Sunday, Ideological Sunday

(with apologies to Bono for the post title, of course)

The Politico has an interesting article on one of my favorite conservatives... Newt Gingrich... titled “Gingrich, provocateur, returns.” A few excerpts:

In the three months that Obama has been president, Gingrich has blasted the Democrat on a number of different fronts, from the economy and domestic policy to defense and foreign policy.

Obama’s budget? It “deliberately” reduces charitable deductions in the tax code to wage a “war against churches and charities.” His stimulus plan? An attempt to create a “European socialist model.” At one point during the omnibus spending bill debate, Gingrich said of the Obama administration: “I wonder how dumb they think we are that we wouldn’t notice 8,000 earmarks.”

He doesn’t mince words in his bracing critiques. After North Korea recently tested a missile, Gingrich accused Obama of engaging in “fantasy foreign policy” that could create “enormous trouble” for the United States. As for former Vice President Dick Cheney, Gingrich said he’s “clearly right” that the United States “is running greater risks of getting attacked than we were under President Bush.”

No one, not even the press, is immune from his barbs. The media’s obsession with the president’s new first dog, he said recently, is “fairly stupid.”

[…]

“If anybody doubts that he is the de facto leader of the Republican Party right now, they’re crazy,” said Matt Towery, CEO of the polling firm InsiderAdvantage and a former Gingrich aide. “Newt Gingrich is filling a void that nobody else is stepping up to fill right now.”

[…]

While Gingrich declined to comment for this story, a month into Obama’s presidency, he lifted the curtain on his opposition to the new president in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“We now have more than enough evidence of what this administration thinks of the American people,” Gingrich said before launching into a blistering critique of Obama. “Now, a month ago, I would not have said what I’m about to say, but I’ve watched carefully the first month of the left-wing machine.”

Norquist explained that Gingrich is an obvious choice for who should serve as the GOP’s voice because “he’s got 20 IQ points on some of the alternatives.”

Read the whole thing, as it's said. The article is fairly brief and is a wonderful lead-in to what I really want to talk about today.

I had the opportunity to watch the Speaker in action this past Friday when he gave extensive testimony on pending energy legislation before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. What was most interesting about Speaker Gingrich’s testimony was the fact he followed Algore and former senator John Warner (R-Va), so one had the opportunity to contrast The Goreacle’s bombastic, overly dramatic, “end of the world as we know it” rhetoric with Mr. Gingrich’s cool, fact based, and unruffled testimony… even in the face of an obviously hostile Democrat-controlled committee. There was an exception: former chairman John Dingell (D-Mich) greeted Speaker Gingrich warmly, saying "Nice to see you again, Newt," sounding like he actually meant it. (Newt responded in kind.) But that was the sole exception. The high point of Mr. Gingrich’s appearance was the spirited exchange between resident idiot and committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif) and the Speaker. Mr. Gingrich coolly and systematically dismantled arguments advanced by an obviously agitated Congressman Waxman. It was a thing of beauty to behold.

But we digress. The Speaker’s opening statement before the E&C committee is available on-line, in its entirety. Here are a few excerpts:

But as a former environmental studies professor who lectured on the second Earth Day, and as someone who was named Legislative Conservationist of the Year in 1998 by the Georgia Wildlife Federation, it should be no surprise that I care deeply about and am committed to the protection of our environment.

In this commitment, I echo the conviction of two great American leaders. The first is President Theodore Roosevelt, who said that "the nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets, which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value." The other was then-Governor Ronald Reagan who, upon the occasion of the first Earth Day, affirmed the "absolute necessity of waging all-out war against the debauching of the environment."

It was in this spirit that I read the bill that is being discussed before this committee and it is in this spirit that I report to you today my conclusion that this is the wrong bill.

This bill is wrong for our national security.

This bill is wrong for our economy.

This bill is wrong for government of, by, and for the people.

The framework in which I have analyzed this bill can be captured in a very simple phrase: 2+2=4, which was a prominent rallying cry in the late 1980s when the Solidarity free trade union movement was campaigning in Poland's first free elections.

The core idea behind 2+2=4 is that citizens must tell the truth even when governments lie. 2+2=4 forces you back to reality.

As matter of reality, the United States faces three enormous threats: threats to our national security, a threat of further economic decline, and a threat of government for the government (and not government for the people), which leads to corruption, political favoritism, and the fundamental breakdown of the rule of law. On all three of these bases of reality, this is the wrong bill.

[…]

When you consider President Obama's budget, this proposed legislation has a price tag for the American people of at least $646 billion. We know from news reports that senior Obama administration officials have indicated that $646 billion is a conservative amount and that the overall figure may be as much as three times that amount or $1.9 trillion in new taxes.

This is currently a 648 page bill, or, put another way, $1-3 billion per page. This is quite a costly bill, even for the standards of this Congress. It would be two and a half times the size of the giant stimulus package passed earlier this year. And it would be a tax burden not a spending stimulus so it would deeply burden the American people and the economy.

While our economy is in deep recession and Americans are losing jobs by the thousands each month, this bill would worsen both. Make no mistake about it: This bill amounts to a $1-2 trillion energy tax levied on a struggling economy, which is destructive and wrong. With this glorified $1-2 trillion new energy tax, expect utility bill increases up to $3,128 per year per household. Filling up your gas tank will cost anywhere from 60 percent to 144 percent more, your electricity bill will increase by 77 to 129 percent, and the cost of home heating oil and natural gas could nearly double.

If enacted, this energy tax will increase the electricity bill of every American, increase the cost to drive a car, and increase the cost of doing business. This will punish every retired American, every rural American, and every person who drives to work, uses heating oil, or has electricity in their home. This will kill jobs and lead American jobs and investment being shipped to China and India, two countries that have made it quite clear that they will not levy such an enormous tax on their own economies.

Once again… Speaker Gingrich’s complete statement is here, and it’s VERY good reading. C-SPAN has video of the Speaker’s testimony, if video is more your style. And… in the spirit of bipartisanship (heh)… you could also watch The Goreacle’s testimony, if you’re into self-abuse on a grand scale. And yes, that would be ME, as well. I watched the whole Goreacle testimony in real-time and I’m still suffering from the experience. The things I do to keep an open mind amaze even me sometimes. Be advised: both videos are rather long. But they are MOST enlightening.

It should come as no surprise, Gentle Reader, that I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Gingrich's positions... while I think Algore is a prat, and a dangerous prat, too. Gore wields a lot of influence, God only knows why. Maybe it's that Nobel thing. Or perhaps it's his Oscar, which I think would carry more weight with mainstream Obama voters. An inconvenient truth, if ever there was one.

Finally... Mr. Gingrich's website... American Solutions... is also worth a visit if you have some time to kill. Good Stuff be there.