Is Newt Gingrich a Closet Jihadist?
Mark Vakkur, M.D.9/22/10
Before dismissing that question, consider the following:
While playing Grand Inquisitor against President Bill Clinton for having an affair, Gingrich now admits he was cheating on wife #2, Marianne Ginther (who he married after cheating on wife #1). Unlike Clinton's fling with Monica Lewinsky, Gingrich's affair with Congressional aide Callista Bisek, 23 years his junior, destroyed his marriage (Callista and Newt are now married, at least for now; give it time though - they have been married only since 2000 and Gingrich's pattern seems to be a marriage-ending affair every 10-15 years).
So, if history is any guide, then the man who was so publicly outraged about adultery but was privately engaging in it who is now so publicly outraged by the threat of radical Islam may be secretly embracing it. Gingrich's rants against radical Islam may be a signal that he has privately converted.
It would not be the first time Gingrich has made a religious conversion after all. Raised a Southern Baptist, the party that once condemned the Pope as an anti-Christ (the disproportionately Southern Baptist KKK was as anti-Catholic as it was anti-black and anti-Jewish), he converted to Catholicism in 2009. To outsiders this may seem like a small change among interchangeable denominations of a shared Christian faith, but not to anyone privy to the ugly politics of the Jim Crow south where Gingrich spent his formative years. He graduated high school in segregated Columbus, Georgia, 2 years before Martin Luther King was to give his "I Have A Dream" speech in Washington, and the better part of a decade from implementation of the historic civil rights legislation passed by a process of judicial activism Gingrich later condemned as overreaching.
So a man who condemns adultery but commits it and who has a history of being flexible when necessary (his conversion to Catholicism was apparently to please his wife) might now be praying in the direction of Mecca five times a day.
Not that I have anything against that, but then again, I am not Newt Gingrich, who seems to be doing his best to make Islam the new Red Menace. He describes a vast left wing Islamic conspiracy (left wing because of course Democrats, the same ones who he once claimed would inspire mothers to drown their children if elected, appease closet jihadists). I did not realize it, but by embracing secularism and separation of church and state, I am actually helping Islamic fundamentalists impose Sharia Law on unsuspecting Americans.
Frankly, when Newt first told me what I was really doing without knowing it, I thought it sounded like his latest attention-grabbing gimmick to differentiate himself from the right wing pack (if you really fear Islam, vote for me, that sort of thing). But as I considered the possibility of Gingrich's conversion to Islam, I realized he might be far more intelligent than I imagined.
This is a twist so deep and drenched in irony it just might be true. Imagine a plot to implant radical Islam in America spearheaded by a cranky white man who alleges to hate Muslims! Brilliant.
Of course, many will say that this is nonsensical, that baseless accusations that a public figure is Muslim (as though being a Muslim is a crime) require proof, or that making these charges against all contradictory evidence is irresponsible. To which I have to agree except that the right wing of the American right - Gingrich's base - continues to make identical speculations about the winning candidate in the last presidential election cycle. Am I then not free to make a similar charge against one of the losers (of the campaign that is)?
There is at least as much evidence that Newt is a closet Muslim as there is that President Obama is. Newt is, as his political allies once said of Valerie Plame Wilson, fair game.
So now Newt Gingrich, whose serial adultery became Exhibit A as to why those who proclaim their personal honor the loudest are most likely to steal your family silver (to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson), tells us he sees religious extremists under every school desk. Eugene Robinson points out in a recent editorial in the Washington Post "there is no left-of-center movement dedicated to fighting the steady, stealthy insinuation of sharia into America's legal system because no such thing is happening. Gingrich invents an enemy and then demands to know why others haven't sallied forth to slay it."
Or does he? If Gingrich cries shrilly enough that the sharias are coming! the sharias are coming! then when they really do.... ah, you see where this is going now.
Very deep, Mr. Gingrich. Very deep. We should all watch carefully to insure he does not order a matching set of prayer rugs from IKEA or avoid pork at the next fund-raising Tea Party Barbecue.
While playing Grand Inquisitor against President Bill Clinton for having an affair, Gingrich now admits he was cheating on wife #2, Marianne Ginther (who he married after cheating on wife #1). Unlike Clinton's fling with Monica Lewinsky, Gingrich's affair with Congressional aide Callista Bisek, 23 years his junior, destroyed his marriage (Callista and Newt are now married, at least for now; give it time though - they have been married only since 2000 and Gingrich's pattern seems to be a marriage-ending affair every 10-15 years).
So, if history is any guide, then the man who was so publicly outraged about adultery but was privately engaging in it who is now so publicly outraged by the threat of radical Islam may be secretly embracing it. Gingrich's rants against radical Islam may be a signal that he has privately converted.
It would not be the first time Gingrich has made a religious conversion after all. Raised a Southern Baptist, the party that once condemned the Pope as an anti-Christ (the disproportionately Southern Baptist KKK was as anti-Catholic as it was anti-black and anti-Jewish), he converted to Catholicism in 2009. To outsiders this may seem like a small change among interchangeable denominations of a shared Christian faith, but not to anyone privy to the ugly politics of the Jim Crow south where Gingrich spent his formative years. He graduated high school in segregated Columbus, Georgia, 2 years before Martin Luther King was to give his "I Have A Dream" speech in Washington, and the better part of a decade from implementation of the historic civil rights legislation passed by a process of judicial activism Gingrich later condemned as overreaching.
So a man who condemns adultery but commits it and who has a history of being flexible when necessary (his conversion to Catholicism was apparently to please his wife) might now be praying in the direction of Mecca five times a day.
Not that I have anything against that, but then again, I am not Newt Gingrich, who seems to be doing his best to make Islam the new Red Menace. He describes a vast left wing Islamic conspiracy (left wing because of course Democrats, the same ones who he once claimed would inspire mothers to drown their children if elected, appease closet jihadists). I did not realize it, but by embracing secularism and separation of church and state, I am actually helping Islamic fundamentalists impose Sharia Law on unsuspecting Americans.
Frankly, when Newt first told me what I was really doing without knowing it, I thought it sounded like his latest attention-grabbing gimmick to differentiate himself from the right wing pack (if you really fear Islam, vote for me, that sort of thing). But as I considered the possibility of Gingrich's conversion to Islam, I realized he might be far more intelligent than I imagined.
This is a twist so deep and drenched in irony it just might be true. Imagine a plot to implant radical Islam in America spearheaded by a cranky white man who alleges to hate Muslims! Brilliant.
Of course, many will say that this is nonsensical, that baseless accusations that a public figure is Muslim (as though being a Muslim is a crime) require proof, or that making these charges against all contradictory evidence is irresponsible. To which I have to agree except that the right wing of the American right - Gingrich's base - continues to make identical speculations about the winning candidate in the last presidential election cycle. Am I then not free to make a similar charge against one of the losers (of the campaign that is)?
There is at least as much evidence that Newt is a closet Muslim as there is that President Obama is. Newt is, as his political allies once said of Valerie Plame Wilson, fair game.
So now Newt Gingrich, whose serial adultery became Exhibit A as to why those who proclaim their personal honor the loudest are most likely to steal your family silver (to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson), tells us he sees religious extremists under every school desk. Eugene Robinson points out in a recent editorial in the Washington Post "there is no left-of-center movement dedicated to fighting the steady, stealthy insinuation of sharia into America's legal system because no such thing is happening. Gingrich invents an enemy and then demands to know why others haven't sallied forth to slay it."
Or does he? If Gingrich cries shrilly enough that the sharias are coming! the sharias are coming! then when they really do.... ah, you see where this is going now.
Very deep, Mr. Gingrich. Very deep. We should all watch carefully to insure he does not order a matching set of prayer rugs from IKEA or avoid pork at the next fund-raising Tea Party Barbecue.
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