James Montgomery Flagg (my Grandfather) created the original Uncle Sam "I Want You". Although most researches will refer to JMF as the model of his original Uncle Sam, nothing could be farther from the truth. My Mother tried her adult life to correct this error, and I will carry on this monumental task, with the advent of the internet perpetuating it.
In 1916, JMF reluctantly accepted a 4th of July project by Leslie‘s Magazine, and eventually found his Uncle Sam one rainy night on a train bound for Parris Island, where he was to unveil a portrait of the Commandant.
His "symbol of our country" was a young, roughly 17 year old, Marine, which he considered the finest branch of our armed forces. He was able to acquire a 24 hour pass for this "boot" not normally allowed off base, and he aged his model's adolescent face by forty years and turned a circus clown's costume into symbolic dignity (as told to me and written by his daughter, my mother, Faith).
This cover was eventually made into a recruiting poster, at the request of the State Dept, and is now recognized as the most famous war poster of our time.
By WWII, JMF had ironically begun to look remarkably like his original Uncle Sam, and he did indeed use his mirror image in several new posters. When FDR is quoted as saying "saving model hire" in a personal letter to JMF, he is referring to the 2nd World War posters.
Faith would say, "I thought you might find the facts more fun than the fantasies."
NYC born and raised in a family of talented artists, accountant to the stars in Los Angeles, granddaughter of Uncle Sam creator, now cruzin' in Santa Cruz.
Here we go again. Newt Gingrich? Too many choices for the Republican ticket, and too many old and worn out ones at that, with not enough declared new faces. RINO Romney, who endorsed Mary Bono Mack, who voted FOR Cap & Trade, or Huckabee, who is more concerned with "governing" than standing on principle, and pardons criminals who go back to a life of crime -- one killing four police officers. That being said, I'm old enough to remember the waffling of Newt Gingrich on core issues. Not as bad as The Chosen One, but bad enough.
Back during early 2008 (pre the Tea Party Movement, I might add), it was Newt Gingrich who said "The Reagan era is over. The George W. Bush era is over. We're at a point in time when we're about to start redefining -- as a number of people started talking about, starting to redefine -- the nature of the Republican Party, in response to what the country needs."
Now that Newt has seen where the wind is blowing (sometime after the infamous summer of 2009, and the shellacking he got for endorsing Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 special election over the Tea Party favorite Doug Hoffman), he has radically changed his tune. Sound familiar?
But, that's not the worst of it. Back during his reign in the House of Representatives, under his Contract for America, he made so made about turns, it was unrecognizable. He has cozied up with some of the left's most popular: Al "race baiting" Sharpton, Nancy "Stretch" Pelosi, Al "Global Warming" Gore, cozying up with Hillary[Care] Clinton, and playing goverment spending footsie with the other Clinton in the 1990s.
Newt's numbers are creeping up -- No thank you. I keep looking for that fresh blood, kinda Reaganesque. Do we really need another Jeckle-Hyde president? I think not.
Same old, same old. Where is that fresh face, with the conviction to stand their ground against tyranny, corruption, and a complicit press? We are living in a new age, where politicians openly disregard protocol, tradition, the rule of law, and the all important Constitution of the United States of America.
What we do have are a lot of old faces that didn't exactly ignite the nation, and one that should just retire, or teach, or make more DVDs, which aren't bad. Newt Gingrich, "dusting off an old playbook", has been making gestures as though he's back in the game.
Lest we forget, it's worth mentioning his positions from back in the day. Back in the day when our country was desperate for leadership, for taking a stand against big government, and for a backbone. But the "Reformer In Name Only" didn't have one, has a long history of caving in, and doesn't show any sign of change. It was Gingrich who recently suggested the tea partiers and the NAACP hold a town hall in light of their accusations about racism. Are you serious?
Do we really need another elitist in the White House?
Howard Rich writes another great piece on Mr. Gingrich in POLITICO. Gingrich is so not the guy to bring back conservative principles and values to the Republican party.
On Gingrich: A Legacy of Surrender by Howard Rich, July 27, 2010
The news that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich folded like a cheap suit in the wake of a brazen political attack on the tea party movement was sad. But not surprising.
As far back as his second term in Congress, in 1980, Gingrich sided with big labor interests until brought to his knees by a National Right to Work education campaign. Contrary to his image, Gingrich has demonstrated throughout his political career that he possesses no real ideological mooring.
Now, his legitimizing the NAACP’s crass political attempt to play the race card reveals him to be nothing more than a rank political opportunist – a White House-aspiring demagogue who prefers looking good for the liberal legacy media to standing up for our rights as citizens and taxpayers.
Practically-speaking, Gingrich no more subscribes to the tea party ideals of limited government, individual liberty and personal responsibility than President Barack Obama. At least, that’s what one could infer from his endorsement of liberal “stimulus”-supporter Dede Scozzafava in upstate New York last year.
In fact, Gingrich previously dismissed the tea party as nothing more than the “militant wing of the Republican Party” — a crude diminution of a diverse group of freedom-loving Americans.
That’s why, when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People decided to play the race card against the tea party earlier this month, it wasn’t shocking to see Gingrich immediately raise the white flag and suggest that the Tea Party should give credence to this attack by co-hosting town hall meetings with the NAACP. Rather than rebuking this unfounded attack and exposing its political motivations, Gingrich chose to cave – again – in hopes of giving America a “teachable moment.”
This policy of appeasement had disastrous results in past. In fact, it is responsible for the GOP’s fateful retreat from its limited government roots after the “Republican Revolution” of 1994.
“When the Republican Party faced withering criticism during the government shutdown of 1995 to 1996, our leaders folded instead of standing their ground,” then-former Rep. Tom Coburn wrote in his 2001 book, “Breach of Trust.” “Rather than doing the hard work of explaining to the public, or even to rank-and-file Republicans, what was necessary to reduce the size of government, our leaders retreated.”
By taking the easy way out, and bowing to the altar of political-correctness, Gingrich established a pattern of appeasement that has defined the GOP to this day. Making matters worse, it was his arrogance which precipitated the costly sellout.
"He told a room full of reporters that he forced the shutdown because Clinton had rudely made him and Bob Dole sit at the back of Air Force One,” former House majority leader Tom DeLay later wrote. “Newt had been careless to say such a thing, and now the whole moral tone of the shutdown had been lost. What had been a noble battle for fiscal sanity began to look like the tirade of a spoiled child. The revolution, I can tell you, was never the same.”
Nor was the Republican Party -- which from that moment began caving left and right to the Washington establishment it was elected to uproot.
In short order, Gingrich’s Contract with America gave way to bridges to nowhere and other big government spending outrages.
Now, in the hope of positioning himself as a legitimate presidential contender in 2012, Gingrich is again betraying the ideals of the limited government movement for his own political gains. Instead of calling NAACP leaders out as intellectual frauds, Gingrich is seeking to give their race-baiting views a national platform at the tea party’s expense.
Such appeasement is a recipe for disaster.
True limited government advocates should recognize both the NAACP and Gingrich for what they are – enemies in the fight for greater personal and economic freedom for all Americans.
That is the real “teachable moment” of Gingrich’s latest betrayal.
It's difficult these days to weed out the left-leaning moderates in the Republican Party, but it has to be done. There are several November elections that will set the pace for the 2010 (re)elections, and cutting the fat off the bone is critical.
One key indication, take note of who is backing who. For instance, the 2010 senate race in Florida is Charlie Crist who supported the Stimulus and now government run healthcare, and Marco Rubio who stands for true conservative values. In Congress, the people backing Crist are John McCain, Connie Mack, Lindsey Graham, Lamar Alexander, John Cornyn, Mel Martinez, Vern Buchanan, and both Diaz-Balart. No surprise there.
A little known key November election is in New York's 23rd Congressional District with far left liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava, and a challenger, coming out of no where, Doug Hoffman. Like Rubio, Hoffman is a good old fashioned true conservative, and, as a rookie, needs every bit of our support. He is just the opposite of the elites in Washington DC, having never run for office in his life. He doesn't like what he sees happening, and like so many Americans, has committed his life to getting our country back on track.
And who's endorsing this faux Republican Scozzafava? Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, and the NRCC, for reasons you will see later. I would have expected it from Gingrich, but Boehner is alarming. Looks like the elites is a private club.
If you haven’t been watching the political brawl happening in New York’s 23rd Congressional District… you should be.
The race has all the qualities needed to make it highly entertaining to track as a political junkie. But more importantly, as so many others have mentioned, the race represents a clear message being sent to the RNC.
And the message is simple… the liberty movement is not going to tolerate liberal Republicans anymore.
My understanding is that the district was a safe bet for a fresh GOP win. Or, at least, it was until far left liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava got the nod over conservative Doug Hoffman. Add the fact that there is Democrat, Bill Owens, in the race (with a lot of outside help and influence) and you suddenly have a problem.
Scozzafava is an abortion rights advocate who favors gay marriage. It would be one thing if Scozzafava balanced that social liberalism with fiscal conservatism. But as a state assemblywoman, she voted for massive tax increases, Democratic budgets and a $180 million state bank bailout. She also supported the trillion-dollar federal stimulus package — which every House Republican voted against.
More troubling, Scozzafava in past elections has embraced the ballot line of the Working Families Party — a socialist outfit whose political DNA is intertwined with scandal-ridden ACORN. ACORN and the WFP have shared office space in New York City, Arkansas and Illinois. ACORN head Bertha Lewis, a close Scozzafava friend and political supporter, wears a second hat as vice chairman of the WFP. The WFP has been listed in ACORN documents dating back to 2000 as an “affiliate.”
Not only did the beltway establishment ally itself with Scozzafava, they basically threw Hoffman under the bus. In fact, the NRCC began setting up an attack machine to combat Hoffman’s conservative credentials.
Many others have mentioned this, but as a national tea party organizer, I feel the need to stress the point even further. This special election in New York should be highlighted as one of the best examples to date of how the establishment doesn’t get the sentiment boiling thanks to the Tea Party Movement.
We’re now seeing some ugly true colors float to the top. Take Newt Gingrich, for example… remember when Newt Gingrich joined in with the Tea Party Movement and openly endorsed our website at TaxDayTeaParty.com?
I wonder what most of the hundreds of thousands of tea party activists who received Newt’s emails back in April would think if they knew he had joined Daily KOS, Nancy Pelosi and others on the left to try and help elect a big government thug get elected to Congress?
It looks like Dede Scozzafava was feeling good about her chances in mid August. But then Hoffman ran on his conservative credentials and Dede was caught flat footed.
As the campaign rolled into October, Scozzafava began plummeting in polls and support was bailing at every corner. After that it jumped from failing to downright bizarre.
The campaign to win the special election for the 23rd Congressional District in upstate New York just got a little bit weirder this morning, if that’s possible. Liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava, feeling the heat from the surge in the polls of Conservative Doug Hoffman, held a press conference this morning outside his Watertown headquarters to challenge him to a debate.
This bizarre behavior came on a day when her highly controverisal campaign manager, Matt Burns, sent out a flurry of press releases on a wide range of topics. The entire country is focused on this election, and Burns appears to be a man completely undisciplined and out of control.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, House Minority Leader John Boehner and the National Republican Congressional Committee are now in the position of endorsing thugocracy. Unless they withdraw their endorsements and financial support for left-wing Republican Dede Scozzafava, they will effectively condone a blatant, unwarranted and somewhat frightening attack on a free press.
UPDATE: According to Wikipedia, Dede Scozzafava was chosen by the eleven Republican Party county chairs of the 23rd congressional district. A reader pointed this out and suggested we might consider looking into these county chairs to find out who they are. The beltway heads certainly deserve criticism, but let’s not forget the gatekeepers who caused this problem to begin with.
Additional Note: Several readers have brought to my attention a speech by John McManus of the John Birch Society. The half hour video puts forth some revealing arguments against Newt Gingrich and his conservative credentials. I’m not suggesting we go after Newt Gingrich, but I do think we need to take a new look at many of our self proclaimed “conservative leaders” and begin questioning their real motives.
