George Will Rips Gingrich, Huckabee and Malzberg
As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee was lambasted by numerous liberal media outlets for comments he made to conservative radio host Steve Malzberg regarding President Obama's past. Surprisingly joining in the harsh criticism was George Will whose column to be published in Sunday's Washington Post also excoriated former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as well as Malzberg: If pessimism is not creeping on little cat's feet into Republicans' thinking about their 2012 presidential prospects, that is another reason for pessimism. This is because it indicates they do not understand that sensible Americans, who pay scant attention to presidential politics at this point in the electoral cycle, must nevertheless be detecting vibrations of weirdness emanating from people associated with the party. Will then quoted one of Malzberg's many questions to Huckabee during his Febuary 28 interview, and actually said the former governor's answer should have been, “I've seen paranoia, goodbye.” After noting some of Huckabee's actual answer, Will continued: Republicans should understand that when self-described conservatives such as Malzberg voice question-rants like the one above and Republicans do not recoil from them, the conservative party is indirectly injured. As it is directly when Newt Gingrich , who seems to be theatrically tiptoeing toward a presidential candidacy, speculates about Obama having a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” mentality. After indirectly referring to Dinesh D'Souza's Forbes piece from last year involving Obama's Kenyan anti-colonial worldview, and how Gingrich spoke of it to National Review's Robert Costa, Will concluded: To the notion that Obama has a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview, the sensible response is: If only. Obama's natural habitat is as American as the nearest faculty club; he is a distillation of America's academic mentality; he is as American as the other professor-president, Woodrow Wilson. A question for former history professor Gingrich: Why implicate Kenya? Let us not mince words. There are at most five plausible Republican presidents on the horizon – Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Utah governor and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Massachusetts governor Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. So the Republican winnowing process is far advanced. But the nominee may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons. What is one to make of Will going after two prominent Republicans this way, especially as Huckabee is currently leading the possible GOP candidate field according to a just-released NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll ? After a snippet of Will's piece was published by Politico early Friday morning, it was all the rage at MSNBC getting covered by Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow on their respective programs. One can only imagine how much play this will get in the next 48 hours, as liberal media members love quoting conservative commentators when they go after folks on the right. Will, of
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George Will Rips Gingrich, Huckabee and Malzberg
As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee was lambasted by numerous liberal media outlets for comments he made to conservative radio host Steve Malzberg regarding President Obama's past. Surprisingly joining in the harsh criticism was George Will whose column to be published in Sunday's Washington Post also excoriated former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as well as Malzberg: If pessimism is not creeping on little cat's feet into Republicans' thinking about their 2012 presidential prospects, that is another reason for pessimism. This is because it indicates they do not understand that sensible Americans, who pay scant attention to presidential politics at this point in the electoral cycle, must nevertheless be detecting vibrations of weirdness emanating from people associated with the party. Will then quoted one of Malzberg's many questions to Huckabee during his Febuary 28 interview, and actually said the former governor's answer should have been, “I've seen paranoia, goodbye.” After noting some of Huckabee's actual answer, Will continued: Republicans should understand that when self-described conservatives such as Malzberg voice question-rants like the one above and Republicans do not recoil from them, the conservative party is indirectly injured. As it is directly when Newt Gingrich , who seems to be theatrically tiptoeing toward a presidential candidacy, speculates about Obama having a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” mentality. After indirectly referring to Dinesh D'Souza's Forbes piece from last year involving Obama's Kenyan anti-colonial worldview, and how Gingrich spoke of it to National Review's Robert Costa, Will concluded: To the notion that Obama has a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview, the sensible response is: If only. Obama's natural habitat is as American as the nearest faculty club; he is a distillation of America's academic mentality; he is as American as the other professor-president, Woodrow Wilson. A question for former history professor Gingrich: Why implicate Kenya? Let us not mince words. There are at most five plausible Republican presidents on the horizon – Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Utah governor and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Massachusetts governor Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. So the Republican winnowing process is far advanced. But the nominee may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons. What is one to make of Will going after two prominent Republicans this way, especially as Huckabee is currently leading the possible GOP candidate field according to a just-released NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll ? After a snippet of Will's piece was published by Politico early Friday morning, it was all the rage at MSNBC getting covered by Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow on their respective programs. One can only imagine how much play this will get in the next 48 hours, as liberal media members love quoting conservative commentators when they go after folks on the right. Will, of
