Newt, I’m done with you.

Jake Tapper of ABC News interviewed Newt Gingrich on his position on abortion.  Newt’s responses are perfect illustrations of my reluctance to vote for him.

TAPPER: Abortion is a big issue here in Iowa among conservative Republican voters and Rick Santorum has said you are inconsistent. The big argument here is that you have supported in the past embryonic stem cell research and you made a comment about how these fertilized eggs, these embryos are not yet “pre-human” because they have not been implanted. This has upset conservatives in this state who worry you don’t see these fertilized eggs as human life. When do you think human life begins?

GINGRICH: Well, I think the question of being implanted is a very big question. My friends who have ideological positions that sound good don’t then follow through the logic of: ‘So how many additional potential lives are they talking about? What are they going to do as a practical matter to make this real?’

I think that if you take a position when a woman has fertilized egg and that’s been successfully implanted that now you’re dealing with life. because otherwise you’re going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult questions

TAPPER: So implantation is the moment for you.

GINGRICH: Implantation and successful implantation. In addition I would say that I’ve never been for embryonic stem cell research per se. . . .

Congrats to you, Newt.  You did what your opponents could not.  My reluctance is gone.  Been replaced by downright opposition.  Ain’t no way I’m trading one child killer for another.  I am sick and damn tired of being told I should keep picking the lesser of two evils. In the final analysis, they’re both evil.  I don’t give a rat’s rear end how good your foreign policy is.

As a guy whose been forgiven a ton, I’d extend that to Newt or someone – anyone –  else in a second.  Newt, by your own confession, you have taken a position that is contrary to science, contrary to what it means to be a conservative (let alone a prolife conservative), and in the eternal analysis you are opposing the Church.

So I could keep from blowing my grits when you cozied on the couch with Nancy Pelosi, but when you’ve joined her brand of cafeteria catholicism on issues of life and death, I’m done with you.

Arrivederci, Newt.

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