Gingrich: And yet...

Leave it to his fellow Republican conservatives to make even such a person as Newt Gingrich look like a halfway-reasonable politician. During his time at the Southern conservative conclave, the former Speaker made the entirely sensible suggestion that it might not be a good idea for the Republicans to be identified as the "Party of No." Echoing other Republican sympathizers, he urged his party and the larger movement to offer positive alternatives to the Democratic programs they would repeal. Understanding that the public will most likely not accept the status quo as the only alternative to the Obama agenda, Gingrich told his audience that the Republicans need to become a "Party of Yes."

Did Governor Jindal of Louisiana and ex-Governor Palin of Alaska not comprehend what Gingrich was saying? Each one basically told him to drop dead today. They like the sound of "Party of No," and Jindal, for one, likes it better as the "Party of Hell, No!" Both affirmed that it was perfectly fine to be the PN when faced with unconstitutional or merely unsound proposals from the majority. You would think from the way they reacted that Gingrich had told them to say Yes to the Democrats, when he had said nothing of the sort. Gingrich was making the strategic point that it might hurt his party to be seen opposing everything while offering no constructive suggestions of their own. He's conscious enough of the world outside the movement bubble to recognize that the PN label might be a pejorative for many people. He gave no Republican cause to believe that a PY would stand for acquiescence in "secular socialism" or anything like it. Yet Palin and Jindal responded with exactly the sort of obtuse bullheadedness that Gingrich warned against. I stand by all I said against him in the article below, but news like this makes the man look like a mental titan compared to his competition. They're staking their party's future on the U.S. being a Nation of No, and they may be right about that -- at least when the subject is their own presidential ambitions.