incumbent Democratic president.

My only quibble with Moran’s conclusion is that sometimes Newt does come up with solutions, to wit, the Contract with America. That quibble aside, Moran provides an excellent analysis of a brilliant (but flawed) man. Don’t take my word for it. Just read the whole thing!