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Power, pop, and probings from ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper

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Gingrich? Mais, oui!!

May 07, 2007 10:03 PM

HERE IS THE VERY LATEST (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3148809&page=1) on what of the Iraq spending bill contretemps we could figure out….

One possible map for how his all works its way through the House then Senate then onto the president's desk...

The House passes the short-term funding bill I discuss in the story linked above -- which almost only Democrats support...

Then the Senate passes a long-term funding bill with benchmarks for Iraqi government progress, getting GOP support…

Then the House-Senate conference committee comes up with a final product much more like the Senate bill…

Then the House votes on this more moderate conference report -- the anti-war liberals defect, but moderate Republicans sign on.

Then the Senate votes for the conference committee report, and the president signs it.

Just a possibility.

My colleague David Chalian points me to an interesting -- and perhaps a touch self-serving (but not in a bad way) -- oped by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia.

It's his take on the French elections.

"In France, voting for change meant voting for the party in office, but not the personality in office," Gingrich, who is weighing a presidential bid, WRITES HERE (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=20600). "And voting to keep the old order meant voting for the opposition, not for the incumbent party.

"If Republicans hope to win the presidency next year, they better find a candidate who is prepared to stand for very bold, very dramatic and very systematic change in Washington. Not only that, but they had better make the case that the left-wing Democrat likely to be nominated represents the failed status quo: the bureaucracies that are failing, the social policies that are failing, the high tax policies that are failing, and the weakness around the world that has failed so badly in protecting America.

"Only if we have that kind of campaign do we have a reasonable chance to expect the American people will vote for effective change for a better, safer and more prosperous future -- and that they will see that effective change as being Republican."

-- jpt

May 7, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (2)

User Comments

Gingrich has it wrong. Yes, there is a tidal wave of anti-encumbency sentiment, as evidenced by the 2006 elections. But I would argue that the source of discontent is primarily Iraq, not failing social or tax policies.

And even if you accept that what the populous wants is the Anti-Bush, they pretty much have it in Rudy Guiliani.

And isn't it well established that Gingrich was one of the individuals quietly supporting the invasion of Iraq before it took place? You know, whispering his ideas to Rumsfeld. Wasn't he one of the individuals who bought into the myth that we could instill democracy in Iraq, and the rest of the middle east would just fall into democracy, like dominoes. He is a grandiose thinker. That kind of fantasy would probably seem plausible to his brain.

He may fool his party into thinking he's a departure from the current administration, but he doesn't fool me.

Posted by: cordelia525 | May 8, 2007 9:23:40 AM

Monsieur Gingrich is quite correct (and I never thought I'd be writing those words!) in his analysis where he takes les leçons from the French election and applies them to politics here. I would also argue that his analysis applies to ANY candidate running for president, not just from the Republican party. The essential question is whether the next president will have the political courage to enact fundamental change in government, to make it more responsive to the governed, or whether it will be "business as usual."

Posted by: chuck | May 8, 2007 8:08:25 AM

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