Those Damn Narcissists – Like Newt

 

nar·cis·sism/ˈnärsəˌsizəm/

1. Excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one's physical appearance.
2. Extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one's own talents and a craving for admiration.

GOPinky: “What are we going to do tonight, Newtie?

BraiNewtie: “We’re going to take over the Congress World!”

So the line bouncing around the blogosphere and Twitterdom is that Newt is a narcissist.  Clearly from Newt’s less than svelt appearance the first dictionary entry doesn’t apply.  (Really Calista – take dough boy off the fried Snickers, will ya?)  That does however seem to fit John Edwards to a “T.”  And possibly Mr. Pancake President.  But it is the second definition I suppose that they feel is appropriate to aim at the former Speaker.

As we just documented with video and transcript in Worship the Santorum Shoe! Gingrich has demonstrated the opposite of selfishness and a “craving for admiration” as he consistently has resisted every opportunity the media baited him with to go after his fellow contenders.  He consistently has understated his own accomplishments while others exaggerate theirs.   People like Rush Limbaugh, who assumes that every news story that talks about “talk radio” is about him, might be more in line with this kind of description.  Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck might be close runners-up.  Certainly Greek column-posing Barack Obama has proven this, recently lamenting to advisers he wants to be “cool” again and had the audacity to accept a Nobel Peace Prize before he located the Oval Office bathroom.

To the Occupy Wall Street and Al Sharpton crowd, you conservatives are all “grandiose” in your quest to build your outdoor BBQ kitchen while every Shirlene, Shaniqua and Shakira is just trying to get their BabyDaddy to buy some formula or Pampers.  Grandiose can be in the eye of the beholder, but we all know people who think they know everything.  You know, people who obviously have terrible throwing mechanics for a quarterback, who keep talking about their religious beliefs until you’re just sick of it and who think they can play in the NFL.

Those damn narcissists.  They think they can do anything.  They don't take the wisdom of their peers when it is offered and instead they try to accomplish what we ALL KNOW is impossible.  I mean, who the hell does Newt Gingrich think he is, thinking that he can orchestrate a take over of political power for conservatives when the country is mesmerized by a slick talking, slick looking liberal? 
...(Oh yeah. I forgot.  He actually did that once).

And why does he think only HE can get rid of a Democrat corruption, stop spending and actually start paying down the debt? 
(Oh yea.  I forgot he did that too.)

Grandiose thinkers like Bill Gates don’t even think they have to finish college to approach a highly technical industry like computers – much less do business with International Business Machines.  I think I’ve told you that I know an investor who met a kid who couldn’t even conduct himself in a professional manner and tried to get an investment for his computer company WITHOUT EVEN WEARING A SUIT!  Who the hell do these people think they are!!

And that kid got his comeuppance too.  Just like Newt the experts who know better finally got power back and tossed Steve Jobs from the institution he gave birth to.   And Jobs had the audacity to start ANOTHER company thinking he could invent ANOTHER industry!  Narcissist!  It has to be all about him and won’t just get along with the professionals that know how to do things correctly!
….that might not be a good comparison either because the “experts” at the old company had to ask him to come back and save Apple, while buying the second company NEXT that he started.  Never mind.  Bad example.

The truth is that the people who make things happen are rarely those who feel content to sit back and criticize the risks taken by others.  These people are usually unaware their repulsion comes from the realization that the success of the dreamer and dare'r is an indictment of their own limited ability or courage.

Kind of like Bob Dole criticizing Newt Gingrich for his “wild ideas a minute” when Bob Dole’s ideas were to just be cautious and keep the option of raising taxes open.  Is it any wonder Bob Dole got killed by Clinton? 

When asked what drove her father, Jackie Cushman said:

“He came from a broken home and his stepfather adopted him. They moved around a lot, to bases in Kansas, France, Germany. With an infantry officer as his dad, believe me, they were not singing ‘Kumbaya’ in that house. It was about service, and he had a revelation at the Verdun battlefield. Visiting there as a teenager, he felt called to serve.”

Cushman says, Gingrich “truly believes that this presidential campaign, and politics, is his service to his country.” Quietly bowing out, simply to return to private life, would be out of character. “This is not some personal vendetta,” she says. “You volunteer to run for president. No one forces you to do it. This is what he feels he is supposed to be doing.”

I watched a speech by Gingrich in December of 1994 following the historic Republican sweep into power, and before Gingrich took over as speaker.  It was better than Hollywood movie I’ve seen in the past 10 years.  Paul Weyrich, whom Morton Blackwell cited (pdf) as the reason why Reagan got elected, Contract with America succeed, and who may have been the most influential conservative behind the scenes in modern history, introduces Gingrich and tells an amazing story.

It seems that a few months after Ronald Reagan’s election – when Newt himself had just been elected to his SECOND term – Gingrich asked Weyrich to get conservative leaders together for a “planning session.”  Can anyone say “narcissist”? I mean the guy has only been in Congress TWO YEARS and he’s already calling major conservatives like Weyrich to get listen to him???  Man, the nerve.

So Weyrich convenes the meeting in his hometown of Racine, WI and Gingrich immediately comes out with, “Now we need to really plan what we are going to do"  Weyrich is a bit stunned but Newt continues, "Because in 12 years we will take over the House of Representatives and we need to be prepared for that moment."

In relating the story, Weyrich admits he accommodated Gingrich because he thought he was smart, but honestly his first thought was pretty sarcastic.  Weyrich recalled thinking, “Sure we'll take over the House in 12 years, right after the fall of the Soviet Union!"

Not only does that prove Gingrich was a narcissist but also proves Bob Dole, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney were right in saying, “Gingrich was unable to do what he said.”  It took 14 years, not 12.  So there!

Put this in perspective: A single term Congressman has the audacity to expect that somehow he (from Georgia no less) can have input on doing something the GOP had not done for 40 years – and then only had power for 2 years.  And the conservative leaders like GOPAC founder/Delaware Governor Pete DuPont and Weyrich thought it was an impossible goal. At that time BOTH Congressional houses were firmly in the hands of the Democrats as was the liberal press.  When Contract With America happened, Gingrich had been planning it for
14 years.

What becomes fascinating in this video is that Gingrich then lays out what he plans to do as Speaker.  You quickly realize that the “Clinton economic success” wasn’t Clinton’s AT ALL! 
Before taking office he lays out:

• They will win the battle of ideas amidst a liberal press.
• He plans a balanced budget by 2002.
• He plans to start paying down the debt by 2004.
• The Democrats yelled ALL the same things about Gingrich then that they (and RINO’s) do now.
• And BEFORE even starting his Speakership, the GOP was more popular than it had been since 1920 at 70%.
• BEFORE taking office, they were already closing down Congressional committees and offices with plans to put the buildings on the market.
• Just as he had opposed Reagan’s desire to raise taxes (as well as Bush 41 and Clinton’s) – he refused to let a tax bill reach the floor for a vote.
• He even cited Toffler.  That the “information age” had come as Toffler’s book had predicted and we had to get voting bills online so the people could read them when their Congressmen could. (What a wacky far out new age idea, huh?)

The crazy thing is Gingrich BEAT his own goals of balancing the budget and paying down the debt.  I couldn’t understand in Weyrich’s PBS interview why he said Gingrich was bored.  I now understand why.  Like Palin, he had accomplished more in a few years, than entire Congresses had done in decades.  He was ready to get the American people behind a BIGGER goal of change and need to make sure they were educated to understand the next step.  It was the Bob Dole and John Boehner’s that resisted when the Democrats tried to undercut his own (free) course that would start that process.

And suddenly not only did they loose the few seats they worried about under Gingrich – they lost the entire House.  And the Senate.  GOP favorability plummeted even after George Bush took over despite the temporary boost under Bush’s leadership during 9/11.  And today people want to claim Gingrich is irrelevant in light of a former Massachusetts Governor that somehow took GOP voters to their lowest level since the civil war and a former Pennsylvania Senator who was the third highest ranking member responsible for loosing that House in 2006.

I dare you to watch the entire speech.  YEAH! I DARE YOU!  If you don’t think this is the guy we need right now, for a time as evil and corrupt as this – I can’t imagine that Ronald Reagan himself would save you from your bias.

But if you only have 6 minutes instead of 45, listen to the audio at least.  Remember this is BEFORE they accomplished anything.
(I’ve removed the story of the FDR/Regan to conserve space on the transcript below but you can hear it in the beginning of the audio.  The introductory anecdote by Weyrich is tacked on to the end.)

(right click  to download)

Gingrich:  We're going to get battered by the elite press, we're going to get attacked by the special interests, we're occasionally going to be dumb and make a mistake, but we're going to get up every morning and work every day. and if we recruit enough people, some day you'll be able to wake up on a Monday,  and you'll know that not a single child was killed anywhere in America that weekend.  And you'll be able to know that day that every child is going to a school that their parents believes works, and you'll know that they live in a neighborhood where they have a chance to own property, and you'll know that they have a chance to go out and get a decent job because any entrepreneur with courage and vision has a pretty good chance of starting their own business in their neighborhood.  And you're going to know that your federal government is a lot smaller, and it's budgets balanced, and the things it's supposed to do, defend America, stop drugs, keep sound money, make sure that good things happen in a limited, decisive way - you know it's very, very  well and you know it's not meddling in things it should be. And the day that happens,  we can all think that our life's commitment to the conservative movement and our effort to save our country has been more than repaid.

I believe we can get there.

I believe we have a long fight ahead, I believe the wagon train has a big mountain range to get over, but I think this great wagon train of Americans has every reason to get there. I came here tonight to say to you, we can't do it on Capitol Hill.  We can only do it with your help and with the help of every American who loves their children and grandchildren and country enough to decide to try something new, to do something new, and to work together for a better future.

When you watch the entire video Gingrich cites a paper by Morton Blackwell in March of 1978, before Reagan is elected, that says something like:

Much good would come of the Ronald Reagan Presidency but in fact not nearly as much as people expect.  There is not a deep enough base of power, there is not a deep enough base of understanding among the American people to do what needs to be done.  Reagan is a wonderful charismatic leader who will be able to carry us to certain key victories, but he won't be able - by his election – to change the system.

Gingrich read that as a FIRST YEAR Congressman, and decided to think “grandiose thoughts” of how to enact a conservative MOVEMENT that would actually CHANGE THE SYSTEM.  And the RINO naysayers squandered it.

Let’s face it, you have to have a pretty good ego to run for President.  I mean, who the hell has the gonads to believe ANY of them are up to the biggest job in the world, right?  Even our beloved George Washington noted for humility by accepting his position of General over the first army saying “he was not equal to the task” sat for weeks in his army uniform from the French Indian war instead of regular dress clothes like everyone else.  He was the richest man in Virginia, and wasn’t enlisted in any army!  Talk about calling attention to yourself!

If you read the We Are Psychotics Today (aka Psychology Today) article you note that each of the other Presidential Candidates exhibit more of the symptoms to a very high degree.  Just go back and watch the clips of Romney storming out of the interview with Brett Baier or being miffed when a reporter asks him why lobbyists run his campaign.  Or watch Rick Santorum’s whining about not getting more attention or condescending to other candidates in the debates.  You could take any of these to make the same charge of each of the other candidates.  Don’t forget, the Romney mafia were undermining Sarah Palin before she got back home to Alaska and feeding their MSM buddies spin from the beginning.  Why do you think Romney escapes media scrutiny on his hissy fits?

 

This are tumultuous and dangerous times.  All this will be facing the President in 2012:

• World economic collapse from debt.
• WORSE recession and inflation in America.
• Undoing the myraid of laws, regulations and bureaucracies left from Obama, Bush and Clinton.
• Selling America on – and reforming – entitlements.
• Selling America on – and reforming – education
  especially systemic poverty and crime.
• Increased hostilities in the Middle East including threats on wavering non-Sharia countries.
• Nuclear threat from Iran (Listed by Bolton and many others as a top 3 US concern).
• Reform TSA, Homeland Security, the State Department.
• Increased showdowns with China and North Korea.

This is not a time to think like a lawyer, without vision, without charisma who has NEVER done big things before.

I can’t suggest strongly enough for you to watch this video.

Posted in: 2012,campaign,Conservatism,conservatives,election,GOP,Newt Gingrich,ngfiles,politics