I have been pounding the keyboard all week about the lies and distortions of the Romney campaign and supporters about Newt’s record of support for Ronald Reagan.
These allegations were played out by the Romney campaign and on Drudge, and did serious damage to Newt, both substantively and by forcing Newt to get off message.
I was highly suspicious of several accounts, including that by Elliot Abrams, regarding a speech by Newt in 1986. That article in National Review gave rise to this notorious Drudge headline:
I noted in my prior post that Abrams never provided the entire speech or a link to the speech, which made me even more suspicious.
I was in class most of this morning, and came back to hear Rush reading this post by Jeffrey Lord, Elliott Abrams Caught Misleading on Newt:
In fact, I’m sorry to say, what appears to be going on here is that Elliott Abrams, a considerably admirable public servant and a very smart guy, has been swept up in the GOP Establishment’s Romney frothings over the rise of Newt Gingrich in the Republican primaries. He is even being accused of trolling for a job in a Romney administration. No way!!!! Really????What else can possibly explain a piece like the one Abrams penned on a day when Gingrich was being of a mysterious sudden targeted in one hit piece after another for his ties to Reagan? The pieces invariably following the Romney line that Newt had some version of nothing to do with Reagan.A piece like the one Abrams wrote depends for its success in garnering headlines — which it did — by assuming no one will bother to get into the weeds and do the homework. Usually a safe assumption when dealing with the mainstream media, particularly a mainstream media that, as one with Establishment Republicans, hates Newt Gingrich.Not so fast.Due to the diligence of one Chris Scheve of a group called Aqua Terra Strategies in Washington, Mr. Abrams has been caught red-handed in lending himself to this attempted Romney hit job….The main point is that the Newt Gingrich who spoke on the floor of the House on March 21, 1986, was thoroughly pro-Reagan, honestly engaging in a serious intellectual effort to assess the strengths and weaknesses of American foreign policy in the day from a hierarchy of vision, strategy, operations or projects and then last but not least, tactics.In grossly misrepresenting this speech as some sort of anti-Reagan jihad, Elliott Abrams has ironically only called attention to Governor Romney’s lack of strengths and experience in this area.
I’m not done with this, I’m just tight for time right now.
I have warned you about the way Romney was running his campaign, and now that one of his operatives has been caught lying about Reagan and the heroes of the Reagan revolution in order to elect someone who was anti-Reagan and anti-conservative when we needed support most, I’m not letting it go.
Update:
Prior posts:
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY
