Newt Gingrich: Enemy of America

I've been lying low since the election. I've been trying to stay out of things, because life is settling in, the old Congress is clearing out, the new one has yet to take office (regardless of the extent to which some people are already trying to spin the new Congress as failed, as though there were anything at all they could have done before they even took power).

I've avoided (until now) being sucked into pointing out that when commentators kept saying that Nancy Pelosi had lost face by backing Murtha for the number two position and having him not elected, they were completely ignoring that when Newt Gingrich took the Speaker position, he also backed a different person for House Majority Leader and also had to watch as a different person was elected.

I've avoided commenting on the Iraq study group report, even though the White House has tried to alternately discredit it, ignore it, or claim that it vindicates their stance.

And last week, I avoided jumping on Newt Gingrich, who at a dinner celebrating the First Amendment, argued that abridging that Amendment might be called for in the current climate.

But this takes the cake. He could have tried to weasel out, claim he never said it, or that his words were taken out of context (something which wouldn't have been too hard to do, what I saw of the original speech was less definite, more speculative. Not "We must do away with freedom of speech to stop terror", but "We might need to consider whether the current climate of terror might necessitate some curtailing of those freedoms". Bad, but he could have come back and said "I never said we SHOULD, only that it's worth considering whether we should".)

But instead, he's further cemented his statement. He has clarified that he really does mean that the First Amendment should be modified so that it doesn't apply to everyone, that it doesn't apply to terrorists. But who are the terrorists? As with the Patriot Act and the Military Tribunals act and a few others, who gets to decide who's a terrorist and not due the same rights everyone else is due under the Constitution?

According to Gingrich, "If you give me any signal in the age of terrorism that you're a terrorist, I'd say the burden of proof was on you." So apparently Newt Gingrich isn't to sanguine on that whole annoying “Innocent until proven guilty” thing either. Does he believe HE should be the ultimate arbiter? The President? Or is it sufficient for ANYONE to call someone a terrorist in order to have that person's rights taken away? If I get annoyed at someone who dittos Rush Limbaugh without any real consideration, can I just claim they gave me “a signal ... that they're a terrorist” and thus have the police shut them up and stop them from speaking? Heck, Mr. Gingrich appears to be trying to take apart the very foundations of our nation, something the terrorists are also trying to do. By his rules, we should be able to point to this dismantling of the Constitution as “a signal ... that he's a terrorist” and perhaps get HIM to shut up.

Lest you think that it couldn't happen, that no one would ever go so far as to abridge the first of our Bill of Rights, let me remind you that we've already got a law on the books stripping away the right of Habeas Corpus from anyone declared by the President as an Enemy Combatant. The bill may or may not limit that stripping to non-citizens (I've read the text, it's ambiguous in some areas), but nevertheless, the Constitution makes no distinction. The full mention in the Constitution of Habeas Corpus is as follows: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

We have not been invaded by any definition used at the time of the framing, nor is there any serious rebellion going on. Thus, our friends on the neoconservative Right clearly have no qualms about not letting a little thing like Constitutionality stand in the way of their aims and goals. We're only safe right now because (as I've said so often), now that we've got checks and balances back again, the Congress isn't likely to pass another travesty like the Military Commissions Act, at least as long as Democrats control it.

But back to Mr. Gingrich. As you may recall, last month six Muslim scholars were ejected from a flight for praying prior to the flight and allegedly sitting in the same seats the 9/11 hijackers sat in. If true, I can understand why the crew got a bit nervous, and I'm willing to cut them some slack, even if it turns out that their reaction was unwarranted. But Gingrich's comments on the matter are chilling:

"Those six people should have been arrested and prosecuted for pretending to be terrorists, and the crew of the U.S. airplane should have been invited to the White House and congratulated for being correct in the protection of citizens."

Being wary is understandable and justified in the post 9/11 world (particularly a post 9/11 world fear served up at every turn by the Administration and its supporters). The situation that occurred was unfortunate. But prosecuted? For having the audacity to pray before getting on a flight? Or for being Muslim and sitting in the same seats? Which seats were these? My guess would be exit row seats, because they're the easiest ones to exit from quickly, but there are a lot of people who request exit row seats simply because they have more leg room for large people.

Regardless, these are very disturbing comments from a man who used to run our government. And this man wants to be President.

Heaven help us if he wins.

Oh, and as to the title of the article... I'm getting sick and tired of seeing anyone who espouses any other opinion than the official neocon party line labelled an America-hater. In my view point, what do you do when you hate something? You try to destroy it, or remake it so fundamentally that it no longer is what it was when you began. And so you decide, is it the people who question whether thousands of our people (and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis) should be dying in a war which has nothing to do with 9/11 that "hate America"?

Or is it those who would dismantle everything that makes us great and free, always using those freedoms as a club, always referencing them as precious and in need of defense, thus justifying curtailing those freedoms in the name of defending them?

Ask yourself which side in this argument wants to fundamentally change the very core principles of our nation, and I think you can figure out who really hates America.