Newt Gingrich's Amazon Book Reviews 275
lee1 writes "Newt Gingrich has written 156 book reviews on Amazon, at one point becoming ranked in the site's top 500 list. Most of the books are cheesy political thrillers, but
the newly announced presidential candidate is also trying to learn about quantum physics, and shows good taste, 'strongly recommending' Richard Feynman's QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter." Gingrich is an early joiner; I'd like to see the books on the shelves of the other likely presidential candidates, too.
Amazon reviews (Score:2, Insightful)
Are we really basing our opinions of Newt Gingrich on the fact that his Amazon account has "recommended" a book by Feynman?
By that measurement, my recommendation of Barry Cooper's biography of Beethoven qualifies me to conduct the Chicago Symphony and to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
But I'm a bit suspicious of Gingrich's recommendations ever since in an interview on Fox News he said he read Plato in the original Latin.
Personally, I'm glad Gingrich is running for president. It should be good for some lulz. If he were to win, do you realize he'd be only our second divorced president? Ronald Reagan was the first. Though, to be fair, even St Ronnie didn't have the balls to kick a wife to the curb for getting cancer. You know, when I first heard that, I thought "That's probably just political mud-slinging. It was probably just coincidental that Gingrich's wife was diagnosed with cancer around the time of the breakup of their marriage". Until I looked into it a little further and read some interviews and articles and lo and behold, Newt actually did kick his wife to the curb for getting cancer and was already banging his next wife while that one was getting chemo. Further, it appears that he kicked a subsequent wife to the curb for getting multiple sclerosis. As Gingrich put it in a rare moment of blunt honesty: "I can't deal with them sick bitches".
Clearly, he's got the right stuff to be a Republican front runner.
Weak Candidates (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:someone else (Score:5, Insightful)
I still can't quite figure out why that particular adulterer is even seriously considered after his fist thumping over the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. What an obscene, vile, disingenuous hypocrite that man is.
Other books (Score:5, Insightful)
Palin won't have read many, but her shelves will have "important" books for the looks.
Ron Paul will have alot of economic and revisionist history stuff, pretty much anyone over from Lewrockwell.com that's written a book, he will have all their stuff.
Donald Trump will have books about himself, by himself.
Romney will have a good mix of Christian, Mormonism and pop history books.
Re:Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fooling around never slowed Clinton (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact remains that Gingrich was soon reviled almost in equal parts by his own party, whereas Clinton, despite semen-stained dresses and a history of out-of-control boinking predated his Presidency by many years, left office very popular, and remains even now a very popular ex-president.
You can bitch and whine all you like, but to some extent its because Gingrich was an unco-operative malcontented blowhard who liked to show off how smart he was, but was ultimately a lightweight compared to Clinton, who is, despite his mastery of that folksy Arkansas charm, a very bright and well-read man. Both men seem to have the same vices, but only one of them possesses the virtue.
I'll tell you what happens if Gingrich wins the nod (and I doubt he will, he's way to much a plain fucking asshole to ever actually win). Obama will go into the 2012 election with a recovery economy, Al Qaeda on the run with Obama able to (figuratively, at least) hold up bin Laden's head, and ol' Newt will be there, the unmitigated unapologetic prick he is, calling Obama down on everything in that Fox News way he has to do things, and the voter will look at Obama and see an imperfect and yet hopeful man and then look at Gingrich and see a fundamentally mean-spirited jerk.
Re:Amazon reviews (Score:4, Insightful)
Are we really basing our opinions of Newt Gingrich on the fact that his Amazon account has "recommended" a book by Feynman?
By that measurement, my recommendation of Barry Cooper's biography of Beethoven qualifies me to conduct the Chicago Symphony and to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
But I'm a bit suspicious of Gingrich's recommendations ever since in an interview on Fox News he said he read Plato in the original Latin.
Personally, I'm glad Gingrich is running for president. It should be good for some lulz. [...]
Clearly, he's got the right stuff to be a Republican front runner.
What flamebait. You may not agree with his politics, and his personal life may abhor you, but it seems perfectly valid to assess someone's intellectual capacity based on something like this. You don't have to vote for him, but this may be an interesting find for someone choosing between Sarah "I read them all" Palin and this guy. He clearly is a sharp man.
Re:Fooling around never slowed Clinton (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the difference. I'll go slowly and use small words so you might understand.
Clinton never ran on a platform of "family values" in the party of "family values" and "sanctity of marriage."
Do you get it now? Similarly, Clinton is the guy that said "I never inhaled," and we didn't hold it against him because he didn't run on an anti-drug platform. Clinton could have also been banging Al Gore, and we wouldn't have held it against either of them because neither one ran on a platform of "no homos!"
--Jeremy
Re:Got a ways to go before he catches John Edwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Hypocrisy - look it up. I don't care one whit if Gingrich fucks a busload of nuns during his spare time. I *do* care when he (and his party) make "morality" part of the platform, and then turns around and violates said morals. Why the fuck should I vote for someone who violates one of his main promises?
Your failure to understand seems to stem from the fact that you (and other slow thinkers like you) think adultery is automatically bad, and that we wouldn't vote for someone based on who they do and/or don't put their dick in.
Just like when Obama said "I'm going to close Gitmo" and "I'm going to investigate AT&T over the warrantless wiretaps" and then didn't do either of those things. That loses him points. It would then be sheer hypocrisy if he were to open more detention facilities, or ask for more wiretaps. But if he decides he wants to screw Hillary Clinton on the side? I don't care -- he never told me he wouldn't, and it's not something I'd base a vote on anyway.
Do you get it? It's not the extra marital affairs we care about. It's the hypocrisy.
--Jeremy
Re:Got a ways to go before he catches John Edwards (Score:0, Insightful)
Hypocrisy - look it up. I don't care one whit if Gingrich fucks a busload of nuns during his spare time. I *do* care when he (and his party) make "morality" part of the platform, and then turns around and violates said morals. Why the fuck should I vote for someone who violates one of his main promises?
Your failure to understand seems to stem from the fact that you (and other slow thinkers like you) think adultery is automatically bad, and that we wouldn't vote for someone based on who they do and/or don't put their dick in.
Just like when Obama said "I'm going to close Gitmo" and "I'm going to investigate AT&T over the warrantless wiretaps" and then didn't do either of those things. That loses him points. It would then be sheer hypocrisy if he were to open more detention facilities, or ask for more wiretaps. But if he decides he wants to screw Hillary Clinton on the side? I don't care -- he never told me he wouldn't, and it's not something I'd base a vote on anyway.
Do you get it? It's not the extra marital affairs we care about. It's the hypocrisy.
--Jeremy
But you're gonna turn around and vote for Obama anyway, aren't you?
You know, if you voted for Obama in 2008 just to prove you're not racist, you have to vote for someone else in 2012 to prove you're not an IDIOT
Re:someone else (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah... who'd allow an adulterer in office? Not us.
Especially if he takes issue with a president lying in grand jury testimony. We don't like rabble-rousers... just keep quiet!
Glad to see the /. politibot is well-oiled and ready for business, though.
Re:I am nowhere near ready to assume he doesn't ju (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd likely be wrong. Malign the guy as you will - lord knows the US press was all too eager to do so back in the 90's - but he's extremely intelligent. It's obvious if you listen to the guy speak for five minutes that he's very thoughtful and well read.
Re:Got a ways to go before he catches John Edwards (Score:5, Insightful)
John Edwards cheated on his dying wife (ten-upping Gingrich)
Gingrich cheated on his first wife while she was dying of cancer, told her he wanted a divorce when she was in a hospital bed recovering from surgery, and then left her for his second wife. It appears likely that Gingrich had already started sleeping with his third wife before he married his second wife, so it's unlikely the second wife developing a disease was the cause of the affair, but he eventually divorced his second wife and 10 days later, married the third, a congressional aide 23 years his junior. While this affair was going on, Gingrich tried to impeach Clinton for getting a blowjob from a consenting adult. It's likely he's already sleeping with his fourth and fifth wives.
Gingrich fulled illegal campaign donations through his non-profit, and after it appeared it would get him kicked out of the House he decided to quit. He still got fined $300,000 for this and for perjuring himself in front of the House Ethics Committee. He should have gotten prison time. Throughout the time these things were happening, Gingrich was trumpeting his superior ethics, his Baptist faith and his family values. His excuse for this behavior: he was working too hard for the American people, so it's our fault. “There’s no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.” These aren't things he did, but things that just happened in his life. Why should we hold him responsible for things that just happened? But now he's converted to Catholicism and has a new appreciation for why God should have a greater role in our government, so we apparently have no choice but to forget his past sins. Not bloody likely.
Re:Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Recall that shortly after the initial "battle" of the Gulf War in January 1991, President George H. W. Bush had incredibly high popularity ratings (about 90% as I recall). Nevertheless, in November 1992, he was defeated by Bill Clinton (admittedly with the help of the spoiler Ross Perot).
Really, "it's the economy, stupid" (to quote Bill Clinton's campaign guru, James Carville).
Housing prices continue to decline in spite of Obama's efforts to "fix" them. Unemployment is still very high and not rebounding as many had hoped even a year ago. The Federal budget and the budgets of many large states are in serious trouble. Well, you get the idea...
Obama can't just run on "I got Osama",
The best thing Obama can hope for if the economy doesn't show strong signs of recovery by November 2012 is that the Republicans field a weak candidate (as they did in 2008 and as the Democrats did in 2004). BTW, Newt would likely be such a candidate.
Re:Got a ways to go before he catches John Edwards (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I don't believe in voting for getting fucked at all (at least not by a politician). Why should I pick either one of them? Just because all you other morons think you have to pick one of the two media-approved choices?
Instead, I'll vote for someone who I think will do a decent job. If the rest of you idiots vote for someone who fucks you over, whether by broomstick or chainsaw, that's on you. Don't blame me.
If you vote for the "lesser of two evils", don't be surprised when you're rewarded with evil. If you voted for evil, you only have yourself to blame.
Re:Amazon reviews (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait a minute, I should "assess someone's intellectual capacity" based on a "recommend" an account in his name gave on Amazon?
It's a form of insight into someone's intellectual habits, yes.
Well then, the fact that I've recommended Kant's Critique of Pure Reason indicates that I'm fucking brilliant. And since I "recommended" Jeff Gordon: Nascar Driver (Ferguson Career Biographies) [Hardcover] ISBN-10: 0816058857 I am qualified to win the Daytona 500.
Based on the fact that you've dragged that pisspoor joke out through two posts now, my assessment of your capacity for wit is not high.
Re:Troll (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I am nowhere near ready to assume he doesn't ju (Score:4, Insightful)
He had a lot more credibility in the 1990s. Since then, he has flip-flopped and boomeranged on so many issues, the people who admired him as the tech-savvy alternative to the older conservatives have generally abandoned him. His personal history makes him unelectable, especially against a President whose personal life is beyond reproach, and whose commitment to his family is respected even by his opponents.
Re:Let's start a sub thread here... (Score:5, Insightful)
drinkers who tell their kids not to drink
An alcoholic father begs his son to never drink, because he fears his son is at risk of becoming like him and wants better. The son, having watched him struggle with finances and go in and out of rehab for years on end gets the point, despite the fact that his father is hung over as he gives his lecture.
A politician speaks of the dangers of alcohol to society. He takes a hardline stance against it, supporting zero-tolerance measures, and campaigns for prohibition. He declares these things to be his deeply held personal beliefs. When asked about the martini in his hand, he dodges the question and waits for his supporters to drown out the interviewer with calls to "keep the candidate's personal life out of the debate."
One of these men is clearly and self-evidently speaking what they truly believe, and holds himself up as a warning to others at cost to himself. The other one is lying for his own benefit. Can you tell which is which?
Re:Troll (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I am nowhere near ready to assume he doesn't ju (Score:5, Insightful)
He talks about god for the same reason Obama does. You can't get elected President in this country (especially not by the Republican party) if you don't talk about your strong faith. Sad, I know, but the public is too mired in its superstitions for things to work otherwise.