Even by political flip-flop standards, this one by Newt’s a doozy. Here he is, earlier this month:
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.
Now, here’s Newt this morning, with the no-fly zone in effect, as he had strongly urged up until a few days ago:
… 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.
Huh, you say? Wasn’t that a total, 180-degree contradiction combined with an enormous flip flop? Well, yeah. So, what’s going on here?
Look, the deal here is very simple: if Barack Obama is for it, Newt Gingrich (and most other Republican candidates for President) are against it. Period. If Obama’s for curing cancer, they’re against curing cancer. If Obama’s for the sun rising in the morning, they’re for the sun setting in the morning. If Obama’s for tax cuts (which, by the way, he has been big time!), they’re against them…or something (so confusing). If they used to be for an individual mandate (hey Mitt Romney and many other Republicans who came up with that idea in the first place!), they’re now against it because Obama is for it. If they used to be for clean energy and capping carbon emissions (hello Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, etc.), they’re now against it because Obama’s for it (and note that “cap and trade” originated as a conservative, Republican idea coming out of the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations). Etc, etc. Sensing a pattern here? For instance, that Newt and other Republican candidate for president have ZERO fixed principles whatsoever (except bash Obama, no matter what he does)? Yep, that about sums it up.
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
