Thanks Prof. (and Andrew) for pointing out this.

Even though Peggy Noonan shows Newt as a hand grenade; she keeps on justifying what GOP primary voters think about Newt - the insider guy who will fix Washington. Of course that is non-sense. What it all shows is inability of Conservative intellectuals falling for Newt (like Noonan) to realize that his sordid past in Washington and his lobbying exactly are the things we need to avoid. The guy is so shameless that he wants to jail Dodd-Frank; but want to justify his lobbying! What more corruption do you want? Why Pakistan is 'less corrupt' than USA when Newt would be in White House? Days of Tom Delay will be back.

The other narrative for Newt is what Douthat and Dowd are painting - GOP voters are so blind by their urge to bring someone who would 'out debate' Obama that they are all ready to put this 'corrupt sh*t' on the stage.

The best strategy for Obama while dealing with Newt will be to continue his 'Obama no-drama' demeanor; keep the message simple, keep it straight and be focused; don't go for winning 'points' with Newt. If that means Newt winning debate (agree for 3 debates of 90 minutes only; no Lincoln-Douglas, staying the course); so be case. The whole point is to contrast 'simplicity' with Newt's drama and for sure that hand grenade then will explode - when Newt knows his drama does not cut.

Obama needs to deal with his mistakes independently regardless of whether opponent is Newt or Romney or anyone else. He should not shy away from his 'government intervention' style approach. It worked for Auto-Industry, it worked for bank stress tests and it worked with bipartisan TARP (and in fact banks repaid all of their money and AIG is on way too). Stimulus might have failed to bring unemployment below 8% but he needs to communicate how it put the floor for going into recession. The main cross Obama carries is explaining what happened in ObamaCare - the guy who wanted to change Washington resorted to 'insider baseball' to get the bill passed. On top of that ObamaCare uses tough means like Mandate which is not easy for Americans to gulp, especially when Obama has not done a good job of selling it. That is the tangle he has to explain in a ways Americans can understand and still believe him that he would avoid such problems in his second term. Just using inequality as a tactic to shift the focus from his deeds would not work. Does that mean he goes to Americans with a 'transparent policy plan' for his second term along with his concrete vision for how to overcome entrenched inequality? There seems to no choice apart from that. Until he does that - it does not matter who is his opponent. Even horrendous and corrupt Newt will also defeat such non-communicative & non-transparent Obama. That desperate Americans are - give a chance to anyone who claims to fix our affairs when the incumbent does not explain us for what we should give him the second chance and for what we should believe him.

Dr. Drezner,

Conservatives thought Obama was dangerously naive during the '08 campaign when he promised to close down Gitmo, stop coercive interrogations, end rendition, and try terrorists in civilian courts. While he did stop coercive interrogations, the reality is that his administration still does rendition and Gitmo is still open. The attempt to try KSM in a NYC trial was met with backlash and the DOJ quietly retracted the plan. Your colleagues at Shadow Gov't even had an article last year calling Obama's NSS "Bush Lite."

Do you think if Newt Gingrich was elected, our foreign policy would be marked by change to a belligerent neoconservatism on steroids? Or would it be marked by continuity if his actions are tempered by realities? Gingrich is bombastic but if his political record shows us anything, it's that he is a pragmatist.

. . . other insane "idea" is that we ought to do a first-strike on North Korea and Iran because they might explode a nuke over the atmosphere of North America, turning us back to the stone age in a single burst.

Gee, Newt, wouldn't they think a preemptive strike by them would be logical if you win the election? And would Pakistan think it's a target also?

Well, of course not, because they know that our ICBMs and other strategically important weapons are shielded against EMP and that they'd be vaporized about one hour later.

Which kinda makes nonsense of your argument, no?

Says a lot about our nation that clowns like Newt can actually gain support.

Is Gingrich trying to get Pennsylvanian votes by mentioning Santorum? If so he should do his homework. The man went from Republican lion to joke in the state with his ability to constantly blunder into some of the most obvious and idiotic insults to anyone who wasn't a conservative WASP*.

On another note, it doesn't take a historian or a military expert to know that Iran doesn't possess the missile technology to reach the U.S.

*See his book 'It Takes A Family' which insulted women and homosexuals, his support for intelligent design, his equation (probably more deliberate than he claimed) of homosexuality with pedophilia and incest, and blaming the liberal atmosphere of Boston for the Roman Catholic sex abuses. Suffice to say by the end of his term he didn't have many friends.

One Iranian nuke could set off a chain reaction of nuke launches that could eventually engulf the entire world.

Please don't tell me you think that the launching of one nuke would be an isolated incident.

The launching of one nuke would spark a war eventually resulting in the launching of every nuke by every nuclear armed nation and the mutually assured destruction of everybody.

Your anti-conservative bias is clear here and very disappointing.

If Newt Gingrich really believes that, then he's evil. He's the most despicable sort of liar who boldly proclaims himself to be a champion of truth.

"Even a nuclear-armed Iran led by the current regime of nutball theocrats cannot threaten America's survival. "

IF Iran's leadership turned out to be genuinely psychotic and apocalyptic, that is exactly what nuclear weapons could make them able to threaten. One, or two, or even ten nuclear weapons could not "end America" but once we get much beyond 15 or so, things start to deteriorate rather swiftly (knock on wood!). I don't think the mullahs are that irrational, but one should NEVER forget how powerful nuclear weapons are. They ARE game changers in the power games. If Iran developed an arsenal of a good hundred bombs and the missiles to deliver them, they actually could destroy America as we know it. Provided they had no issues with themselves dying as well.

They would probably never do this, exactly because they seem to want to make others martyrs rather than themselves. But even having the capability would give them greatly enhanced leverage. I think that is the central issue of their nuclear program.

"Even a nuclear-armed Iran led by the current regime of nutball theocrats cannot threaten America's survival. "

IF Iran's leadership turned out to be genuinely psychotic and apocalyptic, that is exactly what nuclear weapons could make them able to threaten. One, or two, or even ten nuclear weapons could not "end America" but once we get much beyond 15 or so, things start to deteriorate rather swiftly (knock on wood!). I don't think the mullahs are that irrational, but one should NEVER forget how powerful nuclear weapons are. They ARE game changers in the power games. If Iran developed an arsenal of a good hundred bombs and the missiles to deliver them, they actually could destroy America as we know it. Provided they had no issues with themselves dying as well.

They would probably never do this, exactly because they seem to want to make others martyrs rather than themselves. But even having the capability would give them greatly enhanced leverage. I think that is the central issue of their nuclear program.

No, he's just an unprincipled congenital liar, yet you are making the assumption that he says what he means, and he means what he says.

He isn't, and he doesn't.

It really is as simple as that.

That is the tangle he has to explain in a ways Americans can understand and still believe him that he would avoid such problems in his second term. Just using inequality as a tactic to shift the focus from his deeds would not work. Does that mean he goes to Americans with a 'transparent policy plan' for his second term along with his concrete vision for how to overcome entrenched inequality? There seems to no choice apart from that. Until he does that - it does not matter who is sázkové kanceláre his opponent. Even horrendous and corrupt Newt will also defeat such non-communicative & non-transparent Obama. If there was a crisis in America's relationship with China, Russia or Pakistan, any one of them could help Iran both with missiles and with smaller warhead designs. Saying that a country working on multistage missile technology and with an active nuclear program would put itself in a position where it would threaten to destroy the United States, or any other country for that matter, is not alarmist, it is reality.

What, he ignored the Republicans pretending to come back into session every two days, without doing any actual business to do what the framers intended him to do when Congress wasn’t willing or able to appoint officials?

I’d like to see you defend the validity of a session where no debates are held, no committee meetings or hearings are had, the legislative equivalent of the groundhog seeing it’s shadow and going back in its burrow, as being a real session. And if it wasn’t a session, then sázení it was a recess, and the President did exactly what he should be able to do!

You also miss the part where the filibuster and all those secret holds aren’t actually part of the constitution.

You also miss the part where this can be used by Democrats, whenever we have one part of the legislature under our control or another, to deny Romney and others their due under the Constitution.

The best strategy for Obama while dealing with Newt will be to continue his 'Obama no-drama' demeanor; keep the message simple, keep it straight accidentlawyers and be focused; don't go for winning 'points' with Newt. If that means Newt winning debate (agree for 3 debates of 90 minutes only; no Lincoln-Douglas, staying the course); so be case. The whole point is to contrast 'simplicity' with Newt's drama and for sure that hand grenade then will explode - when Newt knows his drama does not cut.