Newt Gingrich blasts Obama for “the arrogance of the way he golfs”

The former speaker of the House and presidential candidate on how Obama's golf swing will doom his final two years

Published September 18, 2014 2:09PM (EDT)

Newt Gingrich                    (AP/Carolyn Kaster)
Newt Gingrich (AP/Carolyn Kaster)

Speaking with former Senate candidate and current Newsmax host J.D. Hayworth, Newt Gingrich — the man who helped orchestrate the GOP's historic takeover of the House in 1994, went on to become its speaker, and then ran as a presidential candidate some 18 years later — spent an irretrievable moment of his finite lifetime explaining how the way Obama golfs reveals the deficiencies in his character.

"He is, first of all, not very competent at the job of being president," Gingrich can be seen in a Newsmax video telling Hayworth while sitting in front of a large bookshelf, as brilliant statesmen and intellectuals like the former Georgia congressman are wont to do.

"Second," Gingrich continues, "he is very radical, ideologically. So he filters the world through a set of values and patterns that don't work very well because they're just not accurate." While Gingrich does not mention the word "Kenya," one imagines he's referring here to his previously stated belief that the president's motivations are comprehensible "only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior."

Obama's third problem, Gingrich says, "is that he has a kind of arrogance." The former speaker, deposed by his own party for incompetence and corruption after just a few short years in leadership, said the president is "up on Mount Olympus" and finds it "painful to deal with mere mortals." Obama's arrogance is so apparent, according to Gingrich, that it can even be seen in the way he golfs — and it will doom the final years of his presidency, in the end.

"The arrogance of the way he golfs, the arrogance of his total lack of sensitivity to anybody else’s opinion, anybody else’s view, anybody else’s values," Gingrich says, "those are not very good signs for him learning, and he’s more likely to stumble through the last two years."

You can watch this historic figure, Newt Gingrich, draw sweeping psychoanalytic conclusions from cable news footage of the president playing golf below, via Right Wing Watch:


By Elias Isquith

Elias Isquith is a former Salon staff writer.

MORE FROM Elias Isquith


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Barack Obama Golf J.d. Hayworth Newsmax Newt Gingrich Right Wing Watch Video