NY Times Compares Gingrich To Elmer Gantry

Posted in: News Outlets
By J. Mark Soveign
Mar 31, 2009 - 10:07:00 PM

It was back in 1994 during the early days of the Clinton administration when Newt Gingrich became in the eyes of the public a caricature, a man depicted on the front page of a New York daily tabloid as a crying infant.  Outside of the Fox News network he is hardly seen or heard from, but times they are a changing.  Mr. Gingrich, who has not run for any elected office since he was forced out as House Speaker in 1999.  He has flirted with a run for president in the past, and is much-rumored to be considering doing so the next time around.

Expressing disdain that Notre Dame, the nation’s leading Catholic universities, invited President Obama to speak at its commencement, Mr Gingrich spoke out:  “It is sad to see Notre Dame invite President Obama to give the commencement address since his policies are so anti-catholic."  Some bloggers have noted that Mr. Gingrich himself had been divorced, twice; the Church does not allow divorce unless the marriage can be proved never to have existed, and it is not clear whether Mr. Gingrich’s first two marriages were annulled.

Gingrich has recently launched "Renewing American Leadership" a new organization devoted to bringing conservative evangelicals and Roman Catholics into the political process, with a goal of "strengthening the frayed alliance between economic and religious conservatives".  This is very odd because Newt Gingrich is a Baptist.  During a visit to the O'Reilly Factor on Fox a couple of weeks ago, Gingrich warned viewers of a "gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us."  

An article in the Times compares Newt Gingrich to Elmer Gantry a fictional revival preacher.  He is seen as positioning himself on the far right of the increasingly right-wing Republican Party and "he sees a path to power in challenging Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee for leadership of the Elmer Gantry wing of his beaten party" according to the piece.  Elmer Gantry author Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, the first given to an American.  He has 22 books to his credit and 3 plays.  His writing style was mainly satirical and is closely associated with irony.  Lewis at times criticized the American way of life.  He wrote Elmer Gantry in 1926.    

The Elmer Gantry movie premiered in 1960 and starred Burt Lancaster as Gantry and Jean Simmons as Sister Sharon Falconer.

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HTML clipboardThis article was written by Mark Soveign who owns and writes for Wertheim Communications LLC as well as Mooker.Com