Newt Gringrich Slams BushBeware Geeks Bearing Gifts

There is an old proverb which warns us: Beware of Geeks bearing gifts. (The Romans later changed this to “Greeks”, but I am sure it was a type-o.)

This week, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a geek* in the true and original sense of the word, gave a gift to we-who-hate-Bush, he went onto the Fox Network and denounced the utter and complete incompetence of the Bush Administration.

The AP summed up part of Gingrich’s argument:

"All you have to do is look at the examples I've given you today where the government simply fails," said Gingrich, citing the administration's handling of the war in Iraq, its immigration policies and response to Hurricane Katrina.

And according to the article by the Bloomberg News Service:

``The administration has very, very high goals -- democracy throughout the Middle East -- and very weak bureaucratic support for those goals,'' Gingrich said on Fox. ``And the result is an enormous mismatch in just sheer implementation.''

Bush ``doesn't methodically insist on changing things,'' Gingrich said.

``Here we are, 5 and ½ years after 9/11, and the fact is, I would argue, we're losing the war around the world with Islamic extremists and they are, in fact, gaining ground,'' he said.

HA! HA! Gingrich is making our points for us! What a great day! But wait…something is not right. There is a fly in the buttermilk. You see, as much as I LOVE watching one Republican Elder eviscerating another, I can’t help but dwell on those last two points:

The terrorists are getting stronger, and so, we must insist on changing things.

Perhaps, Gingrich simply means we have to clean up and streamline the workings of the government bureaucracy.

But I keep thinking about a little noted speech Newt gave over in New Hampshire in 2006. I didn’t find it until months later, when I tried to write a funny essay on Newt’s infidelity during the Clinton crisis….I remembered then, and am recalling now, that there is absolutely NOTHING funny about Newt Gingrich:

“This is a serious long term war, and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country, that will lead us to learn how to close down every website that is dangerous, and it will lead us to a very severe approach to people who advocate the killing of Americans and advocate the use of nuclear of[sic] biological weapons.”

Newt Gingrich is seriously proposing that we: "adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us"

In effect, Newt is saying, we are going to need to place Freedom of Speech in a sort of Blind Trust, until we win the war on Terror.

I think that when Newt Gingrich talks about drastic changes, he actually has something like THIS in mind.

And I shudder to think of it. All too often, we liberals tend to think that, if the American People are deeply dissatisfied with the Republicans, they will turn to us.

But what would they do if they were offered a choice even FURTHER to the right?

That’s what keeps me awake at night.

*Post-Script

The term Geek,in it's origional usage, denoted a performer in a circus who captured attention by perferming unspeakable acts.