In the case of Gingrich it is a life time of duplicitous and immoral behavior. He is not a good man.

You stated: As for judging a man on past actions, I think we call that judging his “character.”

I replied: Character may be a good way to judge whether or not a person is someone you’d enjoy having a beer with, but I think the current President proves that it might not be the best way to measure one’s policy goals.

The point here is that it shouldn’t matter what a person does in their personal life if their policies are effective at helping this county and it’s people. Would we tell the man who cures AIDS that his vaccine is no good here because he served his wife divorce papers on her death bed? I don’t think so.

Would we think that guy is a scumbag in his personal life? Probably. Would we think he is a hero around the world for his contributions? Probably.

I’m not saying Gingrich is a hero or a savior of any sort, but to write off a man’s policies simply because he’s not the cleanest person in his personal life is ludicrous and could be the very cause of some of this country’s problems.

Character may be a good way to judge whether or not a person is someone you’d enjoy having a beer with, but I think the current President proves that it might not be the best way to measure one’s policy goals.

The book I recommended to you, is written by a long standing conservative who claims that Newt is not a conservative. As you can probably tell I am not a fan of Newt or the recent crop of people who call themselves conservatives. I can respect a real conservative, however and I do, when they are genuine.

I will take a look at the book and I will report back to you, would you take a look at John Dean’s book?

As for judging a man on past actions, I think we call that judging his “character”.

And on a side note, I would agree that Newt made a foolish decision to serve divorce papers to his wife as she lay dying. That said, I can’t see any value in reading a book that focuses on the negatives associated with individual Republicans or Democrats and then using what that book says (which will obviously be biased one way or another) to affect my decisions on that politician’s policies. That’s like comparing apples and shoes.

Still, I don’t see what that has to do with anything in this book. The book is written based off of finding real solutions to America’s problems. Although I will say that when people hyper-focus on a politician’s negative characteristics and let that supersede anything positive he/she has to offer, that this is where America gets stuck in a rut (see Clinton/Lewinsky).

You should take a read of Newt’s book (or at least see some of the research his think tank is putting out there) and make a decision on the man’s policies based off of that.