Gingrich’s Virtues

It is too early to rule out candidates.

by Andrew C. McCarthyI respectfully dissent from National Review’s Wednesday-evening editorial, which derided Newt Gingrich as not merely flawed but unfit for consideration as the GOP presidential nominee. The Editors further gave the back of the hand to the bids of two other prominent conservatives, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann — a judgment that is simply inexplicable in light of the frivolousness of its reasoning and of the Editors’ embrace of Jon Huntsman, a moderate former Obama-administration official, as a serious contender. Continue reading

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Mitt vs. Newt

by Charles KrauthammerIt’s Iowa minus 32 days, and barring yet another resurrection (or event of similar improbability), it’s Mitt Romney vs. Newt Gingrich. In a match race, here’s the scorecard:

Romney has managed to weather the debates unscathed. However, the brittleness he showed when confronted with the kind of informed follow-up questions that Bret Baier tossed his way Tuesday on Fox’s “Special Report” — the kind of scrutiny one doesn’t get in multiplayer debates — suggests that Romney may become increasingly vulnerable as the field narrows. Continue reading

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The Religion Card Is Turned Face Up

Is a religious war breaking out in the Republican Party?

by Patrick J. BuchananOn Friday, Pastor Robert Jeffress of the 10,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas took the podium at the Values Voter Summit to introduce and endorse Rick Perry.

Gov. Perry, said Pastor Jeffress, is a leader with “a strong commitment to biblical values” who defunded Planned Parenthood, that “slaughterhouse for the unborn.” He contrasted Perry with an unnamed rival.

“Do we want a candidate who is a conservative out of convenience or one who is a conservative out of deep conviction? Do we want a candidate who is a good, moral person or one who is a born-again follower of the Lord Jesus Christ?”

Perry thanked Jeffress for this “very powerful introduction” and congratulated him for having “hit it out of the park.”

By then, however, the pastor, having rounded the bases, was expatiating to an attentive press corps.

“Mormonism is not Christianity,” Pastor Jeffress asserted. Rather, Mormonism is a “cult.” The Mormons “embraced another gospel, the Book of Mormon, and that is why they have never been considered by evangelical Christians to be part of the Christian family.” In essence, Romney may be a good man, but he is not a Christian. Continue reading

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Ripping off the Gipper

What would Reagan do? He’d cut spending and taxes

by Emily MillerLiberals are trying to twist Ronald Reagan’s words to muster support for raising taxes. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s press office sent a memo on Monday to congressional Republicans claiming they’d found evidence proving that President Reagan was the real inspiration for President Obama’s tax-the-rich “Buffett Rule.” The California Democrat posed the question: “What would Reagan do?”

The correct answer is: He would cut taxes. Continue reading

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The ‘Hunger’ Hoax

It’s part of the larger poverty hoax.

Thomas SowellDan Rather opened a CBS Evening News broadcast in 1991 by declaring, “One in eight American children is going hungry tonight.” Newsweek, the Associated Press, and the Boston Globe repeated this statistic, and many others joined the media chorus, with or without that unsubstantiated statistic.

When the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Agriculture examined people from a variety of income levels, however, they found no evidence of malnutrition among those in the lowest income brackets. Nor was there any significant difference in the intake of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients from one income level to another.

That should have been the end of that hysteria. But the same “hunger in America” theme reappeared years later, when Sen. John Edwards was running for vice president. And others have resurrected that same claim, right up to the present day. Continue reading

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Perry’s border baloney

Texas’ jobs bonanza for aliens

by Rich LowryRick Perry stumbled through much of the last GOP debate, but not when speaking about immigration. He issued a clarion condemnation of critics of his state’s policy of giving the children of illegal immigrants in-state tuition to college. Such naysayers, Perry declared, lack “a heart.”

The Texas governor prides himself on his distinctness from George W. Bush, yet on this issue he sounds just like him: scolding his party for its lack of compassion for immigrants coming here to make a go of it. If Perry had wanted to avoid raising the hackles of Republicans with the imputation of heartlessness, he could have borrowed the staple Bush line: “Family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande.” Continue reading

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