Gingrich and Reagan

#1
RespectTradition

RespectTradition

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#1
Gingrich and Reagan - Elliott Abrams - National Review Online

Things Newt says today:
“I worked with President Reagan to change things in Washington,” “we helped defeat the Soviet empire,” and “I helped lead the effort to defeat Communism in the Congress”
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Things Newt said then:
The best examples come from a famous floor statement Gingrich made on March 21, 1986. This was right in the middle of the fight over funding for the Nicaraguan contras; the money had been cut off by Congress in 1985, though Reagan got $100 million for this cause in 1986. Here is Gingrich: “Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire’s challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing, and without a dramatic change in strategy will continue to fail. . . . President Reagan is clearly failing.” Why? This was due partly to “his administration’s weak policies, which are inadequate and will ultimately fail”; partly to CIA, State, and Defense, which “have no strategies to defeat the empire.” But of course “the burden of this failure frankly must be placed first on President Reagan.” Our efforts against the Communists in the Third World were “pathetically incompetent,” so those anti-Communist members of Congress who questioned the $100 million Reagan sought for the Nicaraguan “contra” rebels “are fundamentally right.” Such was Gingrich’s faith in President Reagan that in 1985, he called Reagan’s meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich.”

Gingrich scorned Reagan’s speeches, which moved a party and then a nation, because “the president of the United States cannot discipline himself to use the correct language.” In Afghanistan, Reagan’s policy was marked by “impotence [and] incompetence.” Thus Gingrich concluded as he surveyed five years of Reagan in power that “we have been losing the struggle with the Soviet empire.” Reagan did not know what he was doing, and “it is precisely at the vision and strategy levels that the Soviet empire today is superior to the free world.”
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#2
#2
I really wish everybody would stop making Reagan the holy grail of conservatism.
 
#4
#4
GAVol said:
I really wish everybody would stop making Reagan the holy grail of conservatism.
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You changed your quote, but you had stated that Gingrich's position was common among pols at the time due to Nicaragua.

he called Reagan’s meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich.”
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What does this quote have to do with Nicaragua?

Newt loves to speak with superlatives. He's called Paul's foreign policy stances "the most dangerous" before. He Goes out of his way on nearly all of his comparisons to another candidate to portray his competitor as the "the most this" or the "least that". And you can't even say all politicians do this. Most politicians use weasel words and true to be as vague or as grey as possible in they beat around the bush to say what they have to say. Esp, in a GOP campaign where people have an opportunity to position themselves for possible cabinet spots or VP nominations. You don't normally see candidates go H.A.M. (Kanye reference) on each other.Not Newt, though. That guy will burn a bridge between himself and his opponent to distance himself.
 
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#5
#5
Rasputin_Vol said:
You changed your quote, but you had stated that Gingrich's position was common among pols at the time due to Nicaragua.



What does this quote have to do with Nicaragua?

Newt loves to speak with superlatives. He's called Paul's foreign policy stances "the most dangerous" before. He Goes out of his way on nearly all of his comparisons to another candidate to portray his competitor as the "the most this" or the "least that". And you can't even say all politicians do this. Most politicians use weasel words and true to be as vague or as grey as possible in they beat around the bush to say what they have to say. Esp, in a GOP campaign where people have an opportunity to position themselves for possible cabinet spots or VP nominations. You don't normally see candidates go H.A.M. (Kanye reference) on each other.Not Newt, though. That guy will burn a bridge between himself and his opponent to distance himself.
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So, is this another way of saying you have to take everything he says with a (large) grain of salt?


(ps- who changed what quote?)
 
#6
#6
RespectTradition said:
So, is this another way of saying you have to take everything he says with a (large) grain of salt?


(ps- who changed what quote?)
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I edited my previous post. I had typed that Newt's position wasn't really that uncommon at the time. It was easy for a back bencher to use hard line rhetoric. Then the more I thought about it, i realized how tired I am of hearing people argue over who was what 30 years ago.
 
#7
#7
Rasputin_Vol said:
What does this quote have to do with Nicaragua?
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That part had nothing to do with Nicaragua. That was a collection of things he said at various times, only some about Nicaragua, that don't jive with what he wants to claim today about how buddy-buddy he was with Reagan and how their partnership changed the world.

I really am not interested in the events of 30 years ago as they impact current events that we elect a president for. However, I am interested in how a man will edit history, lie, exaggerate, manipulate and obfuscate in an attempt to get elected now.

In other words, what happened back then isn't that relevant, but what is said now, even about things back then, is relevant.
 
#8
#8
RespectTradition said:
That part had nothing to do with Nicaragua. That was a collection of things he said at various times, only some about Nicaragua, that don't jive with what he wants to claim today about how buddy-buddy he was with Reagan and how their partnership changed the world.

I really am not interested in the events of 30 years ago as they impact current events that we elect a president for. However, I am interested in how a man will edit history, lie, exaggerate, manipulate and obfuscate in an attempt to get elected now.

In other words, what happened back then isn't that relevant, but what is said now, even about things back then, is relevant.
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That wasn't directed at you. Like GaVol said, he changed his original quote regarding Nicaragua. I was responding to that.
 
#11
#11
if I were running and wished to win, I would say Reagan and Christian over 1000 times every speech.
 
#14
#14
I might be more interested in seeing a balanced budget amendment pass if it meant we had to raise taxes accordingly every time we went to war with someone.
 
#16
#16
milohimself said:
I might be more interested in seeing a balanced budget amendment pass if it meant we had to raise taxes accordingly every time we went to war with someone.
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Yes! We'd have no war. Afghanistan sounds like a noble cause until you find out it's costing your family $5000.
 
#17
#17
Any balanced budget legislation will leave wiggle room for them to get out of it. It won't mean anything unless it's a strictly worded, constitutionally ratified amendment, which isn't likely to happen. There's an anecdote about some sort of budget constraint congress circumvented. I can't remember the exact details, but the constraint said that they could exceed their parameters if spending emergencies arise....they ended up using emergency funds to conduct the 2000 census. Considering the 2000 census had been scheduled for hundreds of years, it's hard to imagine how that budget item could be considered an "emergency".
 
#18
#18
nbakerld said:
Yes! We'd have no war. Afghanistan sounds like a noble cause until you find out it's costing your family $5000.
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... Or we could have just used good intel and focused SOCOM ops to take out who we needed to take out, like what happened anyway.
 
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