May 3rd, 2012 Edition

FOX NATION

Newt Gingrich Is America's Real-Life Captain Kirk

By James P. Pinkerton
Published May 02, 2012

The Washington Post wrote recently that Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign “will go down in the annals as just another unsuccessful enterprise, along with so many other presidential wannabes whose bright expectations crash into the reality that it was not their time and perhaps was never to be.”

Well, okay, but there’s another side to Gingrich: He has always been one of the most intellectually interesting, and politically questing, figures on the national stage. And so if there’s a little bit of Don Quixote in Gingrich, there’s also a lot of Captain James T. Kirk; he really did want to boldly go where no politician had gone before. Indeed, we might say that progress depends on Captain Kirks, or their non-fiction equivalents.

And Gingrich’s impact was real.

I first met Gingrich 30 years ago, in the spring of 1982, when I was a junior staffer in Ronald Reagan’s White House.

Gingrich, then a sophomore Congressman, had set up a day-long seminar on organizational change at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Capitol Hill; the main speaker was Daryl Conner, then and now a recognized expert in the field of organizational change.

Gingrich had invited my boss, the late Lee Atwater, to come to the seminar, but at the last minute, Atwater dropped out and sent me in his place. I was many notches below Atwater on the White House protocol hierarchy, but Gingrich didn’t feel slighted: “Call me Newt,” he said to a nervous 24-year-old.

In 1982, America was in the depths of a deep recession, part of the economic mess that President Reagan had inherited from President Jimmy Carter. Yet Conner, the change expert, was an optimist. We can think our way out of these problems, he said; even if the macro-economy is in trouble, individual companies can find new ways to compete in the global economy.

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/newt-gingrich/2012/05/02/newt-gingrich-americas-real-life-captain-kirk#ixzz1to3TOYYW


BREITBART
Supposed 'Anti-Bully' Meghan McCain Silent on Savage

by Harold Hutchison
Published May 2, 2012

Meghan McCain, aka the McCain Blogette, has gone after Michelle Malkin; Malkin had commented on McCain’s support for professional activist Sandra Fluke. McCain said that she was standing up for Fluke speaking out despite being personally attacked.

However, Ms. McCain has been less than consistent when it comes to standing up for those who have been attacked for speaking out. The often outspoken Ms. McCain didn’t speak out on Twitter to call out Dan Savage in the wake of some of his vicious comments on Christianity and the Bible, or his past cyber-bullying of Rick Santorum and Rick Warren. She did have time to re-tweet a link to a poem mocking Santorum after his departure from the 2012 race, however.

To her credit, Meghan did speak up in defense of Ann Romney after Romney was attacked by Hilary Rosen. But McCain had nothing to say about attacks on Sarah Palin from comedian Louis C.K., who used the c-word to describe Palin. In fact, she was only upset that Greta Van Susteran invited Lohan rather than Louis C.K. to the Radio and TV Congressional Correspondent’s Dinner.

It does leave one to wonder what does it take to get Meghan McCain to stick up for a person who has been viciously attacked. ...

Read more:  http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/05/02/Meghan-McCain-Dan-Savage


HUFF POST POLITICS
Mitt Romney Meets With Conservative Media Off The Record

by Michael Calderone

May 3, 2012

NEW YORK -- In an effort to reach out to conservative media, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney and wife Ann met for two hours Wednesday with several dozen conservative bloggers, reporters and columnists in an off-the-record gathering at a private Washington, D.C., club, according to attendees.

Romney, who struggled with some members of the conservative media during the Republican primary, is banking on their support in his campaign against President Barack Obama, regardless of whether they were previously in his corner or not.

The attendees came from numerous conservative sites and right-of-center publications, including National Review, Daily Caller, American Spectator,Washington Examiner, Right Wing News, Powerline, Townhall, Ace of Spades, RiehlWorldView, White House Dossier, and Pajamas Media. RNC chairman Reince Preibus also attended.

Details of the Romney meeting did not previously leak out because of the off-the-record ground rules. So even though there were as many as 60 writers at the Capitol Hill Club gathering, along with others calling in by phone, they weren't permitted to cover. But some attendees, in conversations with The Huffington Post, described generally what they took away from the private meeting.

"The basic message I got is the primary's over and we want you on our side and working with the campaign," said one attendee. Another described the meeting as "sort of an olive branch to conservative media."

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/mitt-romney-conservative-media-off-the-record_n_1472855.html?ref=politics&ir=Politics