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Gingrich's Capital Crime
· Wednesday, December 14, 2011
WASHINGTON -- Newt Gingrich -- the friend of his detractors, to whom he offers serial vindications -- provided on Monday redundant evidence for the proposition that he is the least conservative candidate seeking the Republican nomination. He faulted Mitt Romney for committing acts of capitalism.
Gingrich did so when goaded by Romney regarding his, Gingrich's, self-described service as a "historian" for Freddie Mac, which paid him more handsomely than anyone paid Herodotus. Romney was asked by an interviewer about the $1.6 million Gingrich earned, or at any rate received, from Freddie Mac, the misbegotten government-backed mortgage giant. In the service of Washington's bipartisan certitude that too few people owned houses, Freddie Mac helped produce the housing bubble and subsequent crash. It did so even though it paid Gingrich $30,000 an hour. That is about what he received if, as he says, he worked for Freddie Mac about an hour a month, telling it that what it was doing was "insane."
Anyway, Romney's interviewer mischievously asked him if he thought Gingrich should "give that money back" to Freddie Mac. Romney said, "I sure do." Soon thereafter, Gingrich, when asked about Romney's cheeky judgment, replied: "I would just say that if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he's earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain, that I would be glad to listen to him."
This departure from his pledge that his campaign "will be relentlessly positive" represents the virtue of recycling applied to politics. Gingrich is reusing the attack honed by Ted Kennedy in 1994, when Romney suffered a 17-point loss in attempting to take Kennedy's Senate seat.
The Kennedy-Gingrich doctrine is this: What the economist Joseph Schumpeter called capitalism's "creative destruction" is not really creative. Rather, it is lamentable and, when facilitated by capitalists, reprehensible. For Kennedy, this made sense: Reactionary liberalism holds that whatever is, from Social Security to farm subsidies to the Chrysler Corp., should forever be. But Gingrich is supposedly our infallible guide to the sunny uplands of a dynamic future.
Gingrich has three verbal tics which, taken together -- and they usually come in clumps -- signal his depth and seriousness. Deploying his three F words, he announces his unique candor by prefacing this or that pronouncement with the word "frankly." What he frankly says is that "fundamental" change is necessary for America. He knows this because he sees over the horizon, into a "future" requiring "transformational" (Gingrich's self-description) leadership.
Romney, while at Bain Capital, performed the essential social function of connecting investment resources with opportunities. Firms like Bain are indispensable for wealth creation, which often involves taking over badly run companies, shedding dead weight and thereby liberating remaining elements that add value. The process, like surgery, can be lifesaving. And like surgery, society would rather benefit from it than watch it.
Romney surely anticipated that such an attack would come -- but from Democrats, in the general election, not from a volatile Republican. He now understands Rep. Paul Ryan's response when Gingrich attacked his entitlement reform as "right-wing social engineering." Said Ryan: "With allies like that, who needs the left?"
Intra-party competitions are supposed to reveal candidates' potential susceptibilities to attacks. Two unfair attacks against Romney concern his polish and his past. Four years ago, Mike Huckabee, targeting Romney without mentioning him, slyly said, "I want to be a president who reminds you of the guy you work with, not the guy who laid you off." And there is a photograph of Romney that will eventually be seen far and wide (and can be seen at http://bit.ly/svv3Ho). It shows a young Romney and six Bain colleagues feeling their oats, with paper currency protruding from their dark suits. The young men are overflowing with what John Maynard Keynes called "animal spirits."
We should welcome such spirits and should hope for political leadership that will hasten the day when American conditions are again receptive to them. Until then, economic dynamism will not return. We should not expect Gingrich to understand this until he understands that his work for Freddie Mac was not, as he laughably insists, in "the private sector."
He probably believes that. He seems to believe there is always some higher synthesis, inaccessible to lesser intellects, that makes all his contradictions disappear. One awaits the synthesizing of his multicity tour in 2009 with Barack Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Al Sharpton promoting "a common education reform" of primary and secondary schools.
Disclosure: This columnist’s wife, Mari Will, is an adviser to Rick Perry.
(c) 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
Third-party content does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Patriot Post.
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dTurnidge
Keep it up. The opposition will be so fractured that Obama(nation) will be back in office again.
Posted December 14, 2011 at 10:42:45 AM
Richard Ryan
Why would anyone listen to George Will? He`s just another insider who can`t find anything positive to say about a Republican. Go write for some liberal blog George. We don`t need you on here.
Richard Ryan
Lamar,Missouri - Birthplace of Harry S Truman
Posted December 14, 2011 at 11:56:14 AM
Jim
I thought George Will was on our side. The candidates are expected to trounce each other in the election cycle, but commentators are supposed to support whatever side of the agenda they are on (and they are ALL on a side). You will NEVER see liberal commentators taking shots like this. The Democrats know they must "stand together" in public, and they only air their differences in private. Conservatives should take a hint.
Posted December 14, 2011 at 12:57:39 PM
Shorty Feldbush
There is at least one thing that can be learned from those who are pointing out the problems with most of the candidates ... and that is that Ron Paul seems to be free of those types of moral or less than conservative issues to carry as baggage.
Those who disagree with Ron Paul seem to say they like everything he says ... except his foreign policy. Take a look at this and see if it explains things a little better.
http://youtu.be/I8NhRPo0WAo
Posted December 14, 2011 at 2:18:35 PM
Barbara Theisen
Let the opposition bashing cease. Concentrate your snide remarks to the other party - that is unless you want Obama to have a second term. This would be the end of our republic or what is left of it.
Posted December 14, 2011 at 2:20:58 PM
Joe
Gingrich's comment about Romney's time at Bain wasn't a criticism of capitalism, George. It was Gingrich saying, "Hey pot, calling the kettle 'black'?"
I was more worried about Gingrich's comment saying FDR was the best 20th century president. THAT concerned me. Although, I'm throwing full weight behind whomever wins the GOP nomination.
Living in Texas, I have the luxury of voting for whomever I want, since Texas goes Republican anyway. I voted, safely, for Bob Barr in 2008. I can do so again in 2012, but I won't. I'll gladly vote AGAINST Obama by voting GOP. I hope others do as well, even those that are upset that Ron Paul isn't on the ticket.
Posted December 14, 2011 at 2:31:53 PM
Abu Nudnik
George Will is NOT a liberal and the posters above have been sitting and scratching too long.
After the nominee is chosen, all this stuff fades away.
Posted December 14, 2011 at 2:33:52 PM
RudyT
Fascinating article by one of my favorite columnists. Gingrich will only get my vote if he's the nominee against Obama. The only candidate who gets my unwavering support is Rick Perry. Everyone else is categorized as "other than Obama".
Posted December 14, 2011 at 3:54:03 PM
Tom
You are trying the think deeply about a cat fight. No future in that. Too bad the candidates have forgotten RR's 11th commandment, but what is your excuse for committing the same error?
Posted December 15, 2011 at 10:41:56 AM
Chris
Thanks George for that on sided assessment; I am sure that if you were describing George Soros in the same position he would certainly be skewered for only maintaining the companies and then selling them for a profit and destroying the ones in which he closed the doors and sold off the inventory. Not exactly a job creating cycle. Just a money making organization in which you had to pony up a minimum $1,000,000 in order to jump and join the fun.
One more reason for wanting Newt - thanks George.
Any other establishment hacks who want to jump in and take their shots? I love it.
Posted December 15, 2011 at 2:21:06 PM
Daylo
How cute. "Romney was asked by an interviewer about the $1.6 million Gingrich earned, or at any rate received, from Freddie Mac, the misbegotten government-backed mortgage giant."
"earned, or at any rate received"
Clever. However, you fail to mention the person(s) at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae who hired Gingrich. Wouldn't this person be the actual witch we need to burn at the stake? As far as I know, someon in the government had to okay this consultation fee and he was not hired as a Historian and you know that. Twist in the wind much?
******************************
"Anyway, Romney's interviewer mischievously asked him if he thought Gingrich should "give that money back" to Freddie Mac."
Not so clever. "Romney's interviewer mischieviously asked"
Mischievious is when child gets into the cookier jar. In politics; however, I think most of us would call this intentional and NOT mischievious.
If the so-called pundits or anyone for that matter who has a keyboard keeps talking trash about the best candidate we have, the apple cart is going to produce one at the bottom who has a rotten core, i.e. Ron Paul -- the one with the biggest isolationist naive attitude on the face of the earth. Will that make you happy? No. I don't think so.
Posted December 17, 2011 at 1:14:51 AM
pete
I spend most of my life working for a company that contracted to the government.
Does this mean I also must give back all the money I earned?
How about all the rest of those who worked on one or another government contact or agency?
If I could have pulled $30 k per hour "advising" pilots how to fly and analyzing their performance, I sure as hell would have taken it!
Like 99.9999999999% of us, Newt isn't perfect, but at least he's held a job, had to meet a bottom line, has managed payroll, and has made profits for the company.
And I believe he has more love for America in the tip of his little finger than the current White House occupant and the whole crop of his administration and family.
Posted December 17, 2011 at 6:57:59 PM