Posted on 09/25/2008 12:36:24 AM PDT by Fred
OBERLIN — Newt Gingrich entered a Finney Chapel basement room crammed with reporters Wednesday night and started shaking hands.
“Hi. I’m Newt,” the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives said as he took a seat.
Within 20 seconds, he jumped from home-style chatting to an angry tirade about Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion plan to bail out failed banks.
While Gingrich was visiting Oberlin College to talk about the stakes of the election, he said he wanted to talk first about the banking crisis because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime threat that could destroy the world economy.
He didn’t waste a chance to lash out at the Paulson plan, which has the backing of President Bush.
Instead, he praised the role Sen. John McCain has taken to broker a bipartisan deal to save Wall Street — and did his best to distance Bush from the Republican presidential candidate.
“I think it’s clear the president’s team has failed, and now it’s Sen. McCain’s turn to see if he can succeed,” Gingrich said.
He said Paulson’s bail-out is “obscene” because it would put too much power in one man’s hands with no oversight, and that rescuing the banks is just a short-term fix to a long-term problem.
Later in the evening, Gingrich stumped for McCain in front of a crowd of 1,200.
Gingrich spent more than an hour lecturing on political history, taking frequent jabs at Bush and criticizing McCain’s Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama.
Gingrich said the banking crisis has killed the McCain campaign’s steam this week, but brokering a fix could give McCain enough of a boost to win the White House because the economy is the biggest issue leading up to November.
Whichever party gives the best plan for getting the economy moving again will win, he predicted.
And while he hailed Obama as the best political speaker since President Ronald Reagan and called him “tactically the best politician in the country today,” Gingrich called the Illinois senator “clumsy” in his campaigning.
Next to the banking issue, Gingrich’s largest problem with Obama was his campaign tour to Germany, where he spoke to a crowd of 200,000 and called himself a “citizen of the world.”
He said Americans will elect the president, and Obama should have stayed in America.
The argument gained traction with 24-year-old Oberlin resident Schaphan Seiders.
“I’m an American, and I think Americans should be deciding this election,” Seiders said after Gingrich’s lecture. “I hope that Obama’s a citizen of America before he’s a citizen of the world.”
But Gingrich’s criticisms weren’t contained to one side of the aisle. He also took on his own Republican Party, saying it’s a “managerial party” that “avoids ideas.”
Naming just a few exceptions — himself, Reagan and Barry Goldwater — he said Republicans are typically good at running the country but don’t know where to steer it.
Gingrich endorsed McCain as the only conservative who “gets it.”
Right now, though, the race is too close to call, he said. There are 10 or 12 states that are split in very tight margins between McCain and Obama.
Luc Trout, 18, a freshman at Oberlin College, said he was surprised at Gingrich’s frank appraisal of the political situation.
“He presented for the first time in a long time an intelligent counterargument to the Democrats,” Trout said. “He’s not going to change me into a Republican, but it’s refreshing to hear someone say something with that much authority and understanding.”
Naming just a few exceptions — himself, Reagan and Barry Goldwater
well, he’s honest :)
NO BAIL OUT!
Finally a conservative speaks.
Anyone know what how Newt’s health is? He was on Fox tonight and he looked terrible. He had big deep pock marks all over his face.
What’s obscene about giving $700 B tax dollars to an unelected bureaucrat with no oversight? Oh right, everything.
“And while he hailed Obama as the best political speaker since President Ronald Reagan...”
Uh, I’m not sure how, uh, uh-uhhh, how you can say that, uh-huh, uhhhh...., Newt.
I hate every aspect of this bailout. Really, seriously hate.
But I do see the necessity of it.
Which makes me angrier than ever at the people who caused it, from the borrowers who knew they couldn’t pay to the whiz kids that made derivative pricing models they knew were wrong to the fat cat ceos who took advantage of it all.
No one was innocent here, they knew what they were doing. They knew it was unsustainable. But their greed got the best of them.
There really must be a reckoning on this. Go ahead, grease the gears and get things running again, but after that...
After that, there must be a reckoning.
The house of CarDS is going to come down. The cost to prop it up is going to increase exponentially every year until it does. A controlled demolition now will be much less damaging than an uncontrolled collapse in 2011.
So Gingrich’s plan is McCain. And we all know that McCain is more conservative than President Bush. ...not.
Will the state of the economy in 2018 be better if there's a bailout today, or if there isn't? I would say with 99.9% certainty that allowing a market devaluation today will result in at least a partial recovery within ten years, and that trying to prevent a devaluation will cause a crash in ten years that would make the prevented devaluation seem minor by comparison.
There should be only enough money injected into the markets to discourage runs (e.g. by promising owners of money market funds that they'll be given $0.80 on the dollar in a year's time). The market needs to come down, and it's going to. The only question will be whether anyone allows it to do so in at least semi-controlled fashion.
All of them guys, and the Democrats that blocked the legislation that could have prevented this.
I’ll get the rope!
>> Go ahead, grease the gears and get things running again, but after that...After that, there must be a reckoning.
I hear you, man. And I want to believe that reckoning might come.
But I don’t believe it. Do you, really?
“Greasing the gears” will merely be a bridge to the next level of corruption. One more shot of smack for the heroin addict; one more drink for the alcoholic.
You don’t cure an addiction with “just one more” fix.
A devaluation will get things running, if the government allows it to do so.
Even if you think a bailout is necessary, surely this is not the right one. Giving one man $700 B tax dollars to spend as he sees fit, with no oversight (remember that's explicitly written into Section 8 of the Bill) is not a recipe for a bailout - it's a recipe for a king.
The people in Washington are panicky right now, and they are running around like headless chickens. That's the sort of circumstances where people make bad decisions, and this is one of the worst I've ever seen.
Contrary to the chicken little's, the economy is not in such dire straights that a decision must be made in the next day or two. People need to calm down, take some deep breaths, and think before they leap. Emphasis on think.
Yeah, when I was about that kid's age and I listened to Newt, I thought the same thing. A few years later I was a Gingrich conservative.
WTH, do these pundits ever listen to how Obama fumbles and mumbles as well as the boiler plate leftism he spouts?
The biggest joke of this election:
BO, the best political speaker since President Reagan.
Gingrich endorsed McCain as the only conservative Republican who “gets it.”
Hi, I’m Newt and one thing I know is obscene.
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