this man is dangerously insane:
Senator Rand Paul announced last week that he is returning $500,000 to the United States Treasury – money unspent from his official operating budget. The total amount being returned is more than 16 percent of Rand’s original office budget. As far as is known, no U.S. Senator has returned as much to taxpayers.
….while this man is a defender of Moral Integrity, Honest Government, Traditional Family Values and Military Valor in Sending Other People to Suffer and Die and is currently favored to win (!) in South Carolina:
Indeed, the Chief Apostle of the Thing That Used to Be Conservatism, Rush Limbaugh, offers this encomium to the greatness of Gingrich’s postmodernism (and leave me wondering what it is this conservatism is conserving):
I got a great note from a friend of mine. “So Newt wanted an open marriage. BFD. At least he asked his wife for permission instead of cheating on her. That’s a mark of character, in my book. Newt’s a victim. We all are. Ours is the horniest generation. We were soldiers in the sex revolution. We were tempted by everything from Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice to Plato’s Retreat, Deep Throat to no-fault divorce. Many of us paid the ultimate price, AIDS, abortion, or alimony for the cultural marching orders we got. Hell, for all I know we should be getting disability from the government.” That’s from a good friend of mine, “Newt’s slogan ought to, ‘Hell, yes, I wanted it.’”
Wow. Open marriage? BFD! And besides, says Mr. Personal Responsibility, Newt’s a victim! And it’s the damn libruls with their loose sexual mores that made him that way.
And now, the Victim (who himself says that overwork due to his love for America is what made him act like a dirtbag–twice) wants you to help him become the most powerful and overworked man on earth. If you are a serious Catholic, I think you have to believe that giving him your vote is like buy an alcoholic a bottle of scotch. For the sake of Gingrich’s soul, if not for the sake of America, you have a moral obligation not to lead him into temptation. Limbaugh has a moral responsibility to stop embarrassing conservatives with whiny victimology for a sleazebag.
Rand Paul is my senator and I like him. He also operated on my father and granddaughter and periodically comes back to town to do some free cataract surgery. As a senator, he can’t practice for money but he does want to keep his surgical skills sharp. He may run for president in a few years.
So judgemental. So un-Jesus like. Regardless of what these people have done right or wrong, I am appalled at your attitude.
Ehh….calling out hypocrisy is un-Jesus-like?
Exactly. This whole circus reeks of opportunism and hypocrisy.
I also read a few pieces in “faithful conservative Catholic” blogs that went after Marianne Gingrich, things like, “Oh, she’s a dog, so no wonder he wanted an open marriage.”
It it any wonder why people post “Love Jesus but hate the Church” videos (which I don’t agree with but don’t take issue with, btw) when they see these picture perfect examples of living the Catholic faith?
I wouldn’t comment on her looks. I didn’t even watch the interview. But one thing that occurred to me was that she entered into a sexual relationship with a married man, knowing he was married. She is not exactly a paragon of good character herself.
+J.M.J+
True, Marianne was the adulteress who later became a victim of adultery herself. I can understand her bitterness toward the woman who stole her husband from her, but the irony is that she had done the same thing to his first wife, Jackie, which means back in 1980 she was in the same position as Callista. I suppose from a worldly POV, some might call that “poetic justice,” but one sin doesn’t justify another; Adultery is still wrong the second time around.
Jesus knew people’s hearts and minds better than Mark Shea. Or me or whoever. So it’s not the same thing.
I don’t want Gingrich thrown in my face for the next 4-8 years as an example of what Catholics, especially Catholic politicians are like. God knows I need more humility, but do I really need that humiliation? After awhile, saying that the Church is full of sinners sounds to other people like you’re just making excuses.
Exactly. This is scandal. He’s the opposite-wing version of a Kennedy. It’s all about political opportunism.
You can’t really blame the Catholic Church for things Gingrich did in his past life. He wasn’t even baptized until 2009, I think. If you want to restrict it to things done since 2009, go right ahead, but he’s a “baby” Catholic.
Mark,
I listened to all of Rush Limbaugh’s statement and it was clear that his tongue was firmly planted in his cheek, that he was, as he says often, pointing out absurdity by being absurd.
I think it would behoove you to listen to the entirety of Rush’s words in that particular segment.
This is an election. You have to weigh the candidates. You are not judging them as God judges a soul after death. You are choosing who would be best become our next leader. Listing down their track record, good or bad, is not judging.
What’s really insane is that a single senator has an “operating budget” of $3,125,000. These politicians have entirely too much time and money on their hands.
And Look at what they have wrought with all their time and money: $16 trillion in debt; another $60 trillion or so in unfunded liabilities; and annual spending of nearly $4 trillion, with taxpayer receipts of only 2 trillion.
Yet we re-elect these guys time after time. Insanity.
Still, kudos to Rand Paul. I wish there were more like him.
I’m not commenting on the suitability or lack thereof of Newt Gingrich for president by the following. I find his behavior deplorable, but I was brought up short by a description of how he came into the Church found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/us/politics/newt-gingrich-represents-new-political-era-for-catholics.html?pagewanted=all
It says that: “In 2009, Mr. Gingrich was baptized in the same Catholic parish church on Capitol Hill where Senator Robert F. Kennedy once attended noonday Mass and sometimes assisted the priest as an altar server.”
Folks, if he came into the Church through baptism, what does that mean? It means he was an unregenerate soul all his life. How do we expect unregenerate people to behave when people who have the Holy Spirit living within and access to all the Sacraments of grace so often fail to live godly lives?
Learning that he came into the Church through baptism has really made me shut up about his past. God has given him a new birth. God has wiped the slate clean for him. I cannot hold against him what God has erased.
True. It’s his post-baptismal behavior I find abhorrent.
I am not sure if I qualify or not as a good Catholic, Mark. I try. You don’t like Gingrich, fair enough. It doesn’t sound like you like Republicans of any stripe. Also, fair. Perhaps, you should admit as much. But, if you are going to skewer him mercilessly with his confessed sins without offering a shred (not even a wink/nod) of forgiveness — what are you saying about the sacrament of confession and reconciliation? of baptism? Do they mean nothing. Whether you like Gingrich personally or not, how can you judge him when the Church has forgiven him? Right now, I will vote for either Santorum or Gingrich. Not Romney nor Obama. If that makes me a bad Catholic in your eyes, I am sorry for the offense.
I dislike GOP leaders who use the Faith as a sheild for impenitent behavior. Newt does this. He does it when he tries to turn his adulteries into a feature (he was just so darn in love with America) and not a sin. He does it when he tries to justify torture and pre-emptive war as legit position for a Catholic to endorse. He does it when he tests the water for approval of ESCR by saying that life begins at implantation. I have no problem with accepting that he is reconciled with the Church. That’s between him and God. But as a voter, I have to weigh his public statements and behavior and what I see is a man I cannot trust, being defended as a “victim” for acting despicably twice. Why you think I would call you, a total stranger, a “bad Catholic” I have no idea. You, however, seem ready willing and able to read my mind and tell me I’m a Democrat (false) and not a Catholic. Why do you make such judgements when I have made abundantly clear that I will never vote for a pro-abortion candidate?
Mark, I apologize if you took my comment as an indictment of your “Catholicity” for lack of a better term. My problem with you, of late, is your political posts. I don’t consider you a non Catholic. Generally, your non political posts are terrific and full of great insight. And I am enjoying your new book. But, when it comes to politics it seems one sided. Perhaps I am somehow missing the other side in your skewering of modern day politicians, but it seems personal where Gingrich and Republicans in general is concerned. You don’t give him much credit and assume the worst motivations where I am not sure it is there. (Maybe you are harder on him because he is Catholic?) But when you say things like Newt is just using his faith as a “shield for impenitent behavior” — that sounds pretty damning. Your proof, beyond the adultery is his support for torture and what seems to have been a mis-statement regarding implantation. A mis-statement he corrected. For that, you are convinced that he is nothing more than a Catholic fraud of some sort. That seems over the top and politically motivated to me. Does that make you a Democrat, no. But, you do seem anti-Republican. Not every politician from the Christian Right is a fraud. Sorry if I offended. I have enjoyed your blog for some time and you have answered questions on a couple of occasions — for that I am thankful. Consider this response the end for me. I will read from now on in silence having said my peace.
Tom: Your confusion on this point is a common one. Perhaps you missed this: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2012/01/meet-the-new-boss-worse-than-the-old-boss.html
Yes. i am harder on Catholic pols, particularly ones who use their faith to gin up votes while leading their followers to endorse positions contrary to the Faith. That includes not just Gingrich and Santorum, but Biden, Pelosi and their ilk. Gingrich’s *post* baptismal behavior is what I object to (and no, his statement about implantation was not a “misstatement”. He does not live in a cave. He knows perfectly well what the Church’s teaching is. He was testing the waters to see if he could approve of ESCR and abortifacients. When he got the roar of backlash, he backed down. But that was the goal.
Don’t hesitate to continue commenting.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Have we gone so far away from our Catholic grounding that we no longer believe that people can change? I sure hope people can change and get better over time. If not, despair over my own sinnfullness would consume me.
I think it is okay to make judgments about a person’s moral character if they seek a public position. However, in doing so we should seek to be keenly aware of the evolution of his character. Is he repentant about former moral failings? Are there signs that he has tried to correct these moral failings? We should take great care to engage in character evaluation not assination
Then proper posture of such repentant public individual is contrition. Not groveling obesquiousness, but contrition. Then, of course, his public sermonizing needs to represent a sense of generous forgiveness. He needs to exude a sense of gratitude for grace and opportunity praying for others to have such. He needs to understand how his social privileges shielded him from many of the consequences of such adultery-for example bankrupcy, alienation from his children since he couldn’t support those children and his two other families. He needs to be grateful that his porfessional connections keep him well-employed and the personal psychological consequences of such stress didn’t result in unemployment, a routine problem in the common man’s experience in this matter.
He does none of this. He is not the public penitent members of the Church should look up to.
I recommend Mark Wahlberg and his recent interviews as an inspiration and a model as to what should be expected of Newt Gingrich.
His transparent play to the evangelical and conservative Catholics with his pretentious sermonizing, the tone of which hasn’t changed a whit since his days of adultery, is annoying.
Unfortunately, Mr. Gingrich decided to say that comments made by his ex-wife were false. He also claimed that his campaign offered friends to rebut his ex-wife’s assertions. ABC has denied that any such offer existed.
Someone’s lying. Considering the fact that Mr. Gingrich has a problematic history of maintaining the truth, I’m hesitant to believe what he says this time around. That he may be lying just for political gain makes it even worse.
That’s discerning the character and qualifications of the man who can end this world with a phone call.
+J.M.J+
He did say that her claim that he wanted an “open marriage” is false. I saw that part of the interview; his ex-wife is not claiming that he told her in so many words, “I want an open marriage.” She quoted him as saying something else, and when asked by the interviewer what that meant, *she said* it meant he wanted an open marriage.
Maybe Gingrich is claiming that she misunderstood him? I don’t know; at this point I’m not 100% sure what to think of the whole sordid thing except that it doesn’t leave either of them looking very good.
I don’t remember Mary Magdeline schlumping for acceptance of adultery after Christ uttered those words.
Sorry about the funny spelling error in my previous comment. I hit the publish button by accident.
I accept that Newt is square with the Church regarding his past. But, he certainly does not exhibit much remorse or humility in that regard.
Hatred for the biased liberal media is not a reason to vote for Newt Gingrich. The media’s aggressive investigations, often unfair, of conservatives and GOPers, which it does not apply to the Dems and left, is not a reason to vote for Newt Gingrich. The flaws of the media to not absolve him from having to answer to the general public about his past sinful life. He wants to be our president. He’s got to face the music.
How dare he call the media “despicable” but his own actions, which prompt media attention, are not despicable? How dare he act morally superior?
Finally, neither mistress #1, nor mistress #2, who are wife #2 and wife #3 respectively look so great in this either. Are we really going to put in the WH a man and his #2 mistress qua #3 wife, whom I call Mrs. Plastic? (Sorry that is unkind I suppose)
The problem I have with Mark, here. And also Peggy — is that it is convenient to attack someone on moral grounds when you disagree with them politically but not when you agree. Or at least that is how this comes across. I think it is fair game to say that Newt’s position on stem cell research is wrong or that his policy positions are wrong. It is quite another to consistently decry the man on the basis of a failed marriage and sins that he has confessed and sought reconciliation and forgiveness for (or continuousuly mock his excuse that he sinned because he was working for the American people in Washington and he gave into temptation.) It is politics by character assassination. It is very apparent that Mark dislikes conservative Republicans (thus the constant reference to ‘libruls’, etc. in such a defensive and sarcastic tone) Why not just admit, Mark — that when it comes to politics you don’t see things with a Catholic perspective, but rather a Democratic or at least anti-Republican viewpoint. That would at least be honest.
…and we should remember, Newt has only been married once, theologically, and as far as we know has found fidelity, at a later stage in life. I do not like his temperament or his arrogance or his economics and I hope he loses the nomination, but I am reluctant to denounce him as a sinner or fornicator. Lord knows I was not chaste in college.
Because it’s obviously and manifestly not true. I am not a Democrat, nor a liberal. I am a Catholic who has no more use for the Democrats than I do for Republicans. What irritates me about Newt is that he tells us he is a repentant Catholic, while using the faith as a sheild for defending his sleaze. Not just his marital sleaze, (which he preposterously blames on his hard-working patriotism), but his financial sleaze and his jingoist warmongering and defense of torture. Failure to cheer for this joke of a candidate is not ipso facto “Democrat” and is in fact motivated by concern that people like him are seducers of the Faithful. I write as a Catholic. That’s my motivation.
Tom, I think you are unfair. I don’t always agree with Mark, but think he is making a sincere effort to think as a Catholic in the public square, (even if sometimes Mark needs to be a bit more generous in putting the same construction on those disagree with him, too).
Newt and the other Republican candidates exist strongly in the public mind as a mere consequence of the media. If they did not get such free air on the new stations, the race would be over.
The media actually has given the Tea Party and its varied inadequate candidates a hearing they wouldn’t have gotten in 1975. Why? Withhout a fight, without conflict, the media would have no audience. So they created a primary battle, which, if left to its own resources without media he,lp would have had Paul, Romney and Santorum win in Iowa, with Santorum going nowhere after, since his organization didn’t exist elsewhere. The media functions like Don King. Don King builds up his next big fight with some inadequate challenger in order to build an audience for his pay-per-view event. The media has done that for candidates that don’t have the organizational strength to show up in New Hampshire (Bachman and Perry) and the organizational strength to show up on the Virginia ballot (Perry and Gingrich). No way should these candidates be held in any esteem. They are media creations. Newt’s candidacy will die once he has to focus his campaign on more than one location.
The “blame the media” piece is for entertainment to saturate the serotonin receptors of talk radio conservatives who love this type of trash talk. Its part of the circus act. It was a predicable response because Gingrich knows from lots of focus group testing that such a response spurs on positive responses from a certain type of voter. He is playing those voters with reponses he has discovered promote certain types of feeling. As such, he treats the conservative voter like a herd beast, controlled by a stimulus-response mechanism that would make Pavlov proud.
Newt loves the media. It is his favorite mistress. He is only acting.
I’m all for repentance and making amends, but when did his adultery with his latest piece-on-the-side, Callista, stop being adultery? You can call evil “good” all you want, even while wearing roman collars; you’re still wrong.
It stopped being adultery (actually fornication) when he came in the Church, received declarations of nullity for the two reputed marriages, and had his marriage validated by the Church.
This may all be true, but not all of the general public are Catholic and appreciate these facts. Also, the general public who don’t know much about him need to hear from him an accounting of his character. And his ego is just so outsized and on full display.
I wonder if God agrees.
It may be that “social values” voters are putting a particular foreign policy position at the top of the priority list: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/2012/01/20/evangelicals-ron-paul-and-war/
It seems that for some, the only unforgivable sin is questioning the wisdom of a foreign war or an Israeli settlement.
The other Q is whether the GOP/conservatives are no longer the party of “family values.” If Newt is nominated, the culture is dead, effectively.
I am unclear why its even considered so. While the Republicans were impeaching Clinton, many Republican messes of a similar nature were revealed. Livingston, Gingrich, etc.
I believe they have played a card to get votes and fooled family values voters.
The base cared, if not the pols. Those pols resigned once exposed. But now, the base, ie, rank and file voters, do not care, it seems.
I have no reason to doubt Gingrich when he says that he repented of his past sins, but was quite dismayed to hear that he never felt the need to apologize to Marianne. I realize that apologizing to the people you’ve harmed is not, strictly speaking, a requirement of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but we are expected to attempt to make reparation where it is possible, and it seems that that should have been gently pointed out to Gingrich during his RCIA (which, according to the Washington Post, involved personal tutoring by the rector of the National Shrine). By all appearances, he was permitted to enter the Church and normalize his marriage to Callista while chucking his ex-wife out like yesterday’s garbage. To me, this is a perfect example of why so many people are cynical about the Church’s relationship to the rich and famous, particularly when it comes to the annulment process.
Mark, Many people do not consider “waterboarding” torture. As to the war there were 17 UN resolutions & congress voted overwhemingly to go to war. Were there wmd’s. I believe there were. Anyway we’re now out of Iraque so everyone should be happy. As to Newt…I don’t think I could vote for him for many reasons. Although I did consider it at one time. I pray for his soul that he has repented but that’s btwn him & God. I also pray that whoever is nominated can beat Obama overwhelmingly. He’s ruining the country & his stance on life is dispicable.
Many people are wrong. Many people also overlook the fact that terror drowning was not the only form of torture we used. You can’t invoke the UN as competent authority and then ignore the UN when it says “Don’t go to war”. Reality disagrees with your opinion that there were WMDs (our casus belli).
“So Newt wanted an open marriage. BFD. At least he asked his wife for permission instead of cheating on her. That’s a mark of character, in my book.”
What book is that, Rush? How To Be A Repugnant Ass?
Anyway, it goes a long way to explaining Rush’s four marriages.