WhackyNation

Newt Gingrich, the feisty former Speaker of the House, whose leadership in the 1990s led to a Republican rebirth and control of Congress, recently announced a new program he labeled “American Solutions for Winning the Future,” which is patterned after the Contract With America, with which he revived the G.O.P.

I say “Bravo!” to Newt and all members of the Republican Party who follow his new lead. He is just what the party needs after losing control of Congress in the last elections. However, I would say that a movement that is even more important is a much needed rejuvenation of the Democratic Party!

When I have made that pronouncement in speeches lately, the audience has been quick to express surprise. But when I explain to listeners what I have in mind, they soon start nodding their approval and then ask, please, to provide some detail to what I have proposed.

In addition to my English major at college, I minored in political science and learned quite a bit about American political history in several classes and in the reading that was required. In tracing the history of American political parties from the creation of the U.S. Constitution, I learned that, in time, two major political parties evolved and became permanent fixtures of government.

The two major parties that remain to this day are the Republican and Democratic Parties. However, the changes that have come over both parties in the past half century would have made our founding fathers shudder. And for good reason. Until the middle of the last century, the 20^th, the two parties disagreed frequently in their platforms and in their actions in and out of Congress.

Despite the disagreements, the two parties managed to get along harmoniously and help run the country without serious conflicts. Third parties arose on occasion, but their platforms were usually absorbed by one of the major parties or scrapped as being not worthy of consideration.

Perhaps the most important point is this one: Throughout our history — except in the past few decades — members of both parties supported the sitting President whenever the nation became involved in a foreign entanglement or in an outright war. It had been taken for granted by both parties that they would join forces whenever the nation’s security and protection were a factor.

At first, it appeared that the longtime tradition would hold when terrorists attacked on 9/11 and we invaded Iraq to depose dictator Saddam Hussein. Then the Democrats tossed historic tradition in the ashcan, opposed the President, and withdrew its support of our effort to free Iraq — all to pursue a political, rather than a patriotic, goal.

In addition, the Democratic Party has left no doubt that it intends to pursue its socialistic intentions and support of Big (and Bigger) Government. In fact, it is no longer the Democratic Party of historic tradition but America’s out-and-out Socialist Party. That has meant that the nation’s onetime political strength has been frittered away, and that the two parties no longer can function together to solve the nation’s serious problems.

My hope is that the Democrats will listen to a wiser head, Senator Joe Lieberman, return their party to the principles enunciated by our forefathers, and abandon their Socialist and anti-President stands. The nation’s future depends on it.

With the bombing attacks on the return of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in the news, I am reminded of the message she delivered to a small group of us in Tourettes, France, a year ago.

It was a dinner at the Four Seasons Resort where we all got to meet her and listen to her speak about the Mideast and religious fanaticism in the Muslim World.

Bhutto is very gracious and westernized.  Educated at Harvard, the prime minister joked and swapped stories of the life in the various houses on the campus with my daughter Maggie who had returned there for law school.

After dinner, Bhutto spoke about her disappointment with US policy for Pakistan.  She said her freely elected moderate government had been overthrown by the military and that the US was wrong to back the coup.  She said a moderate government in which women held office was the model needed for other countries in the region.

Backing a military junta, she said, was not promoting freedom and democracy in the region.

She was quite convincing.

But I tempered her remarks with those I heard from Newt Gingrich two years prior at a dinner in Sardinia.  That night Newt was very candid about how the Bush administration blew the first year of occupation in Iraq.  But he cautioned the crowd by saying the country he feared most in the world was not Iraq, North Korea, China or Russia, but Pakistan.  The reason: Pakistan has nuclear weapons.  Should a Taliban-type government take control, Newt feared one of those weapons would be exploded in an U.S. city.  In fact, he said he felt it was likely one of our cities would be incinerated in the next ten years or so.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that foreign policy is not always black and white, good guy, bad guy.  There are compromises our country takes in order to ensure the safety and lives of our citizens.

It would be nice that Bhutto could bring about more civilian control of government in a power sharing relationship with General Musharraf.  Yesterday’s bombings demonstrate that fanatical extremists who fear liberalized government with women at the head are prevalent enough to threaten the stability of any government.

I wish Bhutto the best, but I fear the scenario that Gingrich has laid out.

When a nationally known public figure commits a federal crime, the general public would reasonably expect that person to be called to pay for his action before ten years have passed, right? Wrong — if that public figure just happens to be a Liberal Democratic congressman.

I’m referring, of course, to Representative James McDermott of Washington State’s 7^th District, a dedicated Bush-hater and a man, who, like Jane Fonda, went to a war zone and embarrassed himself and other Bush-haters with deeply intemperate remarks about America’s mission in Iraq.It has been ten years since McDermott disgraced himself and broke the federal wiretap law by accepting an illegally intercepted tape recording from a Florida couple, then turning over the recording to the Liberal New York Times, as well as to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The equally Bush-hating Times ran a report of the conversation the next day.

In case you may have forgotten, the Florida couple, Alice and John Martin, broke federal law by intercepting a cell-phone conversation between a Republican congressman, John Boehner of Ohio, and Newt Gingrich, who was then the speaker of the House and a leader of the Republican contingent. The Martins, who have since pleaded guilty to their crime and paid a fine, turned the tape over to McDermott.

As a result of the lawbreaking action by the Martins and McDermott and the publication of the contents of the tape by the Times that gave the entire incident national exposure, Boehner brought suit against McDermott under provisions of the federal wiretap law, which expressly prohibits the interception and disclosure of private phone conversations.

To this day, McDermott remains free and has not been called to account for his action, despite the fact that the case has been bouncing around in federal courts without a final resolution. Thanks to the legal shenanigans of his attorneys and the indecision by the courts, a decade has passed without a final decision — and who knows how much longer the case will go on unresolved.

In the meantime, the Liberal print and broadcast news media have been virtually silent on the case, and that includes the Liberal columnists and commentators. If the same crime had been committed by a Republican congressman, you can be sure that he would have been pilloried and roasted on the front pages and the news broadcasts across the country.

It’s a prime example of what is seriously wrong with the nation’s news media. McDermott should have been forced to resign from Congress and to face the music for committing a federal crime!

If you missed it, consider yourself lucky that you didn’t waste the time. The highly ballyhooed televised debate last night (April 10) between Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Republican, was described as a typical Lincoln-Douglas debate.

I watched it and groaned over the lack of significant content in the hour-long sparring between two political figures pretending they knew a lot about the greatest hoax of the day, global warming. The audience, obviously brainwashed by the global warmers, applauded every time Liberal Kerry pontificated on the subject, and accorded only a polite response to the Conservative Gingrich.

As debates go, it was a travesty and, as I said, a total waste of time by anyone seeking some answers regarding the issue of climate change. The long-winded Kerry delivered line after line of misinformation about the topic and clear evidence that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

But it was obvious that neither man was truly qualified to talk about the issue, let alone debate it. Whereas Kerry was simply repeating the lies and propaganda put forth by the global-warming alarmists, Gingrich missed one opportunity after another in which he could have destroyed Kerry’s contentions — but the former Speaker of the House also seemed to be grossly uninformed about the global-warming mythology.

Instead, Gingrich engaged in a typically political exchange of views about what Congress and the nation should do to prevent the global-warming myth from happening. Both men devoted most of their time talking about the legislation and actions that were necessary to protect the earth from cascading carbon from a warming debacle. Kerry favored a Liberal approach on the budget, while Gingrich wanted a Conservative, or free-enterprise, approach — as if climatological answers can be found in the national budget.

It’s unfortunate that a legitimate scientist or at least a layman who has studied the honest science concerning the climate wasn’t chosen to oppose the grievously misinformed Kerry, who was doing nothing more than repeating all the lies and distortions of his political ally, former Vice President Al Gore. What a pair they make on the political horizon!

As a result, the so-called debate was a total waste of time, as I have said. If the TV news media and the print media, as well, truly wished to present a debate on the climate issue, they should engage two persons with some scientific credentials on both sides so that the principal issues could emerge.

Gingrich seemed terribly uncomfortable in his role as a debater on an issue for which he was obviously unprepared. Kerry, on the other hand, was so well versed in all the fanatical jargon from the global-warming playbook that he was unstoppable and went beyond time limits on several occasions. What a colossal bore! There is nothing more detestable than a glib loud mouth who doesn’t know what he is talking about.

In the midst of one of Kerry’s blurbs, it occurred to me that America certainly was most fortunate that neither he nor his Liberal counterpart, Gore, made it to the White House! We’re just lucky, I guess!

Newt Gingrich and Mario Cuomo are asking presidential candidates to pledge 9 90’s in 9 … that’s shorthand for Newt’s pledge at Cooper Union:

If I receive my party’s nomination for President of the United States, I pledge to participate in nine, ninety-minute dialogues in the nine weeks before the general election with my opponent. In the Lincoln-Douglas style, I will agree to debate my opponent with only a time-keeper, and to insist upon no rules. I understand it will be just me and my solutions and my opponent with theirs.

Can you imagine how exciting that would make the weeks leading up to the election?  Real, live, debates long enough for the real intellectual capabilities and philosophies of the candidates to shine through.  Says Gingrich,

A candidate must know more than talking points; he or she must know the substance of the material. They must be able to draw on historical parallels to support their arguments. They must know the audience and understand something about their worldview in order to relate to them. Candidates must be clear. They must provide real solutions to our challenges. But even all of that is not nearly enough. They must persuade.

Persuasion is what counts in a free society. If you cannot persuade, you cannot succeed in solving America’s challenges because in the end, the American people must support your solutions or nothing can get done. It’s time for a new model.

Gingrich says Rudy Giuliani immediately took the pledge.

Shouldn’t we insist all candidates take the pledge?

How about you libbers and socialists?  Do you think you can encourage Hillary, Barack and John to take the pledge as well?