Gingrich Parrots House GOP On Climate Change, Waxman Rebuts
Of all the odd phenomena in Republican Washington, perhaps the most inexplicable is the party's embrace of Newt Gingrich--a man who hasn't been elected to political office since the kids still listened to Fastball--as a man of ideas and political relevance. Today they turned to him to articulate some of those ideas before a House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing on climate change legislation. We liked this exchange between Gingrich and committee chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) in particular:
"The problem with these numbers is that they're simply not true.... When the American people hear the statements that you have made, they get scared. Which is exactly what I think is intended. Let's scare people. This is not a new tactic."
We've reported extensively on the Republicans' mischaracterization of the MIT study Waxman cites. And despite repeated attempts by the study's author to set the record straight, the GOP continues to say it says things it doesn't actually say.
Gingrich also cites a Weekly Standard article and a study by the supply-side economist Arthur Laffer among others. But more on those later. For now, though it should be clear (if it wasn't already) that Newt Gingrich isn't a pure conservative man of ideas, untouched by Republican party orthodoxy, and that he drops the ruse entirely when Republicans think they've come up with a really, really good talking point.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Hmmm... You do know that Fastball just released a new album, a week or so ago. Just sayin'.
April 24, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
So did Madonna, but she's still starting to resemble my grandmother...
April 24, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, we should ALL look that good at 50. And if your grandmother looks like Madonna, then your grandmother is a babe.
April 24, 2009 11:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
True, I still want her to enslave me. Can't help it!
April 25, 2009 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
If anorexia in the elderly looks good, then I guess Madonna looks good.
April 25, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Facts --> Republicans
as
Garlic --> The walking undead
April 24, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans can't handle facts folks.They wouldn't know it if it hit 'em in the face.
April 24, 2009 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Republican credo states: Never let the truth get in the way of a really good lie. So elegant.
April 24, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just love how the "new" faces of the Republican (or is it Confederate? I get those mixed up these days) Party, as determined by who is getting the most airtime, are
Rush Limbaugh
Newt Gingrich
Karl Rove
Dick Cheney
I mean really, could you ask for a more surly, unpopular, unsympathetic bunch of jagoffs to be the public face of the party you oppose?
April 25, 2009 2:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's that Librul Media Bias. They just won't let the really popular and appealing Republicans on TV. You know like...uh...like... Well you know the ones everybody likes and trusts.
April 25, 2009 4:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know. Sarah Palin and Laura Bush. Yeah them!
April 25, 2009 4:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK. But what about Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan?
Of course, it occurs to me he has that baby-face look that Ralph Reed exemplified, and that Joe Barton had before his true inner personality stamped itself on his face. And Ryan is clearly apprenticing for membership in the Grumpy Old Man Club. But for right now, he does look rather fresh-faced.
Still, "fresh-faced" might also describe a naive "deer in the headlights" look, too. Dan Quayle had that look.
Maybe I am identifying another strain of Republican "look," one very clear and also very different from the grumpy sour-pussed old man look. The sour-pusses pass for experienced, and the group I identify are the young naifs who stand in their shadow and look up adoringly.
It's just a thought.
April 25, 2009 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
you guys make it sound like the republicans are the only liars. i love TPM, but sometimes it seems too democratty.
don't make me bust out a list of obama tellin' mistruths.
April 25, 2009 2:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please do. I'd like to know of one instance where the Dems continue to misinterpret a study after the author has flatly said their interpretation is false.
April 25, 2009 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
(one month later) just go to factcheck.org, go all the way back to the campaign season, read up to the present. you will have yourself a good long list of mis-represented studies and facts coming from both sides, even obama.
May 23, 2009 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Chadd,
There are the personal self-serving lies that almost every ambitious power-hungry pol tells to burnish his own image, and the Democrats have their share of individuals who tell those. But since the Southern "Wallace/Reagan Democrats" abandoned the Democrats for the Nixon and Reagan Republicans, there has been no real national Democratic constituency that supports the out-and-out fantasies the Republicans are now specializing in.
I think that is a clear, easy to determine difference between the two parties and their respective politicians. To try to say the two parties are somehow "the same" is just an attempt to blur the nasty edges of the current Republican embrace of unreal fantasy as a sales and demagoguery technique.
April 25, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
a majority of democrats certainly do get behind common falsehoods and bogus agendas. israel, health care, economy, etc.
the picture you paint of democrats is that they're generally the good guys with a few bad apples. i see the opposite, they're generally bad guys with a few good apples.
over-all, though, i'll still agree that the two parties aren't necessarily the same.
May 23, 2009 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, there are so many Democrat lies out there.
Like those aluminum tubes are suitable only for uranium enrichment.
Or Saddam Hussein tried to acquire a whole bunch of Yellow Cake from Niger.
Or Iraqi Intelligence met with Mohammad Atta in Prague.
Oh, wait ...
April 25, 2009 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, the science has been in for years. If any report that should be quoted it is the IPCC report. The IPCC is one of the greatest and comprehensive scientific conferences in human history.. The Republicans are being incredibly disingenuous with any information they are quoting...
Another blueprint is the Stern Report, and it gives two guidelines of how AGW will either cause 1-2% less of GDP growth to limit AGW or 20% of GDP if nothing is done to abate AGW.
Gingrich will say anything to get elected...
April 25, 2009 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Brian I watched the hearing yesterday. It seems you've flipped Gingrich's response to Waxman to the front. Gingrich initially quoted that MIT study and the oft repeated Republican lie about the $3128 annual household cost. Waxman then responded with his part in the clip and the Gingrich then responded with his self contradicting nonsense from Laffer, the Weekly Standard and various other sources.
Barton, I think it was, later on explained the simple equation they came up with to calculate the $3128 cost.
I'd like to see a smackdown of those various studies and the Weekly Standard interview. If that's the garbage they're going to peddle it's best to stay ahead of the curve.
April 25, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You might want to add Fox to that list, they don't even know how to report facts, but are experts in distorting them.
April 25, 2009 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Notice how flummoxed Gingrich became as Waxman stated more facts.
April 25, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gingrich is an intellectual nonentity.
April 25, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
You sic 'em, Henry!
April 25, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another case of the Republican Crucifixion – boy this gets so tiring – the village idiots that have been sent to DC (past and present) such as Carter & Clinton (the two most cud-chewingest dim-witted Presidents in my lifetime) and the other Dems who put a face on the party (Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank) can match any Rep perp that you disparage.
It's pretty clear to many of us that term limits would be a solution to long term political corruption, regardless of the party affiliation.
Get over it and deal with some real issues like personal freedom.
April 26, 2009 1:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Newt is the only remaining Republican who can spit out the lies without blinking. The rest of them sort of fumble and shuffle when lying. That's why Newt is trotted out each day to speak.
Regarding lying, it's a critical element of the Republican religion. When they stop lying and speak or hear the truth, their religion falls apart.
The key is to let them keep lying, but make sure only a minority of America belongs to this religion. Reflect on 8 years of Cheney/Bush/Limbaugh to remind us what GOP believers in the majority feels like.
The Independents or "typical American" isn't buying it anymore, thank goodness.
April 26, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
When you guys accuse the Republicans of lying, you don't understand. There are two ways to look at a question. One is the scientific approach where you gather data and go wherever that data leads you. The other is the faith based approach in which you decide where you want to end up and torture the data until it gets you there.
In the latter case, it would be dishonest to accept data that doesn't get you where you want to go. It's sort of like that school board president in Dover, PA, who perjured himself in court in order to further the higher principle of teaching religion in science class. St. Ignatius of Loyola famously said that if you saw something that was white, you had to call it black if that's what the church required. The same moral principle applies to Republican ideology as well.
Now reality works by the scientific method, but the Republicans don't live in the same reality as normal folks, indeed Rove claims they make their own reality. Therefore you will never get anywhere trying to appeal to basic integrity of the rightwing. Their definition of honesty is totally different from everyone else's and they really don't understand what you mean when you accuse them of lying.
This is an understanding that I have slowly come to appreciate from seeing my ex-in-laws in action. As far as they were concerned, deceit was perfectly acceptable if it was for a "good" reason such as getting ahead in your job. The same attitude is prevalent among the right wing.
April 26, 2009 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink