The Valentine’s Day Truth Massacre on TARP

Like others, I have taken it as “gospel” that Newt Gingrich was for TARP and Rick Santorum was against it.  The former Pennsylvanian stated it as fact, and our major conservative voices from AceOfSpades to Rush have also.  I don’t know if it was Newt’s desire to embody Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, or what, but I never heard him acknowledge or deny either statement.  It now turns out that there are at least two TV interviews, a National Press Club speech and two op-ed pieces that seem to (again) contradict the assertions of a certain sainted former Senator.

Newt Gingrich on TARP (not liking it) - h/t Justin.fm

On the TARP bailout Gingrich says:

• I think this is an appallingly bad plan
• I think it will be an engine of corruption
• I think it will be a nightmare to implement
• I think this is about as bad as anything I’ve seen in economic policy

Alan Colmes responds:

This is some of the most strident comments
I’ve heard against this plan…

In a Human Events article he says:

As I said to Fox News' Greta Van Susteren Monday night, and spoke about at the National Press Club on Tuesday, there are two steps that could be taken that would send a needed signal to the world financial markets that America has leaders who recognize the gravity of the crisis and are capable of putting aside narrow partisan self-interest for the good of the country.

(of how George Bush has hurt conservatism) It's a tragic and very expensive legacy. No conservative and no Republican should doubt how much it has hurt our cause and our party.

The former Speaker then goes on to give an economics lesson of how to ENSURE that if a proper plan is need how it should be written so that it isn’t wasted, squandered or enacted without accountability. 

You may argue, “PolitiJim (you handsome green bird, you), he still was advocating the possibility of a bailout.”

To which I would reply.  “Nuh-uh!”  (I’m just articulate that way.)

Gingrich proceeded to say this in the Human Events piece:

Congress needs to go back to the drawing board and develop, not just a financial markets rescue bill (which should be a work out, not a bailout) but also an economic growth bill.

And of course, he then proceeds to layout a strategy and plan for exactly WHAT KIND of economic growth bill that should be.  That’s just the way he rolls.  (No fat jokes please.)

At this moment I want to demand apologies from Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, National Review Online, HotAir/AceOfSpades, and every idiot in my timeline who kept screaming “SANTORUM WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO DIDN’T SUPPORT TARP,” as an answer to every question about the PA Senator’s unusually long list of big government – non-conservative votes.
(Also see Legal Insurrection)

A Tweeter tipped me off to Leon Wolf at RedState who’s article leap-linked me to all this. (Please forgive me that I forgot who it was.) 
The question was simple: 

Where is the evidence that Senator Rick Santorum was against TARP as he says?

We can find numerous media references of a vigorous and forceful complaint, analysis and alternative proposals from Mr. Gingrich all while doing it in the voices of Jim DeMint and Milton Friedman.  The only article to surface so far was from a Pittsburgh paper that covers the bailout and Santorum’s strong, conservative, principled objections to it this way:

Outside Rick Santorum's office, rain was falling so hard it bounced. Sixteen miles away, the Senate in which he was once the conservative standard-bearer had taken the lead in crafting an economic rescue plan from which the House had recoiled.

It was a Beltway day fraught with excitement. Even the weather was dramatic. It was the kind of day on which many a losing candidate might be giving an important speech to his bathroom mirror, imagining what might have been.

Rick Santorum?

He wants to talk about the movies.

Did I mention the part about me demanding apologies?  He does talk extensively, (and forcefully) on Islamic-Fascism.  And the fact he helped finance the conservative answer to Saturday Night Live –
An American Carol. (And just when we thought there weren’t any more reasons to vote for someone other than the sweater Senator.  What was Kelsey Grammer thinking!??)

The mea culpa’s may go DOUBLE for Mark Levin.  I was shocked to learn that not only is Mr. “Liberty & Tyranny” ignoring facts about Santorum’s more than egregious liberal votes as well as his unprincipled positions and proclamations – HE IS CENSORING FANS ASKING RESPECTFUL QUESTIONS ABOUT SANTORUM’S RECORD BY DELETING DAMNING POSTS!  AND BLOCKING THEM!  (I thought RedState was the only facist, anti-free speech conservatives that did that.)

My new best bud and RSS feed – Justn.FM recounts the incident here:

I have been a longtime listener to Mark's radio show and I agree with him 99% of the time. However, when he threw Newt under the bus on Monday I felt compelled to speak up. Therefore I went on Mark's facebook page and very respectfully asked him to take a look at Santorum's record. As those of us who have taken a close look have genuine concerns about Santorum's record and electability. I started my inquiry with: "Dr. Levin," and prefaced my remarks with my loyalty to his program and professing my respect for him.
The following morning I checked facebook to see if Mr. Levin had responded to my question. Astonishingly, not only was my question deleted but I was banned from posting on Mark's "wall". I have since emailed Mr. Levin asking for an explanation yet I have received no response.

Like Justin (aka @DryCnty), I am obviously not the only one wondering how our most “conservative” media, led by Levin and Limbaugh, not only didn’t know both sides of this argument (isn’t that their job and their boast?), but now they seem to be COVERING UP evidence of their anti-Gingrich bias.  Or maybe it’s a pro-Santorum bias. Whatever you want to call it – it embarrasses the rest of us conservatives and the conservative movement.

We can only hope this is some shrewd strategy of theirs to get Santorum in Romney’s crosshair’s to shield Newt going into Super Tuesday.  If not, we can add the Mark Levin Show, the Rush Limbaugh Show, MichelleMalkin.com, GBTV and others to betrayals led by Matt “Benedict” Drudge.

So we may have our OWN Valentine’s Day Massacre of dishonest or blind conservatives who betray the conservative family values of TRUTH, JUSTICE and the American Way.  If this is the best we got, we’ll just ignore them into ratings death like we did the mainstream media and (from popular reports) Glenn Beck.

Newt Gingrich likes to use the winter of 1776 as a reference to forging against all odds as George Washington did.  Not only was he out manned and his own forces poorly equipped (when compared to the Hessians and British), their own Continental Congress would not support them and popular vote for the Revolution plummeted into the 30’s.

We may have the most aggressive socialist cancer in the White House and in mainstream media, our own conservatives may be withholding the truth from us and certainly our “popular vote” in seeing Speaker Gingrich is roughly the same as the Revolutionary Army.

But just like George, we will pray.  We will trust in God and his Grace.  And we will win.  NOT for some egotistical vindication of our “TeamNewt,” but because it is the only hope left of these candidates to defeat the Totalitarian Socialist in the White House and reform and redeem America.

---

BONUS: As of Valentine’s Day Eve the battle has really hardly even begun:

Gingrich is almost doubling Santorum’s popular vote total.

Or – for our “fun with math” friends, the 12 delegates separating Santorum and Gingrich is 1% of the 1,144 delegates needed for nomination.  (…and 1/2 of a percent of the TOTAL delegates.)  In other words, (didn’t I just say this?) the battle has really hardly even begun.

Reality check: Numbers are fun but they mean very little at this point.  The caucus’s that Santorum won are - by nature - much lower in voter participation than open primaries.  Not a totally fair comparison and not indicative of Santorum’s lead in the national polls.  But even Romney is not far enough ahead to make this a hopeless cause for either contender.

(h/t to Justin.fm and LegalInsurrection.com)

Posted in: 2012,campaign,election,Newt Gingrich,politics,Rick Santorum,rsfiles,TARP