If I were to be baldly cynical, I could remind those same evangelicals that Gingrich is a professed Catholic now, and ask questions like, “Do we really want a Mary idolator for president?”

And some of them would hit me in the eye for being bigoted.

And some of them would listen to me and go vote for Romney or Perry or someone else.

And maybe I wouldn’t be sleeping too good after that.

And maybe I don’t make any kind of a demagogue exploiting divisions and prejudice and fear of the Other in people.

But I could do it.

I know something of your faith journey over the past 20 years. Do not hesitate
to weave that into your speech to the degree that you are comfortable doing so.
It will always resonate with Evangelical Christians.  

Because there is nothing more likely to endear one to Evangelicals than the heartwarming story of converting to Catholicism in order to please wife #3. 

Like you said a few posts down, Fred, “fake authenticity.”  

They can’t vote for Romney; after all, he’s Mormon, which I’m pretty sure is below Catholic on the Evangelical Protestant Bigot-ometer.  Granted, I’m pretty sure all of them are above Democrat on the EPB, even if we ignore claims about how Obama is a radical crypto-Muslim atheist or whatever. 

It’s depressing, Gingrich is a serial adulterer and more importantly has a voting record and habit of using his political clout against things that would benefit families, the poor, and those in need, and yet all he has to do is bellow “Gay marriage is destroying traditional values and the fabric of America!” or some such nonsense and he’s guaranteed a sizable chunk of Evangelical support. Sad. 

And it also dovetails back to why I can’t feel sorry for Evangelicals of this stripe. Nobody is this dumb, they’re just this hateful. They know his apologies would be a lie, and they know he doesn’t give a damn about his “Walk with Christ” or whatever. They just know they love to hate gay people and anybody different from them and will vote for anybody who promises to do the same. Sometimes assholes are just assholes, not poor lost lambs in need of liberation. 

You know, with very little editing, Land could have given this advice to Gingrich 8 years ago, or 12 years ago, or 16 years ago. He’d only have to change the number of wives.

“all she has is this good Republican cloth coat….and a half million dollars of trinkets from Tiffany’s.” 

What with the rising cost of gold, half a million just doesn’t go as far at Tiffany’s as it used to.

I just do not understand how anyone can find Gingrich likable.  He has repeatedly demonstrated hypocrisy and errors in judgement, along with a personality that seems more bitter than his face looks.  

How does he get any support at all?  

“Martial” for “marital” is a familar typo, I know, but advice to Gingrich on how to address his “martial history” made me smile nonetheless.

The Very Serious People have deemed him Very Serious (never mind that he’s a failed historian and most of his foreign policy ideas fall somewhere between dumb and horrifying on the “reasons never, ever to do things that way” scale. They talk about him like he’s some sort of elder statesman and of course we can’t underestimate the effect of being on Fox News all the time. He got hours and hours of free exposure as a “policy expert” on Fox before his candidacy forced them to take him off the air. Put that all together and low information voters assume that he’s the second coming of Winston Churchill instead of seeing that he’s Boss Hog with no sexual ethics. 

A former House Speaker named Newt,
Thought weddings were really a hoot,
But the road Matrimony,
Is pot-holed and stony,
So he kept a spare wife in the boot.

Well, by all rights Gingrich should have to address his martial history too. He’s a chicken hawk who has written terrible books that include some truly rotten alternate war history. Some of those books were clearly labeled alternate history. Others were not. 

I still can’t believe that the same guy who publicly stated that he thought child labor laws were stupid and schools should replace adequately-paid adult janitors with poor children is still a serious presidential contender.  What does he have to do, eat babies?

The part I find truly egregious is the excuses people make for Newt serving divorce papers on one of his wives while she was in hospital.

The would be wife #1. His former high school teacher. With whom he had two children. Who was recovering from cancer treatment at the time. 

Wife #2′s comment after he left her for Wife #3 was basically that she should have known he wasn’t trustworthy based on the shitty way he #1. 

I still can’t believe that the same guy who publicly stated that he
thought child labor laws were stupid and schools should replace
adequately-paid adult janitors with poor children is still a serious
presidential contender.  What does he have to do, eat babies?

It doesn’t matter how you treat actual children, just so long as you never harm an embryo.  And since Gingrich is male and we’re not far enough into the future, he’ll never have an abortion so he’ll still get plenty of support from “pro-life” people.  Apparently one of the worst things about abortion is that it deprives society of extra children to do janitorial work and/or be in sandwiches.

There is a line about Caligula that can be applied to Newt’s marriages: It is not easy to decide whether he acted worst in making his marriages, in breaking them, or as a husband.

Perhaps it is just as well that none of Newt’s wives tried to slip him a love potion.

If I remember right, this Esquire interview with Wife #2 from last year came up the last time we discussed Newt. This line lays out the basic right-wing politician’s mindset:

“He believes that what he says in public and how he lives
don’t have to be connected,” she says. “If you believe that, then yeah,
you can run for president.”

The part that struck me was Land saying this would 1) be a “once and for all” deal, and 2) would most emphatically NOT be an interview, would not involve subjecting himself to questions.  I don’t think the speech’s primary purpose would really be to appeal to evangelicals, I think the purpose would be to take the issue of Newt’s marriages off the table for the rest of the campaign; because every time somebody challenges him on it after The Speech, Newt will say “I’ve dealt with this already, at great length, in a speech which cost me such anguish that my sweat was mixed with blood; I’m surprised you haven’t heard it, or you would have noticed that I said, specifically, that this was the last time I would deal with the topic.”

Put that all together and low information voters assume that he’s the second coming of Winston Churchill instead of seeing that he’s Boss Hog with no sexual ethics.

Granted, “low information voters” is a growing cultural identity in the U.S., and as my father said, “You can’t represent only the interests of smart people.”  

Not all low information voters are fans of Fox News, but all fans of Fox News are low information voters.  

I find “willfully low information voters” to be a more appropriate term.

And Gingrich would say it just like that.  Word for word.  Including the “sweat mixed with blood” bit.  Complete with sneering.  

I can. not. stand. this man.

Unbelievably depressing open letter from Richard Land.  A perfect example cynical exploitation of fellow believers.

Which is why I am so glad this article was written by Bruce Barlett in the NYT:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/gingrich-and-the-destruction-of-congressional-expertise/

Pass it round – well worth the read.

Let us count the ways:  He’s a wealthy white man with a cartoonish sense of self-importance, speaking of himself as a ‘renewer of civilization’ in all apparent earnestness.  In keeping with this he has always spoken the language of talk radio. Since his days in Congress he has described most every policy debate in terms of Wagnerian struggle between angels and demons.  Best of all he treats women not just as property but specifically as cars, trading an old one for a newer model as soon as she gets worn out and taking the odd one for a test drive every now and then; just like a strong, virile, self-assured, Captain Among Men is supposed to.  For those concerned with reenforcing traditional hierarchy and measures of status, what isn’t there to like? 

Nah, that probably wouldn’t do it – it certainly didn’t affect GWB in any way shape or form.

Throughout his letter, Land advises Gingrich to give this speech for one and only one reason: to win over evangelical voters.

I wasn’t aware that the Gingrinch was failing to win the support of Evangelical voters.

A purported expert on Christian ethics is suggesting that Gingrich should publicly apologize for his past actions in order to be seen as having apologized?  Why does the phrase “they have their reward” come to mind?

Yeah, Evangelicals are nothing if not hypocritical about the issue of divorce. 

The job application for Focus on The Family has been making the rounds recently because it includes an affirmation of policy that FotF employees have to sign, which says pretty much what you’d expect. That includes a lot of rather muddle language about not denying civil rights to QUITBAG folks, but opposing the ever-popular “special rights”. 

It also includes the following statement about the 3 situations in which it is acceptable to divorce. 

Sharp-eyed slacktivites will notice that there’s no scripture reference for the 3rd one. Funny that. 

Yeah, Evangelicals are nothing if not hypocritical about the issue of divorce.

The hypocrisy belongs with Gingrinch — not necessarily with Evangelicals who support his candidacy.

Sharp-eyed slacktivites will notice that there’s no scripture reference for the 3rd one. Funny that.

I’d go with 1 Corinthians 7, personally…

What’s the FotF job application? *hasn’t seen it*

Flipping thru my Doonesbury’s the other day I came across a strip from around this time in 1984, just after Reagan trounced Mondale (from the collection “Check Your Ego’s at the Door”)

Rick Redfern is home after a night drowning his liberal sorrows… His wife Joanie Caucus is scolding him,
Joanie: “Listen Rick, next time you feel like binging remember you have a family, OK?
Rick: I’m sorry Babe, I thought I was over the election. What if it wasn’t just a triumph of personality Joanie? What if its a real revolution? What if one day my kid wakes up in a country run by Newt Gingrich?
Joanie: By a What?
Rick: Newt Gingrich
Joanie: Sounds like a creature from “Dune”
Rick: Joanie… if something happens to me, you must tell our son about Adlai Stevenson!

 The hypocrisy belongs with Gingrinch — not necessarily with Evangelicals who support his candidacy.  

I disagree. Evangelicals have made opposition to marriage equality on of their main issues and their supposed reason for doing that is to “protect marriage” from the evil cooties teh ghays will get on it if they’re allowed to make their unions legal in the eyes of the state. 

At the same time that they’re making both money and political hay from protecting God’s Plan For Marriage they’re relaxing their standards on divorce without acknowledging that they’re doing so and supporting the candidacy of a thrice married serial adulterer. I call shenanigans. 

I have zero interest in giving people a hard time about getting divorced. That’s not what this is about. (I judge Gingrich for being a heartless liar and a raging hypocrite, not for the divorces per se.) The thing is, I’m not judging gay and lesbian marriages either and I think that matters rather a lot. 

 What’s the FotF job application? *hasn’t seen it*  

I was mistaken. The policy statement isn’t part of their job applicaiton, it’s part of the application for the Focus Leadership Institute. The Institute is to Focus on the Family more or less what the college Republicans are the GOP. 

http://www.focusleadership.org/images/mmDocument/FLI_Application%20April%202011%20edit.pdf

Just found the FotF thing… It makes me want to edit it – but, on the other hand, I actually like the fact that it’s staying unedited, rather than making them seem more competent and thoughtful than they actually are.

We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father and in His personal return to power and glory.

Personally, I believe in not capitalising pronouns just to make your words look fancy…

This obviously includes not only two-parent households but also single-parent families, many of which are succeeding through personal courage and hard work.

Whereas two-parent households never need courage or hard work, nosiree.

Other definitions, such as “any cluster of people who live together and purport to love one another,” are suspect, for they can be expanded to include everyone except complete strangers.

“People use these words in ways we’re uncomfortable with, so we’re going to pretend they can’t.”

Further, the word family becomes fair game for opportunists eager to press it into questionable service and exploit it for their own political or social ends.

…much like you’re doing, in fact.

While feminism and some psychological views may maintain that the sexes are identical except for a few physical differences, males and females are in fact different from one another in every cell of their bodies, because they have a different chromosomal pattern.

“Psychologists say that men and women are only different in a few physical ways. Whereas they’re actually different in EVERY POSSIBLE WAY, because… chromosomes!”

Though we do advocate corporal punishment under appropriate circumstances—specifically in cases of conscious, willful disobedience on the part of a young child—we are too well acquainted with the horrors of child abuse. He has consistently recommended extreme caution in the application of this technique or any other approach to punishment.

…they’ve just anthropomorphised “the horrors of child abuse”, and declared that Mr Horrors recommends caution.

PRONOUNS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.

There is no evidence that homosexuals, as a class, are discriminated against in the present society.

…seriously?

SERIOUSLY????

Like I said – they really need an editor. But I’m not feeling inclined to help them. Even when I agree with something they’re saying, the smug way they’re saying it makes me want to disagree with them, just out of spite.

Totally OT, but I wanted to mention that I just validated my NaNoWriMo novel:  60,727 words.
I got a little lazy after hitting 50K, so it took me until yesterday to get back to it and actually finish the story. 
It could have been longer – and most likely will be after the editing and rewriting process – but that was good enough for 29 days, I think.
And as lazy – and rushed –  as I was, I still think I put more care and love of the craft into it than someone whose name rhymes with Barry Benkins…

“He believes that what he says in public and how he lives don’t have to be connected,” she says. “If you believe that, then yeah, you can run for president.”

Unless, of course, the person is a Democrat, in which case the private life must be held to the highest standard, with any failure being a excuse to not merely not vote for him, but to lie, cheat, and steal to keep him out of office.

“Personally, I believe in not capitalising pronouns just to make your words look fancy…”

God, when given a pronoun, is called “He”, and although Jesus, when referred to as “he”, doesn’t usually get a pronoun, by calling Jesus a “He” they’re making a strong connection between Jesus and God. It’s theologically sound, even if it goes against the norm of what I’ve seen, so I don’t see it as them trying to embellish things.

“Whereas two-parent households never need courage or hard work, nosiree.”

I think you’re being a bit unfair here. They didn’t say that, just that single-parent families often need those qualities, and one could read it as referring to both.

“And as lazy – and rushed – as I was, I still think I put more care and love of the craft into it than someone whose name rhymes with Barry Benkins… ”

Leroy Jenkins?

Such a speech would not convince everyone to vote for
you, but it might surprise you how many Evangelicals, immersed in a
spiritual tradition of confession, redemption, forgiveness and second
and third chances for straight, rich right wingers, might fall for it.

Your fellow American, Richard Land

Fixed that for you.

Applause! Applause!

Good for you. 

That truly reached Swiftian proportions.  If I hadn’t actually heard it came from his mouth, I would have thought it was a Colbert quote, although even he doesn’t say things that horrible as a joke.  I think Colbert’s changed his schtick somewhat because he realizes he can’t say even jokingly a lot of the horribly hurtful things the real candidates are saying and still stay within his own moral code.

I tend to be a bit inconsistent about the capitalization thing, personally.

God, when given a pronoun, is called “He”, and although Jesus, when
referred to as “he”, doesn’t usually get a pronoun, by calling Jesus a
“He” they’re making a strong connection between Jesus and God. It’s
theologically sound, even if it goes against the norm of what I’ve seen,
so I don’t see it as them trying to embellish things.

Not in the Bible, they aren’t.

I mean “theologically sound” in the context of Jesus = God.

Yeah, but why are they using an upper-case “He” for God in the first place?

…to look fancy, that’s why.

That’s pretty common to do in order to differentiate people or deities of great importance. Whether style guides say yes or no doesn’t change the cultural background of calling god “God” and him “Him”. I don’t think it’s something specific to looking fancy, just showing respect and emphasis, and I don’t think it’s specific to FoTF, either. That, and there are numerous times when God is referred to as THE LORD – all capitals – in the Bible.

 I’m not sure if Newt did anythign with those books other than provide the basic plot ideas. I’ve looked at some of Forstchen’s novels, and he’s not a very good writer himself. (Probably better than L&J, but that’s a really low hurdle.)

 How long did it take her to actually figure it out? Because it seem to me that it should have been obvious right then.

calling god “God”

That would be because “God” is a proper noun. Not a pronoun.

That, and there are numerous times when God is referred to as THE LORD – all capitals – in the Bible.

That’s a convention used to indicate that the original Hebrew said “Yahweh”, as opposed to another name for God. It has nothing to do with respect or emphasis.

I don’t think it’s specific to FoTF, either.

Didn’t say it was.

 I’m not sure if Newt did anythign with those books other than provide the basic plot ideas.  

Even so, the ideas are a huge part of the problem. Newt fancies himself a historian. He is not. 

 How long did it take her to actually figure it out? Because it seem to me that it should have been obvious right then.  

It took her until he did it to her. And yeah, she should have noticed way earlier. Like when she & the Newtster were banging it out while A) his wife was sick and B) he was trying to impeach Clinton for having an affair. (I didn’t say I thought she was significantly better than her ex-husband.) 

“Didn’t say it was.”

But you singled them out as doing it to be fancy. I think that’s a dumb thing to criticize them for.

Is “God” a proper noun, though?  Or is it, in the case of Abrahamic faiths, serving contextual proper noun duty?

[/pedantic]

But you singled them out as doing it to be fancy.

1) They are doing it to be fancy.
2) The document I was looking at was written by FotF. I’m hardly going to examine a document written by them and criticise a writing issue done by NASA in an unrelated publication, am I?

I think that’s a dumb thing to criticize them for.

That is your right.

“1) They are doing it to be fancy.”

I capitalize Him, and I don’t do it to be fancy: I do it because I’ve always seen it written that way in CCD. It’s just my background, and I don’t even believe in God. Not everything that’s different is intentionally and deliberately so.

“I’m hardly going to examine a document written by them and criticise a writing issue done by NASA in an unrelated publication, am I?”

You singled out THAT instance as something worthy of commenting on when there’s plenty of other crap FoTF says and does. It’s not worth commenting on.

Good point. I’d tend to say it is a proper noun, simply because English neglects to have another standard name for the Christian deity. But I might be wrong.

Thoughts?

An easy solution to the world’s human caused problems; women refuse to have sex with arrogant, aggressively ignorant, violence worshiping control freaks. (I know, that seems to be the demographic that has the least trouble getting laid.)

Nice job! b

Because gay people don’t exist, women can’t be arrogant, ignorant, violence-worshiping control freaks, and it’s always up to  women to control the behavior of men. With sex. (See: culture, rape).

Yeah, how ’bout no.

Promise your fellow Americans that if they are generous enough to trust you with the presidency, you will not let them down and that there will be no moral scandals in a Gingrich White House.

So a Gingrich White House will not stand idly by while people in the world’s richest country suffer from poverty; will not endorse or engage in torture, acts of war and subversion of the will of people in foreign countries in the name of democracy; will not use its power to further the distance between the powerful and the masses; will put the lives of the vulnerable ahead of the profit margins of the rich? Excellent.

Or by moral, do you mean sex and sex only?

I just do not understand how anyone can find Gingrich likable. He has repeatedly demonstrated hypocrisy and errors in judgement, along with a personality that seems more bitter than his face looks. How does he get any support at all?

He favours rich people. You can get away with a hell of a lot as long as you keep the money coming to the right people.

I still can’t believe that the same guy who publicly stated that he thought child labor laws were stupid and schools should replace adequately-paid adult janitors with poor children is still a serious presidential contender.

He did not! /disbelieving

Anyone gotta link for that, cos…just…bloody hell

“(I know, that seems to be the demographic that has the least trouble getting laid.)”

This is starting to sound like complaining that all women like jerks instead of nice guys, and that complaint seriously bugs me. It’s not borne out by anything in my personal experience.

An easy solution to the world’s human caused problems; women refuse to have sex with arrogant, aggressively ignorant, violence worshiping control freaks. (I know, that seems to be the demographic that has the least trouble getting laid.) 

Alternative solution 1: people stop being arrogant, aggressively ignorant, violence worshipping control freaks.

Alternative solution 2: people who know someone who is an arrogant, aggressively ignorant, violence worshipping control freak tell them that they are such and refuse to placate them regardless of what personal goodies are on offer.

Add to that the notion that all of these traits are purely genetic. What that says is that we shouldn’t waste time or breath in combating these attitudes because they’re there from birth and nothing will stop that, not teaching, not experience with people, and certainly not personal growth and self-respect.

Yeah, this. Divorce, adultery–I don’t actually care. (Although abandoning someone on her deathbed is a whole level of suck.) But when it’s from someone whose supporters are all about the Sanctity of Marriage and how sex should only exist in said sanctity and blah blah blah…different kettle of fish.

Re: the child-janitor issue.

I currently live and work in Japan, and here students are absolutely expected to help clean up their schools, along with teachers. I’ve come to appreciate it, because what really peeved me about Gingrich’s comments was not the idea but the justification for it. In Japan, the idea is that it teaches students to be respectful of their school and to take pride in it. If they have to clean it, then they’re less likely to mess it up. For Gingrich, it was a “get kids to work as cheap labor!”

 Anyone gotta link for that, cos…just…bloody hell  

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/newt-gingrich-thinks-school-children-should-work-as-janitors/248837/

Why Evangelicals love Newt without regard to the fact that he’s now Catholic and that his sexual history is rather sorted—he says what they want to hear. The fact that he’s lying like a cheap rug while doing it certainly not a problem.

 Now the good news for all of you is you represent the vast majority.
Ninety percent of the country believes the words of the Founding
Fathers are relevant today. Eighty-five or ninety percent actually
believes – over ninety percent of the country believes young people
should be allowed to have a moment of silent prayer every morning. The
country overwhelmingly believes that “one nation under God” should
remain in the Pledge of Allegiance.

But we have allowed ourselves to be bullied, harassed, intimidated,
and dominated by a tiny elite using the courts, using the news media,
using the entertainment community, using the bureaucracy to coerce the
American people against their will. It is fundamentally anti-freedom,
fundamentally anti-democratic and the core meaning of the 2012 is to
stand up and say “no, the eighty percent of the country that actually
believes in classical America is now about to take back power from the
minority elite.”  

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/gingrich-tells-religious-right-audience-they-must-take-power-back-minority-elite

Oh god, you’re one of those “nice guys”, aren’t you?

@Louis: I now wonder if Rick is considering hitting the bottle again after realizing what a tool his son’s grown up to be.

This exactly.

Alternative solution 1: people stop being arrogant, aggressively ignorant, violence worshipping control freaks.

They’ll stop when we stop rewarding them for it. Whenever someone campaigns on a platform of violence-worship and control freakdom, DON’T VOTE FOR THEM. Even if they share your views on the estate tax. Problem solved, and no sex required.

Although I will say that you probably shouldn’t have sex with Newt Gingrich regardless of his political views since he is already in a committed monogamous relationship.

What just blows my mind is that he published this.  It wasn’t leaked.  He put it right out there where anyone can read it.

At the same time that they’re making both money and political hay from protecting God’s Plan For Marriage they’re relaxing their standards on divorce without acknowledging that they’re doing so and supporting the candidacy of a thrice married serial adulterer. I call shenanigans.

The election is for president, not pastor.

Hypothetically: If you had to choose between Mitt Romney and John Edwards, would you vote for the candidate who more closely shares your positions on the issues you value most?  Or would you vote for the candidate who did not have a long-term affair with a campaign staffer while his wife was dying of cancer, did not lie about it repeatedly, did not deny his own out-of-wedlock child — but rather the candidate whose positions on the key issues are more diametrically opposed to your own?  In other words, when choosing a candidate, how does one weigh the candidate’s personal sins versus his political philosophy (and other considerations, such as electability)?

Hypothetically: If you had to choose between Mitt Romney and John Edwards, would you vote for the candidate who more closely shares your positions on the issues you value most?

You raise a good point if that hypothetical situation was one that real voters are facing now, but the reality of this race is that it isn’t really between candidates who are “diametrically opposed” to each other at all. Romney, Gingrich, Cain, Perry, and Bachmann are different, but they have enough similarities in terms of political positions that if (for example) Bachmann decided to drop out of the race to pursue other goals you could comfortably vote for Perry instead without violating your major values and beliefs.

Your hypothetical skips a pretty big step; before Gingrich asks the American people to choose him over Obama, he first has to ask them to choose him over Romney, Cain, Perry, Bachmann, Huntsman, and Paul. While it’s probably safe to write off the last two right now, Perry and Cain are still out there and Romney and Gingrich are actually neck-and-neck right now. Conservatives don’t have to think of their choice as “Obama v. Gingrich” right now — they have the honor of selecting among half a dozen right-wing candidates, most of whom don’t have Gingrich’s baggage.

Sometimes assholes are just assholes, not poor lost lambs in need of liberation.

The assholes might not need liberation, but the rest of the society certainly needs to be freed from their hatred, otherwise they’ll continue influencing it based on that hatred. And the “lost lamb in need of liberation” -approach is a lot less likely to backfire spetacularly than the “asshole in need of kicking” -one.

Besides, how would one be “lost” without being an asshole? Unless the whole “lost vs. saved” thing amounts to knowing or not knowing theological trivia, it seems to me that it’s pretty much synonymous to “asshole vs. not asshole”.

 The election is for president, not pastor.  

Yes, it is. Which is one of the many reasons that Evangelicals need to stop trying to make their religious views the law of the land. 

The Romney vs Edwards choice is a false comparison. I never have an never will campaign to make it illegal to commit adultery or to father a child out of wedlock. The day I start a group called Protect Marriage Now or some such crap and send you an urgent fund raising appeal to support the campaign to throw adulterers in jail or strip baby daddies of their civil rights then you should feel free to give me a ration of shit about what a hypocrite I am for voting for Edwards over Romney. Until then the comparison is bullshit.

Also, what Charity said. 

I’m way behind,  but yeah, Rick has never really “got” his kid.

Sadly for Rick, I think he understands Jeff all too well. 

http://doonesbury.com/strip/archive/2011/11/23

If they weren’t, talking about their “faith journey” and tearing up a
little while reciting their conversion story and announcing that God
told them to run wouldn’t be stations of the cross for people seeking
the GOP nomination for president

Aren’t stations of the cross a little too Catholic?

I’m not convinced he DOESN’T eat babies. Find any picture of Newt where he’s smiling: that is the smile of someone who has just eaten a plump, juicy newborn. 

What’s the FotF job application? 
Something to use if you’re out of toilet paper. Aren’t they downsizing like it was going out of style?

I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘committed’…

I would vote for Edwards. Any day.

But Edwards didn’t either try to get a former President impeached over a consensual affair or lead a party attempting to restrict other people’s sex lives.

So in voting for Edwards, I wouldn’t be a hypocrite.

First of all, I would vote for John Edwards because Edwards belonged to the Democratic party and will, above all else, serve, like all Democrats, as a bulwark against the traitors and monsters that wholesale comprise the top crust of conservatism in America. This country has come so far that i will vote Not-Republican every single fucking time, and I’ll hate the person I’m voting for, but the alternative is too horrible to consider. Staying home or voting Republican is throwing my tiny little chunk of voting power behind Evil, capital E.

Evil or Not Evil? Not necessarily Good, or even Neutral, but just Not Actively Fucking Everything Up All The Time. It’s a stark place to be at and a stark outlook upon American politics but it’s where we’re at.

I’m sure that the vast majority of women prefer “nice guys”. (I think it was historian Patricia Ireland who articulated the 15% jerk rule; not much more or less than 15% of a given group are jerks.) I have, however watched in amazement as beautiful, intelligent, progressive women fall for jerks. I don’t know any jerks who have trouble attracting women. This especially seems to apply to those in positions of power or celebrity. I also recognize that jerkism is not entirely genetic. If people like Newt conspicuously had trouble attracting women, you would find that those men who could go either way would stop being jerks. I’m not in a position to judge whether I am a “nice guy”, but I am fairly talented, athletic, well read and unwillingly celibate. That may account for my bitterness.

I prefer to think of it as the “I just widdled on you” expression.

 Aren’t stations of the cross a little too Catholic?  

Newt’s Catholic these days and they’re still fine with him, so I figured one more Catholic thing wouldn’t hurt. 

Dude, the problem isn’t that you’re a “nice guy”, it’s that you’re a “Nice Guy”. A “Nice Guy” is not a good thing to be. You may want to work on letting that bitterness go. 

The nice guy versus Nice Guy distinction, explained:

A nice guy is a guy who is nice.

A Nice Guy is a guy who thinks his niceness* somehow has earned him sex from the woman he finds attractive, and resents attractive women who choose to sleep with someone he considers less worthy, instead of him.  He can often be heard complaining “Why don’t women ever go for nice guys?”, hence the label. 

This is generally considered indicative of an unhealthy attitude about women, in as much as the Nice Guy tends to be focused on how the woman is wronging him by sleeping with That Jerk**, and tends to have an unspoken sense of entitlement when it comes to sex, as though women are obligated to sleep with him if he says or does the right thing.

I have plenty of experience with unwilling celibacy, and I know it can suck.  And sadly, I don’t have a great answer.  But it’s not going to be fixed by holding women collectively responsible for the bad behavior of certain men. 

*How nice a Nice Guy actually is varies considerably.

**That Jerk can be anything from a genuinely horrible person to a decent guy who the resentful Nice Guy assumes is a jerk, based on him being cool and popular

Having students collectively work to help maintain the school is different from “Poor kids should be janitors.”  Having it be everyone’s responsibility makes a difference in everything from the practical effect on study time (kids who come from families with money aren’t going to get a “Well, I don’t need to work” leg up on other children), to the social message it sends (“We all need to work together” instead of “Hey, rich kid!  Those poor children exist to clean up after your mess!  Enjoy!”). 

that his sexual history is rather sorted
Sordid?

 As long as they’re going to be talking about morality as part of their political campaign strategy, their personal morals are fair game.

Missing the point there.

Oops. 

To reiterate, jerk is not someone I dislike but an arrogant, aggressively ignorant, violence worshipping, control freak; independently verifiable criteia. Whether I am a nice guy or a Nice Guy is immaterial. The problem contiues to be that jerks get laid when they want and, no doubt with many exceptions, by whom they want. I would welcome evidence to the contrary.

To reiterate, jerk is not someone I dislike but an arrogant, aggressively ignorant, violence worshipping, control freak; independently verifiable criteia. Whether I am a nice guy or a Nice Guy is immaterial.

By your definition, must someone be all four of those things to be a jerk, or will one or two do? Because you’ve got two of them going for you right this very minute, arrogance and aggressive ignorance, and that’s just what I’ve independently verified by looking at your second sentence.

Let’s say your jerks really are jerks.  Are you really convinced that being denied sex, specifically, would lead to them becoming better people, instead of simply resenting women for not sleeping with them?  Because I’ve seen the MRA forums, and there are plenty of jerks who can’t get a woman to touch them with a ten-foot pole, and they don’t become better people because of it.  I’m not convinced that “Jerks who would become nice people if denied sex” is such a huge contingent, particularly when you factor in the other social rewards for professional jerks like Gingrich (such as attention, money, and power). 

Probably, there are some jerks who would act nicer to get sex, even if it’s only a small percentage.  Here’s the problem with your proposed solution – women are not a collective.  We aren’t one homogenous club of conventionally-attractive heterosexuals who collaborate on who to sleep with.  We are not the Borg, really.  I can go around refusing to sleep with jerks all I want, and most of them will simply respond “As if I’d ever want you, fatty!” and carry on being jerks.*  (Plus, I’m a lesbian, so rewarding men for niceness with sex would be genuinely unpleasant for me, and if I’m not sleeping with any man, it rather dilutes the message of refusing to sleep with Newt Gingrich.)  “Women shouldn’t sleep with jerks” is every bit as impractical as “Men shouldn’t be jerks”, features the same  over-generalization (quite a lot of men are not jerks, and quite a lot of women don’t sleep with jerks), and has the added downside on focusing on a factor that might possibly contribute to the problem indirectly, instead of dealing with the actual cause.

Maybe you mean “The specific beautiful, intelligent, progressive women I am thinking of should stop sleeping with jerks.”  In that case, you should stop generalizing about women and make it about “These particular friends of mine.”  Also, if you’re concerned about controlling the jerks, than either hold the jerk responsible or attempt to control them yourself, rather than blaming women for failing at the task you have arbitrarily assigned our gender.

While I’m sure Mrs. Gingrich is in a committed monogamous relationship, I wouldn’t bet that Newt is.

Find any picture of Newt where he’s smiling: that is the smile of someone who has just eaten a plump, juicy newborn.

…How do are you so familiar with eating plump, juicy newborns, and the expressions the result?

While feminism and some psychological views may maintain that the sexes are identical except for a few physical differences, males and females are in fact different from one another in every cell of their bodies, because they have a different chromosomal pattern.

Whaa… what?  By this logic, every person is a different species, because they have different genes.  This is… what?

On the other discussion, maybe jerks are more easily manipulated?

I have plenty of experience with unwilling celibacy, and I know it can
suck.  And sadly, I don’t have a great answer.  But it’s not going to be
fixed by holding women collectively responsible for the bad behavior of
certain men.

*points* Agreed, and well said!

“How does he get any support at all?”

The Christian Right doesn’t seek out or vote for paragons of virtue.  They seek out and vote for mirrors.  Whatever else Newt does, he mirrors the conservative tendancy to point out the motes in the eyes of others regardless of the log jams in his own.

I don’t know any jerks who have trouble attracting women.

I do.

I wonder if men and women have different perceptions of whether someone is a jerk?

The problem contiues to be that jerks get laid when they want and, no doubt with many exceptions, by whom they want. I would welcome evidence to the contrary.     

Yeah, I’m still going to disagree with you there and insist that the problem is that jerks are jerks. I couldn’t care less if someone has consensual sex with them.

Take it to your therapist, buddy.

If you’re not paying me a hundred bucks an hour, I’m not giving a damn about how BOO HOO GIRLS DON’T LIKE YOU.

Right, this.

I’ll start caring if a friend of mine starts dating said jerk, a little, both because I’ll get concerned and because ugh, now I can’t invite her to a damn party without also getting a jumbo-size side order of That Guy, but such is life.

The problem contiues to be that jerks get laid when they want and, no doubt with many exceptions, by whom they want. I would welcome evidence to the contrary.

You’re being a jerk.  You’re not getting laid when you want.

Evidence to the contrary provided.

I will confess that in High School and College, I was a “Nice Guy”.  I don’t think I was a jerk about it, but I will say that I didn’t understand why being a nice guy was not enough to get dates.  In the decades since then, I have learned…
1. Being a nice guy is the start, not the end, of the process.
2. Hygiene is important, even critical.
3. Appearence matters.  Not the things you can’t change (hair color, skin tone, shape of nose) but the things you can: hair style and length, condition/cleanliness of clothing, neatness of facial hair.
4. To get a date, you have to *ask*.
5. Location, location, location.  Young ladies do not go to the supermarket to pick up guys, hitting on a lady you just met in the express lane doesn’t work.  That isn’t to say you can’t meet a lady in a supermarket, and eventually date her, but circumstances matter.
 
Thats off the top of my head, and probably poorly phrased.
I went from being dateless to having some success after I joined the Navy, not because I was in the military, but because the military enforced standards on me that matched items 2 and 3, and taught me about 4 and 5.

I will point out that there are in fact some women who are attracted to jerks.  

One young woman I had a brief thing with told me that she was attracted to guys who acted like assholes to other people, but really sweet to her, because it made her feel special.  Though I did not say it to her face, I felt like she was just setting herself up to get hurt with that kind of attitude.  Another female friend of mine admitted to feeling turned on to some anonymous guy on the internet who left insulting comments directed at me on my blog, precisely because he was being a jerk.  

Fortunately, my observation is that such attraction is often a maturity thing.  Only a few women are so attracted, and most of them eventually grow out of it after enough bad experiences leaves them burned out on assholes.  The few who do not grow out of it… well, things often get pretty unpleasant for them, sadly.  

That said, I do try to be “nice” but I do not feel like that entitles me to any sort of sex.  However, I do take umbrage with the jerks who think that they get such an entitlement.  That is actually a big part of why they are jerks.  

If an apology must be made, why should Newt be the only one to apologize to evangelical women voters? Newt lived and slept with his present wife Callista while he was still married to his second wife Marianne. (NY Daily News – Aug 12, 1999). Was this adulterous cohabitation non-consensual?

More likely, Callista knowingly engaged in a sexual affair with another woman’s husband; she consciously facilitated the destruction of another couples’ marriage. And now she would be our First Lady? How do evangelical wives, mothers and voters feel about that?!

Why don’t Newt and Callista both apologize to Marianne, before they apologize to any “Christian conservative” interest group.

If the social conservative movement gets behind a man like Newt Gingrich, social conservatism is done for.

Any authentic social conservative ought to agree with Newt’s ex-wife Marianne, “I don’t want him to be president and I don’t think he should be” (Vanity Fair – Sep 1995).

So, men are never attracted to jerks?

Points well taken.

Newt’s been their man since he was speaker, even if they subsequently had to hide him for a bit because every worthwhile human being had realized what a monster he was and cast him out into the cold. Hence, his amazing return to politics. He’s never going to win, but conservatives just can’t seem to quit him. He’s such a perfect man to represent their true values and true honor.

It appears that way. Newt is an experienced adulterer, and he loves big government, endless war and torture. It is sad to see what “conservatism” has become.

I will still submit that none of the few jerks I have known personally over the years has had trouble attracting women. I cannot think of any famous jerks who have had trouble either. As to whether I am an exception, I will defer to the opinions of my friends.
(I’m sure I’m a jerk at least 15% of the time)
The Lysystrata stategy apparently helped end the Liberian civil war. (BBC interview with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf). A similar strategy coupled with a larger effort to not richly reward jerklike behaviour would probably do a lot to fix what is wrong with our society.

The reason why “jerks get girls” is, as I understand it, purely statistical, anyway.

Since they likely tend to approach women more readily than, say, a less socially gregarious type might, then odds are on that one woman will eventually respond to the jerk’s strategy.

There’s nothing magic about that. Given any finite nonzero probability of occurrence of something, it’s like rolling a die with 1/probability number of sides, provided that one event doesn’t influence the next (a reasonably good approximation in a club or bar or other social scene with little chance for people rejecting the jerk to communicate this to others – think of it as being like a more complicated coin toss).

Well, roll the die enough times, the number’ll come up.

So I wouldn’t waste time or energy fuming over jerks, or otherwise falling into the trap of Nice Guy behavior. Not when there are other factors that would work in your favor provided you shifted your outlook.

Another reason “jerks get girls” has to do with false fronts.  They act one way with thier buddies, bragging about thier conquests (and being jerks to the nice guys who aren’t getting anywhere) while acting a different way with 1. girls they want to get with 2. girls they are getting with and 3. girls they’ve dumped.  With increasing jerkiness the higher the number.