December 10, 2011

December 10, 2011. Greenville, SC. Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich stunned even some of his own supporters yesterday when he publicly claimed that the world had “invented Palestinian people”. Speaking to a financial industry group, the former Speaker made a blatant attempt to court Jewish voters. Mr. Gingrich can now add Palestinians to the list of other groups he doesn’t believe exist, like honest poor people, gays, hard-working minorities and the unwillfully unemployed.

Newt Gingrich’s was speaking to the Jewish Channel cable network after his address to the Pacific Gateway Capital Group when he said:

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire…I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons, we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it’s tragic.”

Mr. Gingrich finds himself on the opposite side of years of American and global policy. If there is one thing most of the planet agrees on, with the exception of a small army of extremists on both sides of the issue, it’s that Israel and Palestine should co-exist. It’s called the two-state agreement. And while America’s network TV brings us shocking and ugly comments on a daily basis from anti-Israeli activists who insist Israel doesn’t have the right to exist, Gingrich’s comments yesterday remind us that there are those out there that would take a position just as extreme – that the Palestinians don’t have the right to exist.

The reality is, Israel is the only one that has been allowed to exist. It’s the Palestinians that have been a people without a country, living as refugees among their neighbors, if their lucky. If they’re like most, they’ve been stuck for generations living in something similar to a concentration camp in the middle of a tyrannical military occupation.

While each of us is entitled to their own opinion on the Middle East issue, Mr. Gingrich effectively takes that right away by declaring that one side doesn’t even exist. But saying that the Palestinian people have been “invented” by modern political spin-masters ignores entire epochs of mankind’s history from Biblical times through today. But believe it or not, that isn’t Newt Gingrich’s most outrageous quote. We at Whiteout Press knew there were a few doozies, so we scoured the archives to find some more for our readers.

Famous Newt Gingrich Quotes

From ThinkExist.com:

• “The idea that a Congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.”

• “I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words.”

• “Politics and war are remarkably similar situations.”

• “I could hardly stand by and allow the party to cannibalize itself in that situation, and I felt it [the decision to step down] was best for all of us.”

• “You can’t trust anybody with power.”

• “I’m not a natural leader. I’m too intellectual; I’m too abstract; I think too much.”

• “If Thomas Edison invented electric light today, Dan Rather would report it on CBS News as, ‘Candle-making industry threatened’.”

• “A mere forty years ago, beach volleyball was just beginning. No bureaucrat would have invented it, and that’s what freedom is all about.”

• “If the Soviet empire still existed, I’d be terrified. The fact is, we can afford a fairly ignorant presidency now.”

• “We’re all human and we all goof. Do things that may be wrong, but do something.”

Here are a few more historic Newt Gingrich quotes from AddictingInfo.org:

• “Give the park police more ammo.” Explaining what to do about the homeless problem a few days after the police shot and killed a homeless person in front of the White House.

• “The problem isn’t too little money in political campaigns, but not enough.”

• “I have enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it. I am now a famous person. I represent real power.”

• “Gingrich primary mission: Advocate of civilization, definer of civilization, teacher of the rules of civilization, leader of the civilizing forces.” Describing himself.

• “It doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”

• “This is one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration. The more successful they’ve been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we’re in danger…. It’s almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us.” Yes, a 2008 quote advocating another terrorist attack on the United States.

• Describing Medicare – “Now, we don’t get rid of it in round one because we don’t think that that’s politically smart, and we don’t think that’s the right way to go through a transition. But we believe it’s going to wither on the vine because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it, voluntarily.”

• “She isn’t young enough or pretty enough to be the President’s wife.” Speaking of his ex-wife.

• “It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in child laws which are truly stupid…These schools should get rid of unionized janitors, have one master janitor, pay local students to take care of the school.” On abolishing protective child-labor laws.

• “We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.”

• “These people are sick. They are so consumed by their own power, by a Mussolini-like ego, that their willingness to run over normal human beings and to destroy honest institutions is unending.” Directed toward Democrats, but caught all politicians.

In fairness, Newt Gingrich isn’t without his more popular quotes that have resonated greatly with a large portion of the American people. From BrainyQuote.com:

• “An energy tax punishes senior citizens, it punishes rural Americans, if you use electricity it punishes you. This bill will increase your cost of living and may kill your job.”

• “There’s no room in America for a black racist, a Latino racist, or a white racist, or an Asian racist, or a Native American racist. Now, we’re either color blind or we’re not color blind.”

• “Frankly, Governor Romney in his career has created more jobs than the entire Obama cabinet combined, so he could actually talk about it.”

• “I think every religious person should have a deep sense of respect for other people’s religious documents and religious symbols just as we were deeply opposed to the Taliban destroying the two historic buddhas which they blew up. So I think we ought to all oppose burning the Koran.”

• “If you’re not brave, you’re not going to be free.”

• “Imagine a judicial nominee said ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.’ Wouldn’t they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism.”

• “It is time we passed a balanced budget amendment and return this government to limited spending.”

• “Part of why the Tea Party so deeply threatened the elite media is the tea party looked around and suddenly realized, there are more of us than there are of them.”

• “The most important social welfare program in America is a job.”

Whether your like him or hate him, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been consistent in telling the American people how he feels. Unlike most politicians these days who flip-flop on the issues every time the political wind blows, Mr. Gingrich doesn’t hide his beliefs. While he changes sides occasionally, he isn’t afraid to admit he’s learned a few lessons along the way. And while this publication differs with Mr. Gingrich on a great many issues, we appreciate his forthrightness.