The Gingrich Style
Posted on May 19, 2011
By Joe Conason
It is hard to see why anyone was surprised by Newt Gingrich’s self-ignited implosion in the earliest hours of his presidential candidacy. The career of the former House speaker and Georgia congressman is practically bursting with proof that he suffers from chronic paranoid hysteria—a condition that has done more to advance than diminish his status among conservatives.
They loved him until he aimed his vitriol against one of their own, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, deriding the Wisconsin Republican’s plan to gut Medicare as “right-wing social engineering.”
Inundated by denunciations from every quarter of his party and movement, Gingrich swiftly backtracked and apologized and tried to blame the media. But his former fans are perhaps beginning to realize what most Americans understood about him years ago—that he is wholly untrustworthy and unfit for leadership.
Addicted to excess in every facet of his life, Gingrich first became an important figure in the conservative movement almost two decades ago chiefly because—unlike the more decorous Republicans who then led his party—he was eager to utter the most vicious accusations against liberals and Democrats.
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http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/the_gingrich_style_20110519/
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