https://redstate.com/erick/2011/11/30/are-conservatives-ready-to-forgive-newt-gingrich-his-sins/feed/Conservative News & Politicsen-usWed, 10 Jun 2026 20:58:15 -0400<![CDATA[I am now officially a self-declared member of the &#8220;Not Romney&#8221; camp. I will absolutely, positively support Mitt Romney should he win the GOP nomination, but I believe the GOP would meet certain doom if he is the nominee. Therefore, should Gingrich be the only other choice, I&#8217;d side with Gingrich over Romney.But I think in the next few weeks conservatives must ask themselves if they are ready to forgive Newt his sins. I&#8217;m not talking about his adultery and wives. I&#8217;m not really even talking about his ego. What I am talking about is only tangentially related to his sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi.It was, after all, Newt Gingrich who advocated for an individual mandate long before Mitt Romney ever did. Gingrich has, like Clinton before him, been a &#8220;third way&#8221; fan of new fangled ways to do things. The conservative warrior people tend to think Gingrich is, often is not. Newt has a fascination with the shiny in policy and technology, hence the latest oppo drop on Newt that he once praised Donald Berwick, the Obama appointee chosen to oversee the death panels and shoving of grandparents over the medical cost savings cliff.To be fair to Gingrich, he was offering legitimate praise to Berwick way back when and Berwick&#8217;s own writings that Newt praised would be damning to Obamacare. But it is the first of many attacks. [UPDATE: A friend tells me I misread an email from him on this Berwick matter and, considering he is an expert, said I should note that the bit Berwick wrote that Newt praised actually was not good. In fact, he notes that Berwick is more extreme than Obama. Sorry for misreading the info.]The real issue for Gingrich is that he is the Great American Sisyphus, always rolling his political rock up a hill only to see it go tumbling back down. And unfortunately for many, when Newt reaches the top of the hill and his political career starts its roll back down the hill, many others get rolled over in the process.Gingrich is going to need to convince people he has changed. Conservatives must be ready to forgive him his sins. And as conservatives come to terms with Gingrich&#8217;s sins, they are going to be confronted by a man named Tom Coburn who wrote a book called Breach of Trust and a man named Robert Novak who wrote the foreword to that book. One excerpt will be particularly troubling to conservative activists currently enamored with Newt&#8217;s debating skills.]]>Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:45:00 -0500<![CDATA[Erick Erickson]]>https://redstate.com/erick/2011/11/30/are-conservatives-ready-to-forgive-newt-gingrich-his-sins-n41328