Ron Paul admits Gingrich told the truth but argues for timidity. Romney agrees and names-drops the Israeli PM to buttress his personal authority. Gingrich sticks by his guns, notes that Ronald Reagan provoked important changes in the world by defying similar demands for more diplomatic statements and declares that he’s a Reaganite. Gingrich wins.

“I understand you disagree with my argument on transubstantiation. I’ll grant you that. But this does not change the fact that you are completely wrong about whether Han shot first.”

Newt Gingrich Judges You tries for laughs by captioning photos of the Republican frontrunner. There are lots of failures, but every now and then they do come up with a funny one.

Hat tip to Tiomoid of Angle.

John Bolton

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that he would offer controversial former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton the position of secretary of state if he wins the presidency.

Gingrich earned cheers for the choice at a forum hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition, at which nearly all the GOP presidential aspirants appeared separately. Bolton served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the U.N. for more than a year but never won Senate confirmation.

Critics described him as hotheaded, and he famously loathed the U.N., which won him conservative fans. Bolton discussed a 2012 presidential run himself but decided against it.

John Bolton (a Yale classmate) did an excellent job as UN Ambassador. He absolutely infuriated the left, and he has since continued to provide a valuable series of commentaries and criticisms of American international policy, particularly focusing on the failures of US administrations to stand up to villainous and barbarous regimes bent on mischief, like that of North Korea. Bolton is an ideal conservative choice for Secretary of State.

It starts running today in Iowa.

The vehemence of Establishmentarian Mika’s reaction is interesting, illustrating once again just how wide the gap in world view and perception is between ordinary Americans and our urban community of fashion. Mika Brzezinski obviously actually takes the nonsensical ultra-left demonstrations seriously. 59% of Americans, on the other hand, a recent Gallup Poll indicated, were left cold by the protests and felt unable to identify the movement’s goals, which is hardly surprising since it has been obvious for some time that the Occupy Wall Street protests have failed to produce any coherent list of demands.

Public Policy Polling:

Newt Gingrich has taken the lead in PPP’s national polling. He’s at 28% to 25% for Herman Cain and 18% for Mitt Romney. The rest of the Republican field is increasingly looking like a bunch of also rans: Rick Perry is at 6%, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum each at 1%.

Compared to a month ago Gingrich is up 13 points, while Cain has dropped by 5 points and Romney has gone down by 4.

A new national survey of Republicans indicates that it’s basically all tied up between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, with Gingrich on the rise and businessman Herman Cain falling due to the sexual harassment allegations he’s been facing the past two weeks.

According to a CNN/ORC International Poll released Monday, 24% of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say Romney is their most likely choice for their party’s presidential nominee with Gingrich at 22%. Romney’s two-point advantage is well within the survey’s sampling error.

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It must have been NYM’s recent endorsement.

Newt Gingrich corrects the egregious idiot Scott Pelley’s liberal nonsense.

When Bill Jacobson tweeted the video clip, Joan of Argghh responded in his comment section: That clip was so satisfying that I need a cigarette!

Herman Cain seems to have more or less survived his sexual harassment accusations, and Rick Perry failed to disgrace himself (thus doing much better) in last night’s debate at South Carolina’s Wofford College, but the evidence is clear that neither of these two likeable guys has the substantive knowledge or the communication abilities needed to be elected.

Personally, I wrote off New Gingrich back in 2007 as a possible GOP nominee in 2008 for coming out in support of Warmism. As recently as last May, Newt Gingrich was attacking the Paul Ryan budget proposal.

Michael Brendan Doughtery, just a couple of days ago, drew up a little list of Newt Gingrich’s sins, and asked How is Gingrich an improvement on Mitt Romney?

But if one accepts the viewpoint that the process is meaningful, the long series of Republican debates have seriously raised Gingrich’s status and claim to represent the viable conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. Other candidates who inspired hope have delivered disappointing performances. Mitt Romney has been polished and smooth. But only Newt Gingrich has demonstrated a superior ability to discuss issues and policies with a penetrating and original intelligence and with wit and humor. Gingrich is frequently a pleasure to listen to.

A number of serious commentators on the right, Byron York, Dorothy Rabinowitz, and now Power Line’s Steven Hayward are making arguments in favor of Gingrich.

Hayward makes the point which has occurred to me as well, that Gingrich is significantly redeeming himself precisely by the old-fashioned and unconventional way that he has chosen to seek the nomination and the presidency.

Newt is doing something interesting and maybe profound: he is trying to run for president according to an older model that stresses substance over sound bytes and gimmicky, targeted campaign strategy. ... It is a bid to see whether presidential politics can still be conducted along the line of the old republic that would be more familiar to the Founders, to the style of public argument more akin to what Hamilton had in mind in talking about “refining and enlarging the public view” through “reflection and choice” in Federalist #1.

It seems increasingly evident that we are going to have to oppose Barack Obama with a lesser figure than Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater. We simply do not have a peerless champion of Conservatism that we can nominate. But, God knows, even a mediocre, unprincipled Republican, some would argue even a syphilitic camel would represent an enormous improvement over Barack Obama.

If push came to shove, we would have to support Mitt Romney over Obama. It seems impossible to avoid concluding that the best hope of a more seriously conservative nominee is going to be Newt Gingrich. (There. It hurts, but I said it.)

CNN:

Sarah Palin, ending months of speculation, said Wednesday she will not run for president, either as a Republican or third-party candidate.

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Back last June, a particularly astute commentator observed:

It is too soon to decide whether the Republican Party ought to choose Sarah Palin as its nominee next year. She has not made it clear, so far, whether she actually intends to seek its nomination.

Were she to try to run, I think she has exhibited both potential major strengths and weaknesses that give one hope for her possible success, but leave one also uncertain of her ability to succeed. If Sarah Palin fails to convince most of us that she can perform consistently at a higher level of eloquence, I’d say that she ought not to be the nominee.

Palin has already carved out for herself a useful, practically effective, and very prominent role as a political commentator. It is possible that remaining free to be herself and operating in that capacity would be more congenial to her and more compatible with her talents and inclinations than campaigning for the presidency.

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Deciding not to run at this time, I think, speaks very, very positively for Sarah Palin’s good judgment. I think this decision, in fact, proves that she is highly intelligent and is operating politically at a level worthy of respect and admiration.

It is obvious enough why she isn’t running.

She clearly has concluded that running in the second position of a losing ticket does not really give one an automatic ticket to the GOP’s nomination and a firm claim on the presidency.

She undoubtedly recognizes that her resume was impaired by her decision to resign the Alaska governorship and write a book and cash in, in order to avoid her family winding up in bankruptcy as a result of the enormous legal expenses piling up as the result of a endless series of left-wing “ethics” attacks.

Sarah Palin is wise enough to realize that she sometimes appeared inarticulate and unprepared during her previous national campaign, and she has concluded that, before running again nationally, she needs to prove herself. She is only 47 years old, and she has plenty of time to run for the presidency.

Since leaving elected office, Sarah Palin has carved out for herself an extremely useful and highy influential role as national spokesperson for conservatism. She was already, in that role, able to have a real impact on the national debate, and she was, in fact, more effective most of the time than any member of Congress or any governor.

There are a lot of people who have doubts about whether she possesses sufficient knowledge and ability to express herself to serve as president. Serving for years as a national leader of the conservative cause, fighting the good fight in the national political wars, is actually the best way to establish anyone as a credible leader and inevitable candidate. Palin isn’t running for president this year, instead she is proposing to occupy the same national role formerly held in years gone by Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater.

Looking on, I find myself wondering why on earth that particular role has been vacant for so long. The reflection is inevitable that, if Newt Gingrich had done, some years ago, what Sarah Palin is doing now, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry would not be the front runners.

You often hear people talk about how bright Newt Gingrich is, and how dumb Sarah Palin is. I think all this proves that exactly the reverse is true. Palin has made the right decision, and there is a pretty good likelihood that she will keep on doing the right thing, and will one day go on to greater things.

Newt Gingrich has been backpedaling and apologizing furiously for his attacks on Paul Ryan’s budget reform proposal on the Meet the Press last Sunday.

What Gingrich’s true and actual positions on the Ryan proposals, Medicare, and Obamacare might actually be these days remains unclear. It seems that Gingrich is basically where one would expect him to be, and on Sunday was only bloviating, and philosophizing, and attempting to differentiate his own more nuanced, sophisticated, and organic approach to budgetary reform from less prudent and more inflamatory approaches.

Gingrich apologized to Paul Ryan and has been making a genuine effort to sound more like a Republican (and to stay a viable candidate).

The latest amusing effort to keep the Gingrich candidacy afloat was this salvo by his press secretary Rick Tyler, attempting to blame the Sunday debacle on a media conspiracy.

The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.”

I was down on Gingrich, too, so I guess my invitations to the Georgetown cocktail parties must be in the mail.

Quinn Hillyer filed the best response at the American Spectator.

Methinks if there is any billowing smoke, it is the funny stuff the Gingriches must be smoking if they think he has emerged looking like anything except a shabby, self-important hack with enough egg on his face to feed omelets to the whole nation of Lichtenstein.

Hat tip to Jim Geraghty’s (emailed) Morning Jolt.
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UPDATE, 5/20:

Jon illustrated the entire “Gingrich Emerging” rant here.

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UPDATE, later 5/20:

John Lithgow reads the glorious press release for Stephen Colbert.

Gingrich attacks the Ryan Medicare plan.