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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Jules Witcover
May 23, 2011
The legendary baseball coach Casey Stengel once asked of his pathetic
In a week in which one long shot for its 2012 presidential nomination, Mike Huckabee, and one impossibility, Donald Trump, quit the race before it had barely begun, the
Each man will now retreat to the more lucrative playground of the television screen, Huckabee to his talk show on
Among those grabbing most of the spotlight in the wake of these departures was former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who, also characteristically, soiled his own party's pool. He sharply criticized a prominent Republican non-candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of
While joining the pack in calling for the repeal of President Obama's reforms, Gingrich turned on Ryan by labeling his scheme not only "radical" but also an example of "right-wing social engineering." That's an allegation he customarily reserves for his left-wing targets. Ryan, hearing of the slap, said of Gingrich: "With allies like that, who needs the left?" Gingrich, as he often does, cried that the press had taken his words "dramatically out of context," insisting "I don't have a fight with Paul Ryan."
Even the
"The Republican presidential campaign is off to a slow start," the editorial said, "but judging by the last week not slow enough. First Mitt Romney defends his ObamaCare prototype in Massachusetts (in a Michigan speech), and now Mr. Gingrich has decided to run against House Republicans on
The editorial charged that "by using the word radical, Mr. Gingrich deliberately chose to echo the liberal critics who want to write the Ryan plan out of respectable political debate. His remarks had the political effect of undermining his former comrades in the middle of the budget showdown with President Obama."
The Journal pointedly spanked Gingrich for calculated political positioning in the early Republican presidential primary jockeying, observing that he knows the Ryan plan has no chance of passing in the
The reference to "triangulation" was particularly biting. It recalled former President Bill Clinton's second term, when the word described how Clinton positioned himself politically on some issues between his fellow Democrats in
Ironically, it was this strategy that was widely credited for Clinton's comeback after his first-term slide, during which he felt obliged to declare that, as president, he was still relevant. He later demonstrated the point by calling Gingrich's bluff of a government shutdown, and the House speaker took the blame, eventually leading to his resignation.
Perhaps Gingrich learned something from that bad experience, which probably helped Clinton win reelection by broadening his support. But Gingrich's immediate challenge now is getting nominated, not elected, and being perceived at this point as turning on his own party leadership doesn't look like very smart politics.
It's hard to name someone who is more disappointed in Donald Trump dropping out of the 2012 Presidential race than Jon Stewart.
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