Newt Gingrich has been suffering a gender gap. Not among those with whom he wants to get married–he’s on number 3–but among the female punditry, for sure.

The latest is Authentically Newt-ered by Debra J. Saunders.

This year, Gingrich is playing to the tea party crowd. He and his wife are about to release a new movie, “America at Risk” on national security threats. As a tea party courtier, he rails against carbon taxes. His political action committee has raised $250,000 from an Oklahoma natural gas and oil producer, and $100,000 from Arch Coal of St. Louis, Politco.com reported.

Two years ago, however, the Newter was seated on a loveseat next to Speaker Nancy Pelosi starring in TV ads for Al Gore’s global warming campaign. Quoth Gingrich, “We do agree, our country must take action against climate change.” And: “If enough of us demand action from our leaders, we can spark the innovation we need.”

Consider Gingrich to be the right’s Jerry Brown. Like the former and would-be next California governor, Gingrich talks big, but has no loyalty to his ideas. He was for tax cuts before he was against them. He supported a $35,000 congressional pay raise and leaner government.

Like Brown, Gingrich’s real skill has been in seeing a trend early and jumping on it, unencumbered by any past positions.

Saunders gives her reasons for jumping bad on “the Newter” later in the piece, but it doesn’t affect her analysis.

“Like Brown, Gingrich’s real skill has been in seeing a trend early and jumping on it, unencumbered by any past positions” is as good an observation about Gingrich as I’ve seen in the past months.

But Saunders is not alone. In Newt Gingrich: Conservative Feminist Evaluates Mr. Speaker, Red State Gal effectively hit Gingrich for his less-than-exemplary behavior in private.

Red State Feminists are conservative, no doubt about it. But RSFs are not seduced by every conservative blowhard that thinks he should be president. Case in point? Newt Gingrich.

Yes, when we last met Newt, he was shutting down the government in a stand-off with Bill Clinton, then resigning his seat in disgrace under ethics charges which were upheld. Today he has resurrected himself as an eminence grise of the Republican Party, with bold ideas for a renaissance not only of the Party, but also of his own political career. He even has presidential aspirations.

But, oh, the baggage that man carries! We are all SO DARN TIRED of conservative leaders whose personal lives look like something from the nether regions of Dante’s Inferno. Newt has the unpleasant distinction of dumping two wives for young aides he charmed as their boss. UGH. Furthermore, his second wife, Marianne Gingrich, married to him for eighteen years, had just received a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis when she got word he wanted to divorce her. In fact, according to Marianne, “He’d already asked [his now-third wife] to marry him before he asked me for a divorce. Before he even asked.” Q: “He told you that?” “Yeah . . . ” Not only that, but while Marianne was away visiting relatives, the soon-to-be third wife “was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed”!
–From Newt for President? Ask His Second Wife

Google “Newt Gingrich + divorce” and the search engine returns over 124,000 results, the great majority of them negative. Similar results await the searcher for info on “Newt Gingrich + wife’s cancer.”

Of course, Gingrich never did have many fans among the women on the Left, but now, it appears that he’s anathema to women on the other side of the political spectrum as well.

Which, after Newt’s performance on Al Gore’s infamous couch with Nancy Pelosi, is a perfectly-karmic punishment for the equally-infamous marital transgressions of Newt Gingrich.

Both events highlight that while Gingrich may be “an ideas man,” his character and rectitude–using Karl Rove’s description of Christine O’Donnell’s main flaw–have a certain among of malleable elasticity to them.

by Mondo Frazier
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KEVIN JENNINGS: WHO’S UP FOR SOME GRADE SCHOOL GAY SEX INSTRUCTION?

Got this via Pat Dollard: Obama’s Safe School Czar: Gay Issues in Curriculum is ‘Ultimate Goal’.

If this is such a well thought-out idea, why isn’t the Department of Education holding a presser on this?

Let’s get the word out on Kevin Jenning’s plans; isn’t this the new Age of Obama Transparency?

Apparently, gay sex issues are what’s happening in safe schools in 2010.

by Mondo Frazier
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There is no longer just bias in the Mainstream Media: it’s now all about blacking out news unpleasant to favored parties, persons or causes(John Edwards, ClimateGate, Van Jones).

The latest evidence that Big Media is engaged in two-fisted content management?

The complete absence of news regarding the Eleanor Norton Homes Lobbyist Shakedown call.

Shocking Audio: Facing ‘Obligations from Leadership, Democrat Congresswoman Leave Voicemail for Lobbyist Cash (Audio at the link)

Her message raises many concerns.

1. At the very beginning of the message, Holmes Norton notes that the lobbyist:

ha[s] given to other colleagues of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee

Beyond being a bit heavy-handed, where did she get this information? Such donations are listed in FEC reports, but it is a violation to use that information to solicit campaign donations.

That’s just one concern. But where is the Washington Post? Well, Norton’s the non-voting DC Rep, plus she’s a Democrat–usually one in the same.

DC is the closest thing we have to a one-party banana republic in the USA, though others have been quickly closing the corruption gap.

The Post is the company paper for DC and the company’s business is more government, more money, more corruption.

MSM Sitting Out Eleanor Holmes Norton Scandal

They are still virtual no-shows. The activist old media is putting itself on the sidelines with a Democrat Congresswoman who was caught on tape squeezing a lobbyist for cash.

They will be pulled kicking and screaming into this story by the people Dan Rather called “pajama journalists.” I think we’ve seen this story before.

The Associated Press published a poll showing that “bloggers” are among the least trusted people–according to the AP’s poll. Since it’s the AP though, who buys it?

Explosive Norton Voicemail — Where’s the MSM?

The story has been up now for about 17 hours, and is currently linked in red on the Drudge Report, but thus far, the only media that have picked it up are in the independent blogosphere. As of this writing, there has been not a word about it in the MSM, and most especially not in the Post, Norton’s hometown newspaper. Indeed the last story the Post published about her — including on its normally nimble blogs, was a celebration of her victory in the D.C. primary held on Tuesday night.

That would be the same blogosphere that AP maintains is not trusted in its house poll. Of course, the AP operates online. Maybe that’s confusing AP poll respondents?

Poll after poll by Pew Research, who has no axes to grind, put the Mainstream Media–of which the AP is a proud member–as one of the very least trusted groups in America.

Why would anyone believe a self-serving poll from one of the least-trusted institutions in America?

Especially one decrying the very people–bloggers–who’ve been eating the AP’s lunch?

Memo to the AP: ask Eleanor Norton Holmes about her shakedown phone calls.

Then, you can get back to me about the blogger’s poll.

by Mondo Frazier
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Not sure whether to classify this under the label “Tough Love” or not.

But it’s great advice to the Establishment GOP–who is rapidly being identified by the people in the hinterlands as every bit as big a problem to reforming the corrupt DC power cesspit as Democrats and the Mainstream Media.

Memo to the GOP Establishment — Shut Up and Get to Work!

Christine O’Donnell’s win in Delaware on Tuesday night is meaningful, significant, and important. Whether anyone in the mainstream media wishes to believe it to be true is irrelevant. Christine O’Donnell’s win demonstrated that the establishment political party machine, and pundits pontifications were all wrong. It also demonstrates that 2010 is as truly a groundbreaking political year–a watershed even–that will likely leave incumbency in the skid marks of scorched earth once the journey is complete.

But the moment would be lost if some important observations were not made.

Kevin McCullough is just getting warmed up.

Republicans may not be as bad as the Democrats for two reasons.

1- Republicans have the break of conservatives’ distrust of big government at work.

2- Republicans are not currently in power.

McCullough nails the heart of the matter–at least with conservatives.

For far too many years conservatives within the Republican party have been lectured to time and again by party officials, talk show hosts, syndicated columnists, et al that conservatives had to perform their wifely duties as it related to voting for the choices left for them in general elections. For conservatives these have been bitter pills to swallow for the liberal republicans have far too often been far too similar to the liberal democrats they opposed to generate any real excitement about the distinction of their candidacy.

In election cycle after election cycle conservatives in northeastern states and along the Atlantic coast have had fingers wagged in our faces and been told to accept the fact that reelecting and putting up with candidates like Mike Castle in Delaware was somehow better than electing a Democrat. But after we’d sent them back to Washington we would watch as those same Republicans, the Susan Collins, the Olympia Snowes, the Arlen Specters of the world would proceed to vote for programs and spending that a Democrat would have voted for anyway.

It’s always good to read something that validates your thinking: Mike Castle: Obama and Biden Chat up Castle Tuesday Night. Ed Morrisey calls the Republican Establishment “The Sore Loser Party“–with good reason.

Suddenly, though, those rules don’t apply to the GOP establishment — or at least the establishment seemed ready to reject them yesterday. That’s precisely the same kind of elitist attitude that Americans get from Washington DC, and why the Tea Party exists in the first place. A day later, at least a few Republicans seemed to grasp that, including Senator John Cornyn and Michael Steele. If the rest don’t learn the lesson that DocZero gives in today’s post about bottom-up change instead of top-down diktats, the GOP establishment may be positioning itself for irrelevance in the long run.

It’s up to the GOP Establishment to convince the people that they can be trusted again–and then go about re-earning the trust they threw away when they controlled Congress from 1994-2006.

They’ll have 2-4 years to demonstrate their sincerity.

Otherwise, they’ll be as relevant, come 2016 as the Whigs.

by Mondo Frazier
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THOUGHTS ON CHRISTINE O’DONNELL’s WIN IN DELAWARE

* Most of the punditry who supported Mike Castle have rallied behind Christine O’Donnell’s candidacy now that she’s won. That’s heartening given the pre-election invective some of them spouted. Karl Rove is the exception.

* Mike Castle: Obama and Biden Chat up Castle Tuesday Night. What was Mike Castle talking to Barack Obama and Joe Biden about after his defeat Tuesday night? It probably wasn’t about how best to support the new GOP nominee.

* GOP moans about losing chance to take control of Senate with Castle defeat. That would be the same GOP whose Castle-like policies lost them the Senate, right?

* Rush: Maybe Rove should have gotten this excited about Democrats. More good thoughts from Hot Air. The video of Rush Limbaugh’s remarks below.

The takeaway?

Rush: “It really is Washington vs the rest of the country, isn’t it?”

Bingo!

* Cassy Fiano with a Great point: Lessons from Delaware: Establishment Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats

* The NRCC belatedly comes to its political senses–Cornyn: NRSC fully backing O’Donnell, giving maximum donation.

* The usually-insightful Turku V hits unusual heights of stridency A Suicidal Vote for Purity. It will be interesting to look at the results vs. what these guys said pre-election. It’d be interesting to do it now, but who has the time? Maybe that’s why there are such low expectations that pundits will get it most all of the time?

* Patterico has a pretty good piece, all things considered. Dems, Tea Partiers Celebrate While Sarah Palin Calls for an Elusive “Unity”. It’s tinged with a hint of bitterness, but hey! It was written very soon after Mike Castle was repudiated by a healthy majority of Delaware’s Republicans.

* Video: Rove doubles down against O’Donnell. Rove is destroying his audience for his future books by the day. Maybe he plans to make up for it with buys by moderates? And some young Turks have scheduled a DC burning of Rove’s book for Friday.

* Christine O’Donnell has convinced Don Surber to readjust his prediction chart for the U.S. Senate: O’Donnell likely wins

* Michael Steele: The RNC supports O’Donnell “without hesitation”. Lot of Hot Air tabs open today.

* GREAT ADVICE! Memo to the GOP Establishment — Shut Up and Get to Work!

* Finally, (and the last Hot Air link!) Ed Morrissey has the last word on postmortems: The Sore Loser Party..

That’s about it for reactions to Christine O’Donnell’s historic win in Delaware.

by Mondo Frazier
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JACK CASHILL DISSENTS FROM DINESH D’SOUZA’s THEORY ON OBAMA’s WORLDVIEW–SOMEWHAT

A few days ago, we published D’Souza: Barack Obama’s Anticolonial Mindset, which commented on the Forbes article by Dinesh D’Souza on Obama’s anti-colonial mindset.

Now there’s more discussion on the point by Jack Cashill, who does good work.

What D’Souza Doesn’t Get Quite Right

Dinesh D’Souza has long been one of America’s shrewdest and bravest political observers. His much discussed Forbes article “How Obama Thinks,” a prelude to his forthcoming book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage, burnishes that reputation. Indeed, Newt Gingrich describes D’Souza’s thesis as the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.”

As much as I admire D’Souza, however, I must take issue with his argument. Yes, Obama does seem to espouse a certain inchoate anticolonialism, but the “dreams” do not come so much from his father as from his mother, and they have been given voice by Obama’s muse, terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers. As a result, Obama’s ideology is less coherent and more malleable than D’Souza would have the reader believe.

Having read all of Jack Cashill’s pieces at American Thinker, I think his case is persuasive. But, perhaps this is just the thought of one of Cashill’s converts?

Jack Cashill makes a persuasive case, however.

We’ll call it the “Cashill Corollary to the D’Souza Theory of Obama’s Worldview.”

MORE: Ayers is a Violent, Revolutionary Communist. What is Obama? Probably the gentler, friendlier face on Ayer’s philosophy. Except for Obama’s “get in their face” comment, he doesn’t appear to be violent.

STILL MORE: Neocolonial Dreams from Obama’s Mother. When your mother is a product of the 60s, what are you to expect from the son? A fusion of sorts of D’Souza and Cashill and others by George Neumayr of American Spectator.

by Mondo Frazier
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HOWARD FINEMAN: POOR OBAMA, POOR DEMOCRATS
TOSSED ABOUT ON THE WINDS OF POLITICAL FATE LIKE SO MUCH DUST IN THE WIND

It’s not accurate to call Howard Fineman’s latest in Newsweek, “finger-pointing.” In Fineman’s world, the only finger worth pointing is worth pointing at Republicans.

Still, the piece is amusing for the spin-doctoring that ensues as Fineman tries to explain the coming November tsunami.

What Went Wrong, A ‘pre-mortem’ for the Democrats.

One day in the winter of 2005, I was in a Senate hallway when the new guy from Illinois arrived for a vote. Sen. Barack Obama—pop-star charisma, limitless possibility—knew his own allure. Three years later, of course, the nation knew it, too. He won the presidency by the largest popular-vote margin since 1988, bringing with him the largest Democratic majorities in Congress since 1993.

But that was then. Obama’s approval rating is weak, and many Democrats now accept the conventional wisdom that they may lose the House, even the Senate, in November.

That’s about as good as it gets in Fineman’s piece. Yes, he does recycle the main talking points that we’ll hear endlessly repeated on the MSM newsers. Other than some Finemanian spin, not much outside of some preemptive finger-pointing.

Some examples of Howard’s “pre-mortem” thinking:

* “Obama—an overachiever, the guy who fills up a second blue book on the extra-credit question—tried to do it all.” Fineman should, of course, add “…except for taking the government stick out of the spokes of the economy.”

* “Obama misread his surroundings. The president is an agreeable guy, but aloof, and not one who likes to come face to face with the enemy. Sure, GOP leaders were laying traps for him from the start. And it was foolish to assume Mitch McConnell or John Boehner would play ball.”

Howard Fineman: ever the hopeless Lefty partisan, still not aware that everyone can see that his mask fell off long ago.

Read the entire piece; not because you’ll particularly enjoy it, but to remind yourself why it is you don’t read Fineman with any regularity.

by Mondo Frazier
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