Posted on 05/16/2011 7:14:15 AM PDT by AAABEST
White House hopeful Newt Gingrich called the House Republican plan for Medicare "right-wing social engineering," injecting a discordant GOP voice into the party's efforts to reshape both entitlements and the broader budget debate.
In the same interview Sunday, on NBC's "Meet the Press," Mr. Gingrich backed a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance, complicating a Republican line of attack on President Barack Obama's health law.
The former House speaker's decision to stick with his previous support for an individual mandate comes days after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney defended the health revamp he championed as governor, which includes a mandate.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
So in other words, Newt got P3WND by Gregory and completely accepted his premises.
gov_bean_ counter wrote:
“ and that is one of the real problems with newts. They get their ass handed to them and they just grow another”
I’m so never forgetting this quote! LOL! Hopefully, the American people will get smarter and make newts stay where they belong, under their rocks.
Not a surprise. When he became speaker, he admitted to being a fan of FDR.
He shouldn't have gone on with Gregory ~ no more than he'd let Obama ask him questions.
Some things are best not done, and I find no reason, as a general rule, why Republicans should participate in any event where a known Democrat activist is in charge.
At the same time we must address the issue why we have so many FREEPERS willing to sign on to the legitimacy of what they perceive to be Gregory's question
1) OK, so what was Newt doing by going on this particular show? He can pick and choose his venue and interviews, yes? Why would anyone who KNOWS that Gregory is a left wing hack (and I’m certainly agreeing with you - he is), want to do his show unless it is ‘necessary?’ Net result: Newt is showing he’s not ready for prime time.
2) Newt, being a creature of DC, should have recognized the tactic(s) and responded the way DC creatures respond to these types of questions. He didn’t, he fell into the trap. Net result: New is showing he’s not ready for prime time.
Newt isn’t ready for prime time. And to not put too fine a point on it, he’s not remotely the guy the country needs now.
No sound byte sucked out of Dau'd Gregory's nether reaches is necessary.
Please. I haven’t the stomach to listen to Hannity alone, much less Hannity *AND* Gingrich at the same time.
Doctors tell me that excessively high blood pressure is bad for me, ya know?
There’s only so much stupidity I can withstand in a short period of time.
Newt was just now on Hannity’s radio show.
Said he has a website on healthcare solutions that for nine years has made plain that he supports decentralized healthcare not any kind of national personal mandate such as is in Obamacare. Seemed amazed/surprised that people didn’t know that about him as it has been on his website so long.
Said he is for some kind of system that in the end, either ahead of time or at the time of needing healthcare, makes people pay what they are able to pay for their healthcare (no free ride for those with $$$).
Further said his “social engineering” comment was only meant to say that Americans will not accept a top down, imposed change in their healthcare, and said a national conversation needs to happen that will craft a new system from the bottom up. Said Ryan’s plan taken as is would not be accepted because people don’t understand it and would feel forced into it, the same reasons they have rejected Obamacare.
See my post #69.
Newt made it sound like if you go to the hospital and tell 'em you gots no money, they will not bill you.
The hospital will bill you or me or Uncle Sam.
That's not how it works.
Go to the hospital, get a bill.
Don't pay your bills, you reap the consequences.
I heard the interview and he didnt call for an Obama-care mandate as all these posts claimed. The host was the one who said that,I see no point in nailing him for something he didnt say
However where he got caught was he originally said he'd vote for the Ryan plan, now he said it is radical. .
ROTFLMAO
Note, Gingrich said he’s been working on healthcare solutions for 9 YEARS! The guy just talks talks talks and wants you to buy his books!
He just found a popular way, by making believe he's a serious candidate which he is not. He definitely likes his own voice.
The Ryan plan has serious flaws(and has little or no chance of becoming law), but Newt didnt point them out. Newt initially said he'd vote for it, he now calls it radical. That right there would tell you what type of leader he would be.
I realize he got caught between originally supporting Ryan, then calling it radical change.
I’ve heard him since then on various venues. He changed the word radical to “fundamental change” when pressed. I believe he either deliberately used the word radical to stir the pot for some hidden motive, or he misspoke. My reaction right after he was on MTP was to say, flat out, Newt you should not have used the words radical left change and radical right change in the same sentence.
He now explains that people could perceive it as a top down change which they don’t understand and which is forced on them, and in that sense only did he mean to equate it with Obamacare.
Mark Levin said, after interviewing Newt at Newt’s request, that Newt is addressing a nonexistent problem. Of course, that is Levin’s opinion.
Bill Bennett took Newt to the woodshed like I couldn’t believe. He told him in plain language to take back the word’s “right wing social engineering” which he equated with the left, and to announce that he had made a mistake and to apologize, or else he said, your campaign is finished before it starts.
Newt said he had a call into Paul Ryan and hoped to square the matter sometime today.
Rush seems to think Newt is playing some kind of game in which he knows he won’t win the nomination, but is trying to position himself on the McCain wing of the party for after the election.
If true, that would mean Newt lied to Rush personally, because Rush said he met with Newt awhile back and Newt told him he believed himself to be very likely the nominee by default, because Romney has too many problems, Mitch Daniel’s wouldn’t run because of his wife, etc etc on down the list of potential candidates.
Bennett took Newt at this words and said, either you are totally off base in your views, or you misspoke. If you misspoke, admit it now, back out of it, or you’re done.
And that above is a legitimate observation because that's exactly what the proposal does, and then as a sales point it says that anyone over 55 years old is protected from the Ryan medicare reform, by the reform itself, to avoid their opposition to it. How was that supposed to sell to voters? No one under 55 thinks of retirement? No one would see through that?
Newt using the term ‘radical’ was spitting in House Republicans faces. Especially after they voted for it after he supported it.
I have a related complaint about the House repealing Obama-care then moving on and giving up. Rather to expect to successfully force a repeal on liberal states, why didnt the house pass a second bill that gives each governor or state assembly the power to completely opt out of all parts Obama-care? Then they could force a vote on that in the Senate as part of debt ceiling. Seems like that would be a tough thing for Democrats to oppose.
Bennett didn’t see it as top down and forced on people. He said Ryan didn’t have that kind of power...it was a proposal that he was trying to sell and Newt’s language was like “shooting at Ryan from the rear”.
Bennett is taking this literally and for real, whereas Newt was talking about perception. I come down on the side that indeed the plan is vulnerable to that perception especially with the Dems lies about it. I heard an elderly woman call in to CSpan all worried sick that the Republicans were taking away her Medicare. An elderly man caller seemed to believe it was ditto for his Social Security. They were so ignorant it made one want to cry.
I like your idea about an opt out bill. Especially with all the wavers, and with Reid’s state of Nevada being exempted, it would make perfect sense. And the Repubs could say, either give us an opt out vote, Reid, or no debt ceiling vote. The one fly in the ointment is, of course, Obama vetoes it. But then, he has to run on that veto, so it should even out.
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