Contrast and Compare
[tag]Mickey Edwards[/tag] on [tag]Bill Moyers Journal[/tag] talking about how the GOP lost their way with their traditions (via C&L)
…while I was in the House, [tag]Newt Gingrich[/tag] sort of rose in power. And Newt decided that the purpose of the Republican in Congress was not to carry out the fundamental principles that they had originally believed in, but to defeat Democrats. That was all that mattered. And it became how do— [tag]it’s always war[/tag] [tag]Democrats versus Republicans[/tag], all the time. And when you look at it from that mindset, you have a Republican president — you know, he is not any more the head of a different branch of government. He’s your team captain. He’s your quarterback.
And so, Gingrich really created a system of nonstop warfare that went well beyond, you know, what the situation was with Nixon. And institutionalized it to an extent that today, when the Congress properly issues — tries to vote a contempt citation against two people on the White House staff, Harriet Myers and Josh Bolton, you know, who defy a Congressional subpoena, and Republicans in Congress walk out in protest, rather than engage in defending the branch of government that they’re a part of. So, I put a lot of the blame right on Newt Gingrich. I think [tag]he led to a lot of this[/tag].
With this from CNN today
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Potential presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich on Tuesday blasted the modern-day road to the White House as too long, too expensive and verging on “insane.”. The former House speaker from Georgia said he will decide whether to enter the GOP presidential field in October. But in a wide-ranging speech at the [tag]National Press Club[/tag] in Washington, he ridiculed campaign consultants and spin doctors who he said are extending the 2008 campaign. He said presidential debates have become “almost unendurable.”
“These aren’t debates,” the former Georgia congressman said. “This is a cross between [TV shows] ‘The Bachelor,’ ‘American Idol’ and ‘Who’s Smarter than a Fifth-Grader.’”
“What’s the job of the candidate in this world?” asked Gingrich. “The job of the candidate is to raise the money to hire the consultants to do the focus groups to figure out the 30-second answers to be memorized by the candidate. This is [tag]stunningly dangerous[/tag].”
… any candidate who dares to change position on an issue during a two-year campaign risks being labeled a “[tag]flip-flopper[/tag]” — an epithet used to undercut 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry and one being waved at current Republican hopeful Mitt Romney.
“You begin to trap people,” Gingrich said. “As the campaigns get longer, you’re asking a person who’s going to be sworn in in January of 2009 to tell you what they’ll do in January of 2007, when they haven’t got a clue — because they don’t know what the world will be like, and you’re suggesting they won’t learn anything through the two years of campaigning.”
“For the most powerful nation on Earth to have an election in which[tag] Swift Boat veteran[/tag]s versus National Guard papers becomes a major theme verges on insane,” said Gingrich, referring to 2004 campaign controversies that targeted Kerry and President Bush. “I mean, it’s just — and to watch those debates, I found painful — for both people. They’re both smarter than the debates.”
What a putz (ya gotta admit though he’s got chutzpah aplenty)
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