Nancy Pelosi and Noot Gingrich six years ago.
Ethically challenged former congressman and failed presidential candidate Newt Gingrich didn't much care for Secretary of State John Kerrey's global warming speech in Indonesia on Sunday. In fact, he thinks Kerrey should resign for his views.
Uh ... make that John Kerry. In a series of misspelled tweets Monday, "amateur paleontologist" Gingrich blasted the secretary of state:
The most direct reaction to kerrey's global warming speech is to ask if he is completely out of touch with reality.
— @newtgingrich
If kerrey believes his global warming speech it is a terrifying prospect for American policy. He is making policy in a fantasy world
— @newtgingrich
Does kerrey really believe global warming more dangerous than north Korean and iranian nukes? More than Russian and Chinese nukes? Really? ?
— @newtgingrich
Every American who cares about national security must.demand Kerrey's resignation.A delusional secretary of state is dangerous to our safety
— @newtgingrich
And then the whoops:
I apologize to bob kerrey for spelling john kerry's name as though he were bob's relative. Callista caught my error. Please edit to kerry
— @newtgingrich
Gingrich's own views on global warming, as
expressed five weeks ago from his perch at the resuscitated
Crossfire on CNN?
“Assume for a minute that we have the capacity to actually decide the planet’s temperature,” Gingrich said. “What kind of hubris does it take to say, I know exactly what this planet’s temperature ought to be and I’m going to manage it to that effect?” [...]
“The age of the dinosaurs was dramatically warmer than this is right now and it didn’t cook the planet,” Gingrich said. “In fact, life was fine.” [...]
“The number of people leaving Minnesota this evening to get to the Caribbean versus the number of people leaving the Caribbean to try to get to Minnesota would argue that slightly warmer wouldn’t be a crisis,” Gingrich said.
It's tempting to add Gingrich's own term—"delusional"—to the long string of eye-rolling descriptions by which the former Speaker of the House is known. Perhaps "delusional, amateur paleontologist" would catch on. But that would be charitable, giving this consummate opportunist the benefit of the doubt. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe has at least been consistent in calling global warming a hoax. Gingrich? It all depends on what he figures will gain traction. When it suited his purposes, he agreed that global warming was a scientific fact. He even cut that ad about it with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Then he switched gears to accord with his new purposes. Now he's talking about how wonderful the climate was for the dinosaurs.
What does he actually believe? With an injection of truth serum, I believe his answer would be: depends on the payoff. The guy is an embarrassment even to the most cretinous deniers.