COMMENTARY | The 2012 GOP primary has become a war of total annihilation and its participants are turning to political cannibalism as the weapon of choice. The prominent figure in the conflict is the king of scorched earth politics Newt Gingrich. His recent statements on super PAC’s and attacks on capitalism belie his claims that he is a new Newt. Speaker Gingrich has made this claim before but his actions soon after prove his claims to be false.
During his tenure as Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was a promoter of core values and conservative principles. He continued to promote those values and principles after a GOP mutiny forced him to resign his post in 1998. In May of 1999, shortly before he announced his divorce from his second wife and first mistress Marianne, he made a speech touting conservatism and core values:
“We have had a 35-year experiment in a unionized, bureaucratic, credentialed, secular assault on the core values of this country, and we should not be surprised that eventually they yield bad fruit because they are bad seeds.”
The fact that he would make this speech at the same time he was begging his second wife Marianne to have an “open relationship” with her and his second mistress and soon to be third wife Callista highlights Newt’s hypocrisy. Especially after his constant pontificating a year earlier about President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. The part of this news story that is being overlooked is Newt telling his wife “Callista doesn’t care what I do.” It appears like the Gingrichs have more in common with the Clintons than the Reagans.
In 1987, then Congressman Gingrich co-sponsored, with the pillars of the left, Rep. Barbara Boxer, Rep. Henry Waxman, Rep. Chuck Schumer, and the late Rep. John Murtha, H.R. 1934 that would have reinstated the Fairness Doctrine. The bill was vetoed by then President Ronald Reagan. Newt has never attempted to cover up his vote instead he offered this excuse on his website :
In 1987, the three left-wing networks plus PBS/NPR dominated media, and talk-radio was still nascent; many of America’s most influential conservative activists, including the American Conservative Union and Phyllis Schlafly, supported the Fairness Doctrine at this time.
The rapid growth of conservative viewpoints in the media in the last 25 years is a testament to the power and innovation of the conservative movement once power is taken out of the hands of the elite networks and put into the hands of consumers.
In other words, he supports the Fairness Doctrine, and is against free speech, when it helps his cause. This isn’t his only brush with hypocrisy. In 2007 he wrote a book called Contract with the Earth, and recently removed a chapter with a distinguished climate scientist in it’s sequel that is due out in 2013. His website offers this justification:
As for the question of whether industrial development has dramatically contributed to a warming of the atmosphere, Newt has noted there is no settled scientific conclusion. Many scientists believe it is the case. Others do not. But this unsettled scientific question has nothing to do with the best approach to protecting our environment, which is always markets, incentives, and entrepreneurs creating better and more efficient products and services.
If he felt that there was no scientific conclusion then why did he do a commercial with Nancy Pelosi promoting cap and trade? He stated to Fox News that it was “the dumbest single thing I’ve ever done.” Never mind cheating on his two wives or hurting his children, sitting on the couch with Nancy Pelosi was the dumbest thing he has ever done.
For over 10 years Newt Gingrich supported the individual mandate for health insurance. In fact the individual mandate was his alternative to HillaryCare. So how does someone repudiate a position that he has had for over a decade:
With respect to President Obama’s health insurance mandate, Newt believes it is an unprecedented and unconstitutional expansion of federal power. If the federal government can coerce individuals — by threat of fines — to buy health insurance, there is no stopping the federal government from forcing Americans to buy any good or service. It is a serious and unconstitutional infringement of individual liberty.
So Newt admits that his position for over 10 years is unconstitutional and could infringe on individual liberty. The fact that he has very little concern for individual liberty is no surprise considering his involvement with the radical Saul Alinsky style radicals Alvin and Heidi Toffler.
(More about them and Newt Gingrich here.)