I mean, I hear he is a smart man, when it comes to numbers and book learnin', but watching this craptastic performance on
Meet The Press is kinda making me ill. To think that someone this idiotic was damn close to running this country gives me a number of chills, mostly originating deep in my spine, and traveling throughout my body.
They should have a transcript tomorrow, and I should be able to find the exact text (also the part where he sputters when it is pointed out that the Republican Immigration plan calls for the destruction of millions of families).
[note: I started this yesterdy and finished today, "real" version here]
What really chapped my hide was when he, essentially (I'll get the quote), was ranting about how we simply must wipe the regime of Iran off the face of the Earth (in 3 weeks) because of their mistranslated hopes that the occupation of Palestine will end (i.e whie the Israeli occupation from the pages of history.) BTW, this is very important, as Newt Gingrich WANTS TO GO TO WAR based on a poor tranlsation.
And there are many people who would aggree with him.
Here's the link you need to read on this, as it addresses the question directly.
"Wiping off the map" has a very violent connotation in English, but does this "'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history."? This flowerly language is prefaced in the speech with discussion about the fact (and I keep mentioning this as a wonderful example of 'wiping') that the U.S.S.R. is no longer on the maps. It has been wiped from the pages of history. We did that. And it didn't involve overwhelming violence and nuclear weapons.
This lie keeps getting bigger. It keeps getting repeated. The lie is becoming fact.Also, if you watched the commercials during Meet the Press, you know why it is unthinkable for people on such traditional media outlets to point out the biggest reason we invaded Iraq. If they did, they wouldn't be invited back. And that, in a nutshell, is why we made such a huge mistake.
And now Gingrich, et al, want to make another, for an even worse reason.
UPDATE: Here's the transcript.
This should link to the video (although I don't like Microsoft's version of YouTube).
Why he's a total fucking idiot, is explored below...it goes on for a while....
On the U.S. Government Spying:
MR. GINGRICH: Well, first of all, the amazing thing is--everything that has been done is totally legal. You just look at the, at the specifics of what they're doing, it is totally legal.
Umm, jackhole, NOBODY has seen the specifics of what they're doing. People only know generalities. And then he brings up the entirely disengenous point.
So, I think this administration, if they would come straight out on this, go right at the, the Senator Leahys of the world and say, "This is the choice. We're going to have a nuclear weapon some day or a biological weapon that could kill millions of Americans. We have the technical ability to stop it. Now do you want us to be able to stop it or not?"
Hey, asshat, how's about getting an warrant? You know, probable cause and all that. It's not that we don't think the government should
ever do this, but that they can't do it to everyone without any oversight.
He is playing the fool by missing that point.
I do think your civil liberties ought to be...(unintelligible). Nobody who's not involved in terrorism should be at risk. Nobody who's making normal phone calls should be at risk. But the idea that we're going to say to the United States government, for libertarian reasons, "We'd rather lose a city than have you gather data," I think is totally out of touch with the danger of the modern world.
Note the "should be"s. Unfortunately, nobody really knows, because the program was
top secret. Given the nature of the program now, you have to ask Americans, "Which is more important, the Constitution or anything else."
--
On his own party.
My argument with my own party is simple: I want a Republican majority, I want a Republican presidency. I think that means we have to recognize when things aren't working and we have to fix them and not wait for the American people to get so upset that they decide to replace us.
Dude, you friggin' idiot, you HAVE a Republican majority. You HAVE a Republican presidency. AND THINGS AREN'T WORKING!!! How hard is that to understand.
--
On the destruction of millions of families...
MR. RUSSERT: But let's, let's accept that everyone wants to toughen the border, the president talking about moving National Guard in there, both parties seem convinced to do that. What do you do, specifically, with the 11 million undocumented workers in the country? Do you send them back?
MR. GINGRICH: Well, look, first of all, I'm going to disappoint you for a half-second, because you can't answer these questions in six-second sound bites. These are, these are hard things, all right? The United States, because the government failed to enforce the law and because many businesses broke the law knowingly and many businesses broke the law unknowingly because the documentation is so bad, the United States has now created a mess for itself over a 20-year period.
Hmmm, who was running Congress for a good point of that time?? Oh yeah. This should have said, "I sucked at running Congress." Also note how he dodges a simple question.
Then Russert goes on the attack.
MR. RUSSERT: But Mr. Speaker, many of those people have children here who are American citizens. Do they leave their children behind?
MR. GINGRICH: I--there are a lot of things you can do.
MR. RUSSERT: What do you do?
MR. GINGRICH: Look, if...
MR. RUSSERT: It's a real issue. It's a real human issue.
MR. GINGRICH: You go home long enough to obey the...
MR. RUSSERT: Without your children?
And here comes the magic problme-fixing pixie dust....
MR. GINGRICH: In every case, you can find ways to make accommodations. The Senate is requiring them to pay a fine to the government larger than the cost of flying home. Remember, I'm saying to people who came here illegally, "We're going to allow you to legally go home. We're going to allow you legally to apply for the card. But we are not going to allow people to start their career in America by breaking the law."
Certainly not. And anyone who DUMPS TEA IN THE SEA WILL BE DRAWN AND QUARTERED.
After the sputtering and non-answer, Russert goes back at it again.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you...
MR. GINGRICH: But just think...
MR. RUSSERT: If Hispanics are listening to you today, Latinos, and Newt Gingrich is saying mother and fathers have to go home, and break up the families...
MR. GINGRICH: I didn't say break up the family, Tim. [yea you did -w]
MR. RUSSERT: What happens to the kids?
MR. GINGRICH: I didn't say anything--I didn't say anything about that.
MR. RUSSERT: What happens to the kids?
MR. GINGRICH: I didn't--first of all, in the age of jet airplanes--you, you, you phase this in over three years. The--there are ways to do this that can be humane, they can be compassionate, they can be caring. But I think for you to take the, the most difficult possible case, you can decide on humanitarian grounds to have a handful of exceptions.
Ahh, don't you love it how people who work for less than minimum wage and risk their lives to do so...are now going to be part of the jet set. That, Mr. Gingrich, is why Republicans suck at running countries.
--
Then Gingrich says a lot of stupid and contradictory stuff about Iraq. I'll skip that, as this is getting long, and go straight to the Iran war mongering.
--
MR. GINGRICH: Look, I believe that the president was exactly right in the State of the Union in 2002 to say there is an "axis of evil." I think he was exactly right to say North Korea, Iran and Iraq are very, very dangerous. I think historians are going to look back and say that they are more troubled by what we have not yet done to figure out North Korea and Iran, both of which have made progress towards getting nuclear weapons in the following four years, than they are going to be by Iraq.
Iraq has been painful, we have learned some very difficult lessons, we are better prepared today if we have to do something than we were four years ago.
How can we be better prepared after losing 10's of thousands of soliders to death and injury, spending hundreds of billions of dollars and
LYING TO THE WORLD? It makes no sense...it's Republican logic.
--
On Iran...
MR. GINGRICH: I think we're only limited by our own psychology. I think we clearly have the capability if we need to, to replace the regime in Tehran [with a MORE radical one. -w]. We clearly have the power and capacity in the region. ... And I think that Iran is, in fact, the centerpiece of our future, and Ahmadinejad, the current dictator [err, elected President* -w], clearly intends to defeat the United States and to eliminate Israel from the face of the Earth [actually, it's the occupation, stupid -w]. And people who are watching us ought to really think through what those words mean [WAKE THE FUCK UP. YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THEY MEAN -w] and ask yourself, "Do you prefer to wait until we lose Tel Aviv and Jerusalem or do you prefer to wait until an Iranian nuclear weapon is in New York harbor?"
"We" lose Tel Aviv? When did Isrealis start paying taxes in the U.S.? Can you please show me proof that Iran has nuclear weapons, also. I can completely understand that they want them, at least on a psychological level (considering that their nearest adversary has HUNDREDS), but where's the proof they've got them. And I'm not talking about artists' renderings.
--
MR. RUSSERT: So what do we do?
MR. GINGRICH: I think--first of all, I think Senator Santorum has the right approach, which is a bill which says we actively support every dissident element in Iran. We have an explicit goal of replacing the current dictatorship and we do it as--if it is at all possible over the next two or three years, we do it--we do it, you know, with, with, with the kind of things we did for example in, in Poland where we very--or in Ukraine or in Hungary or in Romania where we've been very successful allying with the people. Remember this is a very...
Actually, that's not Santorum you should be giving credit to, it's
Soros.Soros has been active as a philanthropist since the 1970s, when he began providing funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa, and began funding dissident movements behind the iron curtain. Soros' philanthropic funding in Eastern Europe mostly occurs through the Open Society Institute (OSI) and national Soros Foundations, which sometimes go under other names, e.g. the Stefan Batory Foundation in Poland. As of 2003, PBS estimated that he had given away a total of $4 billion.
"Santorum" is that nasty stuff that...well...
just fucking google it.
And then the kicker.
MR. GINGRICH: I believe if, if the world under--is forced to confront the degree to which Ahmadinejad--first of all, why is the, why is the United Nations still allowing Iran to vote? Here you have a regime that says publicly, "We want to eliminate a fellow member of the"--you know. And he talks about "eliminate from the face of the earth." [he didn't say that -w] He talks about catastrophic attack. He's the--this--Ahmadinejad is very clear, and he's a religious fanatic, and there's every reason to believe he means this. This is not idle bluffing, that the morning they get nuclear weapons if he--if it's--if he gets his say, he's going to use them.
That's frickin' retarded. For Iran to use nukes. First, they have to get them. Then, they'll have to change the rules.
The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office just recently, in his inaugural address reiterated that his government is against weapons of mass destruction and will only pursue nuclear activities in the peaceful domain. The leadership of Iran has pledged at the highest level that Iran will remain a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT and has placed the entire scope of its nuclear activities under IAEA safeguards and additional protocol, in addition to undertaking voluntary transparency measures with the agency that have even gone beyond the requirements of the agency's safeguard system.
[
source] Then, after that...they'll have to convince their people that it's time to die (there will be retaliation.
And that,my friends, is why Newt Gingrich is a total fucking idiot.
He's also a dissembler, and a graft bastard...in regards to his own ethics violations
MR. GINGRICH: Oh, first of all, I didn't pay a fine, I paid the cost of the investigation.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, Nancy Johnson, Republican, House Ethics Committee, said it was a fine.
[
longer history]
So that's it. Have a good day.
--
* not that there aren't significant, if no damning, problems with voting in Iran...but it's not like the guy took over through a military coup.