David O. Stewart: Playing the Nazi Card
Always ready to throw kerosene on a cultural blaze, Republican quote-meister Newt Gingrich has decreed that those sponsoring a mosque in lower Manhattan are like...
Categories: World Tags: blaze, glenn beck, holocaust museum in washington, mosque, muslim cultures, Newt, newt gingrich, Republican, Understanding, west georgia college
Gingrich backtracks on Obama-Nazi comparison
It's always fun to have Newt Gingrich on the national stage. As Amanda Terkel of Think Progress explains:
In his new book To Save America, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich repeatedly argues that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats make up a “secular-socialist machine” that “represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.” Since the book has come out, Gingrich has doubled down on this rhetoric, going on NBC and saying that the Obama administration is as much of a “threat” to America as brutal dictators like Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were.
Not surprisingly, criticism has poured in from across the political spectrum. Gingrich sent a letter to Anti-Defamation League National Director Abe Foxman:
As I told you on the phone, I recognize the horror and the evil of the Nazi regime and nothing in my new book To Save America should be interpreted as a statement of moral equivalence between totalitarian regimes and the secular-socialist left.
It's nice that he's aware of history, and it's nice that he doesn't want people to misconstrue his comparison as moral equivalence. Which makes one wonder what sort of equivalence he did intend, when calling President Obama and the Democrats as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany once was.
Gingrich is said to be considering running for president, in 2012. Let's hope he does. His presence would elevate the level of discourse in the Republican primaries.
Categories: Politics Tags: anti defamation league, former house speaker newt gingrich, fun, house speaker newt gingrich, Nazi, Newt, newt gingrich, speaker newt gingrich, stage, threat
Shock! Gingrich doesn’t think Obama will win re-election
Newt Gingrich forecasts Obama loss
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gives President Barack Obama only a 20 percent chance of being reelected — and says he might be the one to give Obama the boot.
So, Newt Gingrich says he's seriously considering running for President...and the focus of the story is on his not-so-surprising view that President Obama won't win re-election? Yawn!
But Gingrich did say one interesting thing, actually.
Gingrich said he even sees a chance of Republican control of the Senate. “If they can beat Barbara Boxer [in California], I think that [Mitch] McConnell is going to be the Senate majority leader.”
What's interesting about that isn't that he thinks Republicans might win the Senate. Of course he thinks that.
What's interesting is that he thinks that if Republicans win control of the Senate that Mitch McConnell will be the majority leader.
I wouldn't bet on that. In fact, whether or not Republicans win the Senate, the Senate GOP caucus in 2011 is likely to be more conservative than the 2010 version, and some of the new Senators may swing more towards Jim DeMint's view of the world than Mitch McConnell's.
Moreover, it's abundantly clear that the tea party movement, which is supposedly the strength of the GOP, is much closer to DeMint than McConnell. Newt Gingrich keeps on trying to sound like a teabagger, but he slips up over and over again, and forecasting that Mitch McConnell will be the Senate GOP leader in 2011 is just the latest example.
Categories: Politics Tags: 2012, Barbara Boxer, california, former house speaker newt gingrich, gingrich, GOP, house speaker newt gingrich, Jim DeMint, leader, Mike Allen, Mitch, mitch mcconnell, Newt, newt gingrich, President Obama, Senate, senate majority leader, speaker newt gingrich
Sunday Loon Watch: Newt says Dems as dangerous as Nazis
Newt Gingrich is a one-man comedy act, and he doesn't even realize it. Here he is yesterday on Fox News Sunday, exploring new frontiers in Godwin's Law:
Transcript:
WALLACE: You say President Obama and the Democrats are trying to impose a s secular socialist machine on this country. ... You also write this, and let’s put it up on the screen. "The secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did." Mr. Speaker, respectfully, isn’t that wildly over the top?
GINGRICH: No, not if by America you mean the historic contract we’ve had which says your rights come from your creator, they’re unalienable, you’re allowed to pursue happiness. I mean, just listen to President Obama’s language. He gets to decide who earns how much. ... He has said publicly, generically, "You know, some Americans earn too much," so he’s now going to decide that? ... So you want a politician to become the arbiter of your dreams. A politician gets to say, "We’re going to raise — we’re going to — we’re going to have a tax —" and they proposed this at one point — "We’re going to have a punitive tax on those we don’t like. We’re going to decide that you have too much money so we’re going to take it from you." ... As a threat to our way of life, the degree to which the secular- socialist left represents a fundamental replacement of America, a very different world view, a very different outcome, I think is a very serious threat to our way of life.
Alright, I'll just come out and say it: I pray that Newt Gingrich runs for President in 2012. I pray that he wins the GOP nomination. I cannot wait to hear him tell President Obama to his face that the Obama Administration represents as big a threat to America as the Nazi Germans. That will be some serious popcorn time.
Categories: Politics Tags: America, fox news sunday, gingrich, Godwin's Law, gop nomination, machine, man comedy, Mr. Speaker, nazi germans, Nazis, nbsp, Newt, newt gingrich, President Obama, Sunday Loon Watch, threat, Wallace