Newt vs. Newt

Filed in National by on March 24, 2011

Newt Gingrich gives the perfect example of what happens when you’re reflexively anti-Obama.

Earlier this month, former Speaker of the House and current presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich was hammering President Obama for not intervening in Libya. Asked, “what would you do about Libya?” Gingrich responded:

Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. … We don’t need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening.

On yesterday’s Today Show, he had a new position.

GINGRICH: The standard [Obama] has fallen back to of humanitarian intervention could apply to Sudan, to North Korea, to Zimbabwe, to Syria this week, to Yemen, to Bahrain. … The Arab League wanted us to do something. The minute we did something, the Arab League began criticizing us doing it. I think that two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a lot. I think that the problems we have in Pakistan, Egypt — go around the region. We could get engaged by this standard in all sorts of places. I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Qaddafi. I think there are a lot of other allies in the region we could have worked with. I would not have used American and European forces.

Newt Gingrich has a really good shot at becoming the GOP presidential nominee. He benefits from a reputation as a supposed conservative intellectual and 90s nostalgia, despite being completely ridiculous. That says a lot about the weakness of the GOP field.

Newt keeps trying to clarify but his position is about as clear as mud.

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (6)

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  1. socialistic ben says:

    and in other breaking news, republicans are disingenuous liars who only take positions in order to oppose obama and gain power, regardless of any damage it may do to the nation.

  2. jason330 says:

    In still more breaking news, the media seeks the expert opinion of transparent, serial liars and treats them like valuable news sources.

  3. Dana Garrett says:

    I have long thought that Newt was one of the biggest blowhards in the Republican Party. He has all the bombast of a Limbaugh and the irrationality of a Beck. He only lacks their podiums.

    One of the biggest myths propounded by the GOP is that Newt is a nimble intellectual. I have never seen a shred of compelling evidence for the claim. Sure, he mouths some of the jargon of intellectuals, but he lacks the requisite objectivity and subtlety to be one. He is about as reactionary as a GOPer can come.

  4. anon says:

    Newt might be working too hard again. He should take it easy.

  5. Von Cracker says:

    Yesterday Newt loved his wife. Today, meh, not so much.

    It’s the SOB’s SOP.

  6. skippertee says:

    And breaking headlines on the National Enquirer: Newtie Checks Wife into Stepford Center for Overhaul