Newt in 2012? Let's hope not

Here we are, a full 18 months out from the 2012 presidential election, and already the Republican candidates are lining up to challenge President Barack Obama. Yesterday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich officially declared his candidacy after months of hinting at it. So the question is raised: Would Gingrich, a Republican from Georgia, make a good president? I don't think so.
Don't get me wrong. the former House speaker has a lot going for him. He's got nationwide name recognition, thanks to his previous stint in Congress. He's undoubtedly a brilliant man and a great politician. After all, he was the architect of the "Republican Revolution" of 1994 which swept the GOP into power for a dozen years. And he does have a real, in-depth knowledge of how Congress works. He already has established many important relationships that could be invaluable in helping him accomplish his agenda as president.
But even with all that, Gingrich would still be the wrong person to elect in 2012. As much as his previous experience on the national level is an asset, it's also a major liability.
Gingrich is, in reality, little more than a back-bench bomb thrower who got lucky. He's an intractable hard-right partisan more interested in power and in serving his party than the American people. He's an advocate of the "neo-con" political philosophy which has proven to be a failure. And perhaps worst of all, he's a hypocrite.
Gingrich was one of the driving forces behind the ill-fated decision to impeach former President Bill Clinton over an Oval Office blowjob. During that period, he preached loud and long about the need for greater morality in our elected leaders. Then, we found out that not only did he cheat on his own wife, but he presented her with divorce papers while she was in the hospital battling cancer. Is this really the kind of man we want as the most powerful leader in the free world?
With Gingrich in the White House, we would take a major step backwards. Much of the goodwill that Obama has managed to garner in the past couple of years would be wasted, as Gingrich, would undoubtedly resume the "you're either with us or against us" cowboy diplomacy of George W. Bush.
And let's not forget about the failed Republican economic policies of deregulation and tax cuts for the super-rich that landed us in the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Republicans are the ones who wrecked the economy after 12 years of almost complete control of our government. Do we really want to go there again?
Unfortunately, Gingrich may prove to be the cream of the Republican crop. There are going to be very few people who can match his combination of intelligence and experience. Here's hoping the American people are smart enough to learn from our past mistakes and keep someone like the former Speaker out of the White House.