Our old friend, Newt Gingrich, was, remember?, forced out of the House leadership by his own caucus in the 90’s after his strategic move to ‘shut down’ the Federal Goverment ended up exploding in the Republicans faces. Probably one of the most bizaarre and unsucessful of all Newt’s odd endeavors. (Let us neither forget his unique public itterations = remember ‘women having thier periods in foxholes will be how we’d lose wars’? Tell it to Joan of Arc!)
Well, Steve Benen at Washington Monthy, who does real reporting (unlike what I do here which is selective cutting and pasting) notes that Newt is back at it. He seems to have a short memory, Newt does. I think most people do remember their personal humiliations, but I guess that norm can’t stop a disgraced one. Even so, this one is hard to fathom.
“”When we win control of the House and Senate this fall, stage one of the end of Obamaism will be a new Republican Congress in January that simply refuses to fund anymore,” he said. “The Congress doesn’t have to pass the money. If EPA gets no money, it can’t enforce cap and trade.”
Benen goes on: That’s been the new line since the healthcare reform bill passed and Republicans realized they probably wouldn’t be able to repeal it. Gingrich, and some lawmakers, have instead been talking about simply not paying for it. But what Gingrich proposed Thursday went beyond just that — to refusing to pay for anything the (hypothetical) GOP Congress didn’t want to let President Obama do.”
So – let’s do it again. Because it’s bound to work out differently this time. Apparently this line got the biggest applause of the speech. So Newt does not forget alone.