Think Again: Beware the Ideas of Newt
By Eric Alterman
Center for American Progress
When a columnist needs to write a column and is lacking ideas (or reportage), they often, rather ironically, fall back on a column about “ideas” in general: Why there aren’t any good ones anymore, why the ones they like aren’t getting more attention, or, in this instance, why the people whose ideas they like aren’t being listened to. Case in point: Columnists on Newt Gingrich.
David Brooks of The New York Times wrote earlier this summer that Gingrich “articulates the transformational view [of the Republican party] in its purest form” and that he wishes “the GOP [had] Newt Gingrich’s brain lodged in Fred Thompson’s temperament.”
Jason Zengerle of The New Republic wrote about Joe Klein's desire for the GOP install Gingrich as the “party ideologist.” He also cites Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley, Gingrich’s former spokesperson, who says that “Newt obviously has ideas, so he gains cachet from the contrast with people just wandering around repeating slogans.”
And believe it or not, an article in The New York Times invokes Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech to outline Gingrich’s commitment to changing the “sorry state of the Nation’s political discourse.” (Although I suppose it was fair, since Gingrich was speaking there and everyone who speaks there invokes Lincoln, including yours truly.)
The column is by nature such an abbreviated form that there’s no real opportunity to do justice to a genuine idea. But what exactly are Gingrichian ideas? After leaving Congress, Gingrich spent his years out of power writing and working at the American Enterprise Institute—and also posting a super-large number of reviews on Amazon. Flirting with (but apparently not consummating) the idea of a presidential campaign, he made statements such as:
“I’m going to tell you something, and whether or not it’s plausible given the world you come out of is your problem. I am not ‘running’ for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.”
Well that makes things clearer. But Newt’s brand of winning the future was revealed in explicit detail at an AEI speech this week where he imagined the past six years as if someone, say, more like him had been president. Some of Newt’s alternative history plans included dealing with the problem nations of the Middle East—Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia—as a “regional conflict.” “A grand strategy would have built up sufficient economic, political, and military power to confront the four nations with a simple choice: change your behavior or have your regimes changed.”
(Continued here.)
Center for American Progress
When a columnist needs to write a column and is lacking ideas (or reportage), they often, rather ironically, fall back on a column about “ideas” in general: Why there aren’t any good ones anymore, why the ones they like aren’t getting more attention, or, in this instance, why the people whose ideas they like aren’t being listened to. Case in point: Columnists on Newt Gingrich.
David Brooks of The New York Times wrote earlier this summer that Gingrich “articulates the transformational view [of the Republican party] in its purest form” and that he wishes “the GOP [had] Newt Gingrich’s brain lodged in Fred Thompson’s temperament.”
Jason Zengerle of The New Republic wrote about Joe Klein's desire for the GOP install Gingrich as the “party ideologist.” He also cites Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley, Gingrich’s former spokesperson, who says that “Newt obviously has ideas, so he gains cachet from the contrast with people just wandering around repeating slogans.”
And believe it or not, an article in The New York Times invokes Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech to outline Gingrich’s commitment to changing the “sorry state of the Nation’s political discourse.” (Although I suppose it was fair, since Gingrich was speaking there and everyone who speaks there invokes Lincoln, including yours truly.)
The column is by nature such an abbreviated form that there’s no real opportunity to do justice to a genuine idea. But what exactly are Gingrichian ideas? After leaving Congress, Gingrich spent his years out of power writing and working at the American Enterprise Institute—and also posting a super-large number of reviews on Amazon. Flirting with (but apparently not consummating) the idea of a presidential campaign, he made statements such as:
“I’m going to tell you something, and whether or not it’s plausible given the world you come out of is your problem. I am not ‘running’ for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.”
Well that makes things clearer. But Newt’s brand of winning the future was revealed in explicit detail at an AEI speech this week where he imagined the past six years as if someone, say, more like him had been president. Some of Newt’s alternative history plans included dealing with the problem nations of the Middle East—Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia—as a “regional conflict.” “A grand strategy would have built up sufficient economic, political, and military power to confront the four nations with a simple choice: change your behavior or have your regimes changed.”
(Continued here.)
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