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When disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) announced his opposition to the House Republican budget plan over the weekend, the pushback from the right was as brutal as it was intense. Helping lead the charge was Rush Limbaugh, arguably the nation’s most powerful Republican, who was incensed by Gingrich’s comments.
It didn’t help when the Gingrich campaign lashed out at “minions” engaged in “cowardly” attacks — a group that apparently included Limbaugh.
Today, the ignominious GOP presidential candidate, scrambling to save his ruined reputation, tried to put things right by talking to Limbaugh directly.
Newt Gingrich appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show this afternoon to explain the whole dust-up since he blasted Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicare-privatizing budget proposal as “right-wing social engineering.” Gingrich’s latest explanation: He wasn’t talking about Ryan or the budget at all!
And what’s more, he’s supported that budget and Ryan’s plan ever since Ryan briefed him on it, weeks before its public announcement.
Referring to his “Meet the Press” appearance, Gingrich actually argued his condemnation of “right-wing social engineering” was “not a reference to Paul Ryan. There was no reference to Paul Ryan in that answer.”
Limbaugh responded, “Well then what did you apologize to him about?”
“Because,” Newt said, it was interpreted in a way, which was causing trouble.”
While Gingrich is pretending he wasn’t talking about Ryan, the transcript proves otherwise. Ryan’s name wasn’t used explicitly, at least at first, but David Gregory asked about the House Republican approach to Medicare privatization. “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” Gingrich said. “I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.”
Gregory then added that Gingrich’s line is “not what Paul Ryan is suggesting, which is completely changing Medicare.” The Republican candidate replied, “I think that that is too big a jump.”
In other words, Gingrich blatantly lied to Limbaugh on the air today. I wonder if the host will mind.
Gingrich added today that his campaign is the sort of phenomenon that happens only “once or twice in a century.”
On this, I’m inclined to agree. Presidential candidates as breathtakingly ridiculous as Newt Gingrich are incredibly rare, and are truly a sight to behold.
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ManOutOfTime on May 19, 2011 4:50 PM:
Newt, don't listen to Steve when he tells you to stop digging! Dig, baby, dig! Ignore the polls! Pleeeeease hang in there till Iowa!
chi res on May 19, 2011 4:54 PM:
In other words, Gingrich blatantly lied to Limbaugh on the air today. I wonder if the host will mind.
Hell, Limpbag probably told him exactly what to say to cover his ass.
MuddyLee on May 19, 2011 5:01 PM:
Rush and Newt on the air at the same time? I'm surprised there wasn't a massive earthquake brought on by colliding egos. Maybe it'll be delayed until May 21, the rapture day.
max on May 19, 2011 5:02 PM:
Scratch Huckabee. Scratch Trump. And Newt will not be missed either. He brings way too much baggage to this party, and in the current hyper-antagonistic environment coupled with 24/7 cable news, he was a timebomb waiting to explode. Time to thin out the rest of the herd starting with the loony second tier brigade and then move on to the gravitas wannabee guys. In a perfect world the GOPers will be unable to resolve their confusion run a tea bagger and a mainstream candidate.
hell's littlest angel on May 19, 2011 5:12 PM:
There's one thing you can't take away from poor Newt: he really, truly is the leading intellectual in the Republican party.
Oh, that is so delightfully fucking funny...
Lifelong Dem on May 19, 2011 5:14 PM:
Don't be so quick to count Newt out of the race. Hell, he's hung around for 13 damn years after resiging his speakership in disgrace. You think the GOP cares about his baggage or any three-dimensional flip-flopping he does this year?
If one poll comes out showing him competitive against Obama, the GOP will love him. That will wash away all his sins.
slappy magoo on May 19, 2011 5:17 PM:
Newt lied to Rush. But he also groveled at Rush's feet and kissed his ass so goo, he could probably feel the indentations in Rush's fat from the chair he was sitting on. In Rushville, that means it's all good.
SYSPROG on May 19, 2011 5:21 PM:
'Presidential candidates as breathtakingly ridiculous as Newt Gingrich are incredibly rare' ARE YOU KIDDING ME???
Palin, Trump, Bachman, Santorum, Huckabee...need I go on?
navamske on May 19, 2011 5:28 PM:
"Today, the ignominious GOP presidential candidate, scrambling to save his ruined reputation, tried to put things right by talking to Limbaugh directly."
I wasn't aware that Gingrich had a reputation to save.
sue on May 19, 2011 5:37 PM:
Looks like Newtie put down the spade he was digging with and is now operating a steam shovel. Go, NEWT!!
Jim H on May 19, 2011 5:45 PM:
@SYSPROG: I have to disagree. As entertaining as Trump, Palin, et al. have been, Newt's multiple unforced errors put him in a different class. Just ask Tiffany...
EthylEster on May 19, 2011 6:30 PM:
Did you closely proof-read your post? I caught a couple of minor errors.
PLEASE keep your writing standards as high as they have been in the past! I come here for the excellent analysis AND the careful prose.
Also: am I the only human who has to click "Try another challenge" about ten times to get one that I (a human) can actually read?
Oh my on May 19, 2011 6:51 PM:
Shorter Gingrich:
Oh, THAT Paul Ryan. I thought Gregory was talking about a different Paul Ryan.
LoveHate on May 19, 2011 8:09 PM:
"Presidential candidates as breathtakingly ridiculous as Newt Gingrich are incredibly rare..." Only if by "rare" you mean ordinary. Seriously, Jesus Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Donald Trump are at least equally as ridiculous as Gingrich who actually has a politically conservative history.
idlemind on May 19, 2011 10:31 PM:
Newt, the Charlie Sheen of politics (minus, as far as we know, the drugs).
Kane on May 19, 2011 11:01 PM:
Shortly after the House vote for the GOP/Ryan plan, Republicans were slowly moving away from the policy after getting an earful from their constituents back home. Speaker John Boehner was recently distancing himself from the GOP plan, telling reporters that he wasn't "wedded to one single idea" and that other people have other plans. And it was reported here and elsewhere that Senate Republicans were positioning to vote against the plan. It had become obvious that the plan to dismantle Medicare was a political loser, and certainly not an issue Republicans wanted to fight going into the election year.
But Newt has made things difficult. It would have been forgivable for Newt to simply disagree with the Ryan plan. What is not forgivable is his choice of words in expressing his disagreement. Calling the plan "radical" and describing it as "right-wing social engineering" is what set the Republican world afire and causing Republican supporters in the media and blogosphere to overreact. They could have simply shrugged it off as Newt being Newt. However, by overreacting they have not only forced Republicans to own their vote for the controversial plan, they have put the plan front and center for 2012.
C on May 20, 2011 1:01 AM:
It's turtles all the way down.
jsjiowa on May 20, 2011 10:28 AM:
I saw the video clips of Rush on-air with Newt. Rush was visibly rolling his eyes and communicating through other body language that he thought Newt was full of it. I don't expect Rush's future commentary about Newt to be positive, no matter much Newt was attempting to grovel and pretzel-bend with Rush yesterday.
Anonymous on May 20, 2011 10:49 PM:
I don't know which is funnier, that Huckabee was their most plausible candidate or that he's the one with the good sense to quit.