Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Camille on Newt

Camille Paglia on Newt Gingrich (from Salon, to which I refuse to link because of their silly subscription policy):

In other political news, when Newt Gingrich announced last week that he had had an adulterous affair during the 1998 investigations of Bill Clinton, I burst out laughing -- not simply at Gingrich's hypocrisy, about which I was never in doubt, but at the comic mental picture of Gingrich in erotic extremis. I have never understood conservatives' enduring affection for Gingrich, which is constantly expressed by callers to radio shows.

Aside from his command of the Republican recapture of the House of Representatives in 1994, it is difficult to identify Gingrich's substantive achievements. While he poses as a futurist, he has an unfocused mind that mistakes erratic connections for insight. I literally cannot stand the pattering of that thin, raspy, uninflected, adolescent voice. Why anyone would imagine Gingrich has presidential possibilities is beyond me.

Newtophiles, get a damn clue. He's-- not-- presidential-- material.


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

While I’m no fan of Newt for the Whitehouse, I think it’s incorrect to say he was hypocritical; Clinton wasn’t impeached for adultery, he was impeached for perjury.