Newt Gingrich: Moonbat

John Edwards recently got a lot of vitriol from the right-wing for calling a spade a spade in regards to the partisan, unserious way the administration has handled the issue of terrorism. Edwards had called the phrase 'war on terror' a "Bush-created political phrase" and said the White House treated the war like a "bumper sticker".

It turns out one person who agrees is... right-wing hero Newt Gingrich.

The former Speaker sounded like a dirty liberal himself, stating that 'the Bush administration is waging a "phony war" on terrorism' and that we should instead embrace 'a national energy strategy aimed at weaning the country from its reliance on imported oil and some of the regimes that petro-dollars support.' In this speech, he said directly that "None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war." He added, in a broader political sense, that "We were in charge for six years... I don't think you can look and say that was a great success."

What a goddamned moonbat!

(Oh, and if you need proof that the politicization of the 'war on terror' soldiers on, look no further than these new license plates they're offering in good ol' Oklahoma.)

Of course, I get the impression from other things in that article that part of Gingrich's criticism on the 'war on terror' that we've been insufficiently ferocious, failing to really rain down fire and destruction on our enemies. Harder war is their solution there. So it's not all perfect, but a far break from the cult-like orthodoxy of the base that sees Bush as a conquering war hero defeating the vile islamofacists.

In light of Gingrich's admissions, this selection from Harper's is worth posting-

I attended [a recent conference] in Italy with a group of European and American counterterrorism experts. A large team of U.S. Department of Justice officials, drawn from its uppermost echelons, was there, including three of the principal architects of the legal policies for the war on terror. In not-for-attribution comments, one openly acknowledged that the war on terror was cast in the first instance as a political ploy and that it was a conceptual failure. It was now essential for the Americans to move on to something else, he argued. None of the others challenged that view; indeed, two of them said that they agreed with it. So even inside of the Bush Administration, the war on terror has been written off as a scam that served its limited political purpose and is finished.

Well, don't tell the '08 GOP front-runners that. It's the only tool they've got left.

[PS- One newspaper columnist says... More 9/11s, please! 9/11 forever!]