Newt Has Peaked

I'm going out on a limb to say that even if he wins FL, Newt has peaked. I like the guy well enough. He fights, and I contemn the unlovely partisan habit of seeking purity and saviors in politicians. You evaluate the strengths and weaknesses and go with that; it's not necessary to make your guy god and everyone else a traitorous bastard.

I think he's good for the GOP and Conservatives in that he sharpens arguments and knows how to take the fight to the dual opponents: the Dems and the media. The other candidates can learn some tricks from him and I'm not eager to get him off the debate stage. If I'm wrong and he's the nominee, I won't scruple to vote for him.

BUT.

However smart and engaging he can be, however good at marshaling forces for battles, he's mostly hat with few cattle. He can move audiences, but not policy, and has never shown capacity to finish what he starts (marriages or speakerships or what have you), and I think I see the signs already of his melting down.

Gingrich has been saying he's a visionary who, Reagan-like, saw the fall of communism. Elliott Abrams reminds us that's not quite the way it was. Now who's the bad historian?

He doesn't do his homework. He casually remarked one day that John Bolton would be his Sec. of State, and about two seconds later Bolton endorsed Romney. This week he forced the trying-to-be-neutral Marco Rubio to slap him down not once but twice. How dumb do you have to be not to drop names before you're sure those names aren't going to repudiate you? Is that the way he'll relate to other nations, too -- without the necessary prepwork?

And now he's promising us the moon, literally. How are we supposed to take this man seriously with respect to controlling government spending when in this climate he's already ballooned a debate criticism of Obama's misuse of NASA into a concrete permanent base on the moon?

I think that jumps the shark, although it may take a little while for voters to see it.