Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax published a Dec. 6 column by Ronald Kessler quoting his longtime buddy, former American Conservative Union president and current National Rifle Association president David Keene, touting Mitt Romney's ability to beat Newt Gingrich. But sometime shortly thereafter, Kessler's column had mysteriously disappeared.
It disappeared quick enough that no copy of it currently exists in Google cache. The only place we could find a remnant of it is at Free Republic, which notes only the first two paragraphs:
Ex-CPAC Head Keene: Mitt Will Beat Newt
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will win the Republican presidential nomination, Dave Keene, former chairman of the American Conservative Union, tells Newsmax.
“Romney has the discipline,” Keene says. “”He has the money. He has the organization.”
Why did Kessler's article disappear? After all, it's no secret that both Kessler and Keene are big fanboys of Romney -- in June, Kessler quoted Keene declaring Romney to be the likely GOP candidate, and in September, Kessler quoted Keene calling Rick Perry "a riskier presidential candidate" than Romney.
One possibility we can think of is that Romney is refusing to take part in the Newsmax-Donald Trump presidential debate, and Gingrich did. Anotheris that Keene criticized a willing debate participant in Gingrich.
Kessler, meanwhile, seems quite eager to toe the corporate agenda. His latest column lavishes fawning praise on Trump's new book:
When Donald Trump considered running for president earlier this year, pundits said he was doing it for publicity.
Now in Trump’s new book, “Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again,” we learn what it was really all about: Trump believes President Barack Obama has been a disaster and wants to expose him for what Trump sees as the good of the country.
In doing that, “Time to Get Tough” succeeds as no book has so far. The combination of Trump’s business acumen, his no-nonsense prose, and first-class research have produced an important, devastating portrait of this president and his impact on America.
Of course, anything Trump might have written in his book doesn't disprove the notion that his presidential flirtation had nothing to do with seeking publicity.Indeed, Kessler concedes that "When it comes to garnering publicity, Trump is in a class by himself" -- though he insists that "regardless of how serious he was about a presidential bid, his goal all along was to influence the conversation and have a say in who winds up in the White House."
Then again, as we've detailed, Kessler is a longtime Trump-fluffer and played a lead role in touting the Trump presidential boomlet.
