Poor Newt. He's just all over the place.
Two months ago, when he was still in the pre-announcement about announcing his announcement to run for president stage, Newt was happy to run on his record:
“I don’t think I’m perfect. I admitted I had problems. I admitted that I sought forgiveness,” Gingrich said. “But I also think over time, if you look at my record, I’m a pretty effective leader.”
And two weeks ago, when he finally announced his desire to have his ass handed to him by Obama, he was still running on his record:
I worked with President Ronald Reagan in a very difficult period. We got jobs created again, Americans proud of America, and the Soviet Union disappeared.
As Speaker of the House, I worked to reform welfare, balance the budget, control spending, to cut taxes to create economic growth – unemployment came down from 5.6% to under 4. For four years we balanced the budget and paid off $405 billion in debt.
But a funny thing happened last week, when Newt decided that quoting him is "a falsehood":
I want to make sure every House Republican is protected from some kind of dishonest Democratic ad. So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood. Because I have said publicly those words were inaccurate and unfortunate and I’m prepared to stand up… When I make a mistake — and I’m going to on occassion — I want to share with the American people “that was a mistake” because that way we can have an honest conversation.
And now:
The former House speaker told a room of journalists Monday morning that he won’t allow the press to pin him down on every detail of his political and personal record, saying twice that he has cast over 7,300 votes, given more than 5,000 speeches and over 10,000 interviews, produced several films and written some two dozen books.
“All of you who want to play ‘gotcha,’” Gingrich said, “I’ll go to the next question.”
Gingrich then proceeded to confirm that he is himself on Medicare, defend his involvement in a 2009 special congressional election, cite a documentary about national security he co-produced with his wife, reveal partial details of his financial history and tout his work leading the Alzheimer’s Study Group with former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey.
In effect, Gingrich claimed a blanket exemption from discussing parts of his career he doesn’t want to address – and broad license to bring up whatever he wants.
So let's see if we've got this right. Give Newt credit for single-handedly balancing the budget under President Clinton, but forget that time he shut down the government under President Clinton. Check out his financial records to see his awesome involvement with the Alzheimer’s Study Group, but not that half-million dollar debt to Tiffany & Co. And we can watch last year's movie to understand his views on terrorism, but we can't watch last week's appearance on Meet the Press to understand his views on Medicare.
Anyone else confused? I mean, besides Newt?