Oh For Goodness Sake: Dr. Drew is Crushing the Fogbowers

As you may know, I have been doing my best to school the folks who run and participate in the famous Fogbow website.  This website came to my attention, in part, because it includes wildly inaccurate information about me.

One of the most active members of Fogbow is Anna Stoddard.  Stoddard is a respected figure at Fogbow, but her name has been tarnished by her own errors and laziness.  For the record, I just caught Anna Stoddard, the author of the "Oh For Goodness Sake" blog lying about her first article on me.  She made the silly mistake of suggesting that I worked for Ann Coulter while Ann Coulter was an undergraduate at Cornell University. 

Now, Ms. Stoddard is spinning her mistake and indignantly claiming she "immediately" corrected her error. 

In truth, we both know that she left that error in place for over a year after I brought the mistake to her attention.  I know that she saw my outrage over her mistake over a year ago because she quoted from my article - without ever correcting the mistake I brought to her attention regarding her absurd suggestion about Ann Coulter employing me.  Today, she writes:  

John Drew came here and said I had misinterpreted something he said about being a teaching assistant of Ann Coulter. I did misunderstand what he had tweeted and I posted a correction to OFGS linking to John Drew's blog immediately.

I guess she is trying to argue that she just noticed my complaint about her silliness when in truth she has known about it for over a year. 

By the way, Stoddard also has not explained the even sillier idea that I did not know young Obama drove a red Fiat.  This second error is funny and revealing since you can easily tell from my article that the car I first saw Obama arrive in was owned (and driven) by his friend Hasan Chandoo. 

What should be alarming to everyone at Fogbow is Stoddard's willingness to lie in print to her friends at Fogbow to cover up her obvious mistake. 

As you might expect, the folks at Fogbow did not stand up long when I started turning up the heat - particularly their absurd claim that I said I was Obama's classmate or the bizarre assertion that I believe Obama is still a Marxist socialist based only on my 1980 debate with him. 

The most pathetic person in the Fogbow group is a fellow named Kevin Kesseler, 42, an unmarried math Ph.D. who lives up to the worst stereotypes you might imagine about him.  He has a massive gap in his resume, between 2009-2011, which is visible in his LinkedIn profile.  Last time I checked, he is bragging about his math model building company, Bespoke Modeling, which only had a one page web presence. 

The folks at Fogbow, particularly, the disbarred CA attorney, Bill Byran, believe that my take on young Obama's ideological extremism will be diluted by tossing in a thorough list of everyone else who ever interacted with young Obama.

I certainly welcome that debate.  Remnick's book verifies that Obama's true Occidental College roommate, Hasan Chandoo, was a Marxist, socialist.  The book quotes Margot Mifflin saying Chandoo was a Marxist.  I say Chandoo was a Marxist and that Obama was a more extreme Marxist than Chandoo.  I do not think any objective observer would buy Remnick's suggestion that Obama's Marxism was somehow unprogrammatic or unideological.  Remnick is a liberal Democrat partisan who seeking to protect Obama's image. The people he quotes are typically donors to the Obama presidential campaign.

I would expect Remnick and Obama's Democrat party friends to minimize the ideological extremism I saw in young Obama. 

All in all, I think Remnick underestimated how much additional information was available on Obama's radicalism, information later uncovered by both Jack Cashill in Deconstructing Obama and Stanley Kurtz in Radical-In-Chief.

One of the more notable guys contributing to Fogbow is a real sociology professor named Richard C. Rockwell who is known as Tolland RCR.  Prof. Rockwell, at the very least, should insist that the folks at Fogbow remove any suggestion from their website that I ever claimed I was Obama's classmate or that my take on contemporary Obama is solely based on meeting him in 1980-1981.  Rockwell used to be the Executive Director, The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. 

Richard C. Rockwell should know better than to tarnish himself, his academic institution or the Roper Center by tolerating the shoddy reporting and dishonest practices used by his friends at Fogbow.

If Fox New wants to host an Occidental College reunion, then I certainly hope I'm invited to share what I know about the young Obama's extremist ideology. I spoke at Occidental College regarding young Obama this summer. I welcome any opportunity to discuss Obama's Marxist socialist roots with those who knew him at Occidental College and those who are protecting him at the University of Connecticut or the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew Reacts: Debunking Leftist Fogbow Propaganda

I thought it would be a good idea to debunk the false statements made about me at the famous Fogbow website.  For a look at the real people and the real names of the folks posting anonymously at Fogbow, please check out the excellent YouTube video at LiveLeak called Who's Who of Blog Talk Radio and The Fogbow Obots aka Obama's Brown Shirts.

First, the Fogbow Obots assert that I have described myself as a "classmate" of young Obama.  This, of course, is completely untrue.  I have always made it clear that I was a graduate student from Cornell who was visiting friends from Occidental College when I met young Obama.  Nevertheless, this initial lie tells you a lot about the ruthlessness and disregard for the truth which seems common at the Fogbow website.

On the basis of this untruthful claim, the Fogbow people pretend to catch me in a lie simply by repeating my basic statements.  For my full report on meeting young Obama, see my first article in American Thinker called Meeting Young Obama. 

Second, the folks at Fogbow try to make me look foolish by saying that I believe Obama is still a Marxist socialist simply due to the brief exposure I had to his ideas when Obama was a sophomore at Occidental College.  They write:

Based on spending just a few hours with the President when he was 19 years old, in a relaxed social setting at an age when most students enjoy exploring and trying new ideas and thoughts, Drew concluded the President was and still is a radical Marxist.

I would have to be mentally ill to say that I base my take on Obama today simply on my face-to-face exposure to young Obama's ideological extremism.  My take on President Obama's abiding commitment to Marxist socialist thought is based on a combination of factors including 1) his ties to Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers and Sen. Alice Palmer in the 1990s, 2) the lack of a conversion story in the Obama presidential history which would indicate he dropped his youthful radicalism, and 3) the continuing rhetoric coming from Obama - as a candidate and as president - which indicates a profound commitment to a class conflict model of economic development and an out and out hostility to our traditional U.S. economic system. 

I have also provided detailed rebuttals to the inaccurate information being promoted by one of the members of the Fogbow website, Anna Stoddard, who is the blogger at "Oh For Goodness Sake."  For example, I immediately responded to Stoddard initial attack on me - which she posted on February 17, 2010 - where she made the bizarre suggestion that I worked for Ann Coulter while she was an undergraduate student at Cornell University.  You can see my response in this article at my own blog site. 

In addition, I also responded immediately to further bizarre comments made by Anna Stoddard on March 10, 2011 which made the even more bizarre suggestion that I should have known that Obama drove a red Fiat when, in truth, I made it very clear in my own work that the fancy car I saw Obama riding in when I first met him was owned by his wealthy Pakistani friend, Hasan Chandoo.  You can see my rebuttal to this silly idea in this article at my own blog site.  As far as I can tell, Stoddard is an elderly retired lady currently living in Mexico.  I think the silly mistakes in her blog show that she is spending too much of her retirement money on things that are killing her brain cells.

The folks at Fogbow like to position themselves as journalists who have a more accurate take on reality than their conservative opponents.  All I can say is that the Fogbow folks have a history of creating false documents and conducting dirty tricks.  Based on the gap between my real story and their out and out lies, I would think no one should take the folks at Fogbow seriously when it comes to getting the facts out about the young Obama.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Augustine25

The bright moon of March 19 inspired this year’s Christmas card. We still remember how we drove around town to find a high spot to view a rare moment when the Earth, Moon and Sun were all in alignment and the Moon was at its nearest approach to the Earth in 18 years.

Moon Lit Christmas Eve by John C. Drew, Ph.D.  Acryllic on canvas December, 2011.

In a similar manner, we spent much of the year in the grasp of economic and political forces beyond our control and uplifted by some powerful figures that disrupted our thinking and introduced us to better ideas. The tidal waves began in early January when we drove up to Beverly Hills to meet Stanley Kurtz and heard him speak about his new book, Radical-In-Chief, at David Horowitz’s Wednesday Morning Club. Kurtz credited John’s report on young Obama’s ideological views for encouraging him to research Obama’s beliefs.

Online, John debated MSNBC pundits like Ezra Klein and Keith Olbermann. Locally, Mike Munzing pulled John down to Earth and into local politics to serve as his alternate on the Orange County Republican Central Committee. With Mike’s help, John shared his own story at speeches to the Republican Women’s Federated Clubs in Laguna Niguel, San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.

Jay McDowell, a corporate-level business coach, brought order and discipline to our small business. With Jay’s guidance, we made changes including recruiting three new grant writing associates, finding a new grant researcher, and setting up new business management systems such as Foundation Search, Drop Box and QuickBooks. John’s speaking schedule took him to Anchorage, Alaska where he saw moose roaming the streets. “The moose are a nuisance and they are out to kill,” he said.

The year ended with a surprising bang as we won a number of new contracts for grant writing services. We are celebrating with jazz piano Christmas music and fresh baked cinnamon raison oatmeal cookies – even as our home is buffeted by strong winds. Although we remember 2011 as a year in which we were stirred and shaken, we are nevertheless pleased to top it off by wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

UGH

Thanks for the post, Nora Howe

When I looked up CLEAR internet providers in my area I was excited to find one in my price range. I actually just moved about 200 miles away from most of my family and though that doesn’t sound like a lot we all lived within 5 miles from each other at home and I’m not used to being so far away. I wanted a way to keep up with them and with the high speed internet I can Skype and Facebook to my heart’s content, especially since I still haven’t found a job! We moved here because my husband Rick found a great position and I’m happy for him, but that doesn’t mean it’s not tough for me being here at home all day in this new town while he’s at work. I love being a housewife a lot of the time but most of the time I’m just really, really missing my family back home. I wonder what they’re doing and if they’re missing me too, mostly!

Dr. Drew's Rapid Response Catches News Corpse Blogger "Mark" Lying About His Claims

I noticed that Mark over at New Corpse is lying about me as part of a larger effort to smear Fox Nation for reporting my take on young Obama's ideological extremism. 

I think it is important to get on to the public record my response to Mark's efforts to undermine my credibility by suggesting that I called myself a "close friend" of young Obama, which I have not, and then using this lie as a leverage point for attacking my overall credibility.  Strictly speaking, I have written that "I certainly considered him a friend, a confidant and a political ally in the larger struggle against poverty and oppressive social systems."

Here's my response to Mark, a response that he did not allow to be published on his website.  I've cleaned it up to catch the typos, but it is substantially the way I wrote it yesterday:

Let’s get real here. First, you are lying when you write that I claimed Obama was a “close friend.” I never used those words. You use them, however, to make it look like the reality of the situation was in conflict with my own stated story. You are actually making up a statement from me…which I consider to be dishonest journalism. It is shocking to me that you accuse Fox News with promoting make believe and yet you make up the concept that I once said Obama was a “close friend.” What you do in your article is make a false claim about what I’ve said and then turn around to make it look like I have exaggerrated my contacts with young Obama – which I have not.

Chandoo is not a reliable source to attack my testimony – something you leave out of your report drawn from Ron Kessler’s article. Even worse, you left off the first part of the Chandoo quote which verifies I was in the room and that Chandoo considers me a credible source.

“If that’s what John Drew said, that’s what he said,” Chandoo commented.

I don’t see how you can leave out that quote. What is amazing is that Chandoo verified that he knew me and that we met together that evening. The smart thing would have been for Chandoo to claim he never knew me at all. He failed to do that. In this sense, I see my story collaborated. You, however, suggest my story is uncollaborated and dubious. If I had simply made up a story of arguing with young Obama, then don’t you think Chandoo would have said that?

You also lie when you write that Chandoo is a “former” Obama associate. You know from the article itself that Chandoo still sees Obama fairly frequently…at least at White House events. Mark, I can’t make these things up. You are really out and out distorting the historical record by making up a strawman comment from me and not telling your readers the whole story about what Chandoo has said in that Kessler article.

Next, my story isn’t “ancient.” My article describing meeting and debating young Obama came out in American Thinker in February 2011. I was only interviewed on the Michael Savage show last week. Fox News has only last week even acknowledged that I exist and that my story is available to scholars and opposition researchers.

Finally, you go out of your way to make it look like I’ve been inappropriately pushing my story when, in truth, what is shocking about my story is that it was not immediately picked up in 2008 when I first went public with it. Since then, however, my story has been covered in books by Michael Savage, Paul Kengor, Stanley Kurtz and Jack Cashill.

For you to suggest that my story has only been featured in “radical right-wing rags and Internet backwater rabble” strikes me as extremely odd when it has also been featured in major books produced by big name publishers.

All in all, the gap between your take on my story and the reality of the story is pretty stark.

I really think you owe me and your readers an apology and you ought to correct your story to reflect the reality of the situation. To claim, as you do, that I ever said I was a “close friend” of Obama is an obvious falsehood, a falsehood that you use to embarrass me in front of my family and my business clients – many of who are liberals or independents.

I respectfully request that you change your story to make it clear that I have never said what you are claiming I said in your article above. In addition, I want to ask that you add the full comment from Chandoo so your readers can see how it collaborated my story enough for Kessler to write it and for Newsmax to publish it. My business is dependent on my reputation for honesty and integrity. For you to make up and print obviously false information about me strikes me as deeply unfair.

MARK'S REBUTTAL IS BELOW:

John, this is getting tedious. You cannot continue to use my web site as your platform, particularly when you keep repeating the same arguments that have already been hashed over to death. Get your own blog.

As for your complaint about whether you said Obama was a “close friend,” here is what you said about it:

“I certainly considered him a friend, a confidant…”

So you may not have used the word “close” but “confidant” implies the same thing. At least to me. I don’t have any confidants who are not also close friends (and that’s as close as you’re gonna get to a correction).

I also find it curious that you’ve spent so much time and energy bitching about the word “close” on an obscure blog, but have ignored the far more misleading assertion that you and Obama were “college mates” that appeared on a far more read web site, Fox News.

As to your complaint about the age of your story, it did not begin in February 2011, as you state above. It goes back to 2008. You have acknowledged that yourself. So this story, in news terms, is ancient.

You are welcome to comment on anything else I write so long as your comment is civil, relevant, and reasonably concise. But this topic is closed due to boredom.

MY RESPONSE TO MARK:

What?! How is “confidant” the same thing as “close.? I can’t take you seriously any more. In your article above, you say I claimed to be both a “close friend” and a “confidant.” Right? You can be a confidant with someone you just met in an elevator in Las Vegas. The larger issue is that you made up a false claim from me – on purpose – to discredit me. You dehumanized me and didn’t even consider the damage you might be doing to me, my family and my business. For you to lie about what I said, in my view, totally destroys your credibility regarding everything else you write on this blog including your attacks on Fox Nation. I’ve demonstrated that your readers cannot trust you to provide honest, trustworthy information. I NEVER claimed I was a “close friend” of young Obama. NEVER.

ANOTHER RESPONSE TO MARK AND SLARTBARTFEST:

Come on. The dictionary definition shows I was on the mark using the world confidant in the sense that I considered young Obama a political associate in the larger political fight.

I think the public agrees that I’ve proven both Slartibartfast and Mark to be liars, liars who are willing to make up quotes and claims that I have supposedly asserted through my own language.

Frankly, I think that is libelous. Even as a public figure, I know that you are not supposed to knowingly lie about me in a highly visible public form.

Making up false quotes or claims strikes me as a violation of law. Whatever the faults of Fox News, they have never made up a quote and claimed I said it. Fox News has never asserted that I claimed something which I did not.

Fox News does not assert that I ever said or claimed I was a "close friend" of young Obama. Mark does. That is why Mark is a hypocrit. Slartibartfest, a Ph.D. in math from Duke University, has also been caught asserting I said I was "the best graduate student in the nation," but now he cannot prove I ever said either. (If you want to check out Kevin Kesseler "Slartibartfest" Kesseler's one page website, then you can see it here at Bespoke Modeling.) This is typical for the left. You don’t care how much you lie or who you hurt as long as you are protecting President Obama.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Giving Up All My Secrets: Dr. Drew Interviewed by Historian David J. Garrow

I'm honored to announce I was just interviewed by Pulitzer Prize winning historian, David J. Garrow, even though I suspect that anyone who stepped foot on the Occidental College campus and met young Obama between 1979-1981 has received a similar visit. 

In my case, it was a particularly humbling experience. Right now, I feel like I endured a trip to the dentist. When I first heard from Prof. Garrow by e-mail I was not sure it was really him. I checked out some of his YouTube videos and then asked him to give me a call so I could be sure I was talking to the real guy and not some deranged Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protester.

As you may know, Garrow is the winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.  His book, Bearing the cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was probably the most comprehensive book written about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

At first, I was not certain it was a good idea to speak to him or not.  I called around to some of my friends and quickly figured out that although Garrow is a liberal he does have a reputation for doing fair and accurate historical work.  In Bearing the Cross, for example, he reported on how Martin Luther King, Jr. cheated on his wife and the impact that FBI disclosures of this information impacted the last three years of King's life. 

Garrow taped his interview of me.  My understanding is that nothing I said will be published until President Obama is out of office.

Nevertheless, it is not often that you meet with a presidential historian and I was a little startled by the experience.  To start off, I was surprisingly nervous.  I almost dumped a glass of ice tea on him.  It was also surprisingly unpleasant.  I prepped for the interview by sorting through old photographs and rereading about 30 old notes and letters from the 1980-1981 era of my life.  It was a shocking reminder of the emotional immaturity of my early 20's.  I confessed to one of my friends, for example, that my ratings as an instructor in the political science department at Cornell University had improved since the last semester because I had stopped laughing out loud at the students who said stupid things. 

I also found out that presidential historians have an awkward role in informing people of the deaths of those who used to be in their social circles.  In my case, I discovered that one of the Occidental College radical leaders I knew, Gary Chapman, 58, had died of a heart attack last December.  I had mentioned Chapman as a prominent leader of the student anti-apartheid movement in Meeting Young Obama earlier this year.

Nevertheless, Garrow made it pleasant to reminisce about old friends and to learn who got married to who, who succeeded in life, and who crashed and burned in a spectacular fashion. My attitude, of course, is that I'm going to be deceased for a lot longer than I have lived and consequently I provided him with my complete honesty - flaws and all. 

At a certain point, I have decided, you can no longer feel embarrassment for the things you have done, you can only expect future generations will learn from your mistakes.  

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew Gives a Rapid Response to New Irresponsible Attack by Error Prone OFGS Blogger

On the heels of my recent talk before the San Clemente Republican Women's Federated club, I learned that I was the recipient of another bizarre personal attack by Anna Stoddard, the elderly error-prone Oh For Goodness Sake  (OFGS) blogger. 

In this case, our expatriate, faux journalist completely misreads the work of liberal journalist David Remnick in the The Bridge.  Ms. Stoddard, for example, makes the tactical mistake of relying on the testimony of Mohammed Hasan Chandoo to refute my face-to-face observations of young Obama's revolutionary fervor. 

What Stoddard forgets is that in Remnick's book, Chandoo admits to being a Marxist.  Chandoo's girlfriend Margot Mifflin has reported that Chandoo was a Marxist.  Moreover, I can report to you that Chandoo was a Marxist.  It strikes me as delusional to assume that Chandoo - who really was Obama's sophomore year roommate - can be trusted to disconfirm young Obama's commitment to extremist ideology. 

For a great new article that puts young Obama's Marxist philosophy into a proper cultural context, please check out Micheal Leahy's just published article regarding the Indonesian roots of President Obama's radical perspective, "Obama's New Nationalism More Sukarno Than Teddy Roosevelt."

Accordingly, it strikes me as both silly and rather insane for Anna Stoddard to rely on Chandoo's comments in the Feburary 2010 piece by Ronald Kessler regarding my debate with young Obama as credible evidence that Obama was not a Marxist.

Give me a break!

FBI chronicler Ron Kessler is so cool that he even catches Chandoo lying over the course of his interview with Kessler regarding how frequently Chandoo has seen Obama since he has been in office.  The irony of the Kessler story is that Chandoo tries to undercut my report while revealing himself to be a less than honest resource.

The mistaken prone Stoddard also forgets that Obama friend Wahid Hamid also confirmed that young Obama's friends where Marxist socialists and that Obama was in sync with them ideologically.  This, of course, implies that both Chandoo and Obama were Marxists at Occidental College and verifies my comments to Kessler, two months prior to the publication of The Bridge, asserting that young Obama held to a radical, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist perspective. 

During my time with young Obama I got to see a real revolutionary face-to-face.  I engaged in a strenuous debate with Obama that was witnessed by both Caroline Boss and Mohammed Hasan Chandoo.  It was a debate in which I meant to change young Obama's world view by giving him more accurate information about the real world of international politics and social change. 

Absolutely no one else has come close to describing the thinking of young Obama in the vivid detail I have provided in my earlier comments and articles at American Thinker.  I was a student of Marxist economics and political science at the time I debated young Obama.  I do not see how I could have been mistaken about his level of intellectual development regarding the changing field of Marxist socialist theory in the early 1980s. 

Since my story has come out, it has helped spark a broad range of new Obama literature and has been featured in books by Michael Savage, Paul Kengor, Stanley Kurtz and Jack Cashill.   In 2008, I was a lonely, isolated voice seeking to save the nation from a presidential candidate who was too radical and too dishonest to serve our country properly and to lead us to economic prosperity.  In 2012, however, it is not just me anymore.  Opposition researchers will have many articles and books to review to understand the depth of the connections that link young Obama to radical Marxist thought all the way through Frank Marshall Davis, to me, to Alice Palmer and eventually to our nation's number one unrepentant terrorist, Bill Ayers. 

It is about time that the American people woke up to the frightening reality that President Obama has been holding us back and harming our progress by applying sort of silly and ineffective measures that could only please a Soviet Union planning bureaucrat.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew's Take on Young Obama Featured in Fox Nation: Brief Comments in Response to Liberal Attackers

I thought I should share with you the news that my story on meeting young, Marxist Obama has finally made it to the pages of Fox Nation.  In the picture below, I'm speaking on "Why Barack Obama's Past Is More Important Than His Future" at the San Clemente Republican Women's Federated meeting on December 14, 2011.

The most prominent liberal response comes from an unnamed blogger, posting at No More Mister Nice Blog.  For a less thoughtful attack, see this piece at News Corpse.

It looks like the best the left can do is argue that I did not see Obama frequently enough to get an accurate view of his ideological beliefs as a sophomore at Occidental College.  My view, however, is that I have been vindicated by the subsequent Obama literature.  After all, a lot of liberals attacked my story on young Obama's ideological extremism in 2008.  Today, however, the Obama literature has moved much closer to my take on young Obama as a Marxist socialist than the technocratic take offered by James Kloppenberg in Reading Obama.

I replied to "Steve" at No More Mister Nice Blog with these comments:

I noticed your article discussing my take on young Obama's ideology was gaining traction on the Internet. I thought it would be a good idea for you to be aware of my responses to the serious charges you level in your article.

See, Dr. Drew Responds to Oh For Goodness Sake Blogger.

In addition, I think it is important to get out the story of my own conversion out of Marxist socialist thought. See, Dr. Drew's Conservative Conversion Story

All in all, I find it difficult to understand why reasonable people don't accept my story after David Remnick published The Bridge. It seems perfectly clear to me that the Obama literature has moved in the direction I indicated was correct instead of the direction suggested by Prof. Kloppenberg in his book, Reading Obama.

My take on young Obama has also been supported by substantial research done by Stanley Kurtz in his book, Radical-In-Chief and by Jack Cashill's Deconstructing Obama. Given the large number of publications that are consistent with my take on young Obama's ideological extremism, I would expect bloggers like you to confront the evidence and not engage in abusive ad hominem attacks. Please feel free to print this in your blog if it is helpful to you and your readers.

The end of the story was priceless since "Steve" wrote back only to say: "I have nothing to say to anyone who uses "research" and "Jack Cashill" in the same sentence. Don't bother me again. You're an idiot."

All in all, I think Obama is in trouble. I don't think it is plausible to suggest I was mistaken about young Obama's extremist ideology.
 
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew on Why Pundits Over Estimate Impact of a $10,000 Bet Offer in the Context of Gingrich's Infidelity Issues

It looks like the pundits on ABC and elsewhere are stirred up about Romney’s idea of making a $10,000 bet, but missing the significance of Gingrich’s survival over the infidelity problem. As you may remember, the challenge of a $10,000 bet was Mitt Romney’s best idea for shutting down Gov. Perry’s attack on his commitment to an individual mandate.

The number did not shock me at all. I saw Bob Beckel make a $10,000 bet on the outcome of the 2012 presidential election with Eric Bolling on The Five just a few days ago. I think it is silly for the ABC pundits to think this is an issue. After all, a tinier bet would have been ridiculous and a much larger bet would have been clearly inappropriate.

To put this issue in context, I should add that Forbes reported that Diane Sawyer made $12 million in 2005. We do not hear the pundits at ABC bringing up that little bit of irony, do we?

I don’t think Bachmann did much to restore her front runner status in Iowa. I think she should have left Herman Cain in his political grave. Sad. Sad. Sad.

As a bit of nostalgia, I remember listening to Gingrich's GOPAC audio tapes too. I was a young political science professor at Williams College in MA in 1988 who was recruited to run for the state assembly to pin down a guy who might have been a strong Dukakis volunteer in Iowa. I remember listening to those GOPAC tapes. I guess that Rick Santorum brought them up because he is trying to make Newt Gingrich look too old to be president. Rick Santorum was once one of our most precocious citizen politicians rapidly rising from beating a Democrat congressman at age 32 to being a U.S. senator at age 36. Unfortunately, Santorum's defeat in PA was a big failure. Santorum lost, with 41% of the vote to Casey's 59% - the largest margin of defeat ever for an incumbent Republican Senator in Pennsylvania.

All in all, I think Gingrich won because he survived that intensive attack on his infidelity. By the end, I was feeling sorry for him even though he made a big mistake. Gingrich is going through a trial by fire and surviving as a stronger candidate according to the recent primary voter polls. Clearly, you do not become president by making yourself into the best candidate. It is much easier to make your opponents the worst candidates.

I expect that the voters will see this as, in part, fitting punishment for the seemingly repentant Gingrich and a necessary ritual for him to endure on his path to the White House and the overthrow of the Marxist socialist Obama regime.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew on Huckabee GOP Candidate Forum - I Missed the Studio Audience

I spent the evening live blogging the Huckabee FOX News GOP Candidate Forum for Sulia.  My sense is that Gingrich consolidated his front runner status tonight. He was lucky to be the first person. I'll bet that viewership declined over the course of the debate. I think Gingrich enjoys a lot of advantages right now because of his front runner status. It must give him great confidence that even though he has made all these mistakes in the past, many voters are forgiving him and expecting him to be a stonger, better president. It's hard to be intimidated when you are leading in the polls.

I can report that Gingrich is a sincere student of Washington. I was surprised to learn that for over two decades, Gingrich has taught at the United States Air Force's Air University. He is the longest-serving teacher of the Joint Flag Officer Warfighting Course. I've met both Obama and Gingrich face-to-face. There is no way that Obama is as bright or as informed as Gingrich.

I was glad that neither Cain or Huntsman were there tonight. I think this format would have gotten even more tedious if they were included in this debate.

All in all, I see Ron Paul as being as much of an ideologue as Barack Obama. This is why he occasionally hits home with a punch. I think ideologies endure because they have some compelling insights than endure.  I think Ron Paul is a living example of how far you can go in life by rigidly sticking to an ideology. Obama’s ideology, in contrast, is Indonesian socialism – socialism with an anti-colonial twist and a good dose of Islamic sensibilities.

What were the best moments? I think Rick Perry did surprisingly well at the very beginning when it looked like he was less distracted the normal. I also like the way that Bachmann discussed how states would find ways to cooperate even in the absence of a strong federal government. I think Romney has got his answer down pat for why Romneycare looks so much like Obamacare, but why that does not really matter.

What surprised me tonight? The format gave me a sharper focus on each candidate as if I was looking at them through a pure microscope lens. What I saw, however, pretty much confirmed the basic conventional wisdom regarding each candidate.

What would I change? Bring back the studio audience. I missed them in this debate. Sometimes I feel like the audience has a better grasp on reality than the candidates. I think we can still learn a lot from the one guy in the audience that suddenly shouts out: You lie!

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.