Gingrich gives voice to moderation

By Dana Milbank,
WashPost
Published: May 17

Back during the Revolution of ’94, Newt Gingrich and his pollster came up with a list of words for GOP candidates to use to undermine support for Democrats, including instructions to call members of the opposition “radical” and to claim they wish to “impose” their will.

So it was with a mixture of nostalgia and intrigue that I watched Gingrich use these very words on “Meet the Press” on Sunday — against his fellow Republicans.

“I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate,” he told David Gregory, criticizing the House Republicans’ plan to replace Medicare with a voucher system. Moments later, he added, “I’m against Obamacare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change.”

It was vintage Gingrich — impulsive and undisciplined — and it pretty much wrecked his just-launched presidential campaign. House Republicans howled, Rush Limbaugh said “there is no explanation,” and the Wall Street Journal editorialized that Gingrich was “suddenly triangulating against the GOP House he once led.”

(More here.)