In 1999, shortly after the Columbine shootings, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich identified what he saw as the real problem: liberalism.
“I want to say to the elite of this country – the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite: I accuse you in Littleton…of being afraid to talk about the mess you have made,” Gingrich said, “and being afraid to take responsibility for things you have done, and instead foisting upon the rest of us pathetic banalities because you don’t have the courage to look at the world you have created.”
This morning, Gingrich, in the context of a discussion on the Virginia Tech massacre, was asked whether he stood by his twisted worldview in ’99 and whether he would apply them to this week’s tragedy.
GINGRICH: Yes, I think the fact is, if you look at the amount of violence we have in games that young people play at 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 years of age, if you look at the dehumanization, if you look at the fact that we refuse to say that we are, in fact, endowed by our creator, that our rights come from God, that if you kill somebody, you’re committing an act of evil.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But what does that have to do with liberalism?
The ensuing explanation was as breathtakingly stupid as Gingrich’s cultural criticism itself.
“Well, who has created a situation ethics, essentially, zone of not being willing to talk about any of these things. Let me carry another example. I strongly supported Imus being dismissed, but I also think the very thing he was dismissed for, which is the use of language which is stunningly degrading of women — the fact, for example, that one of the Halloween costumes this last year was being able to be either a prostitute or a pimp at 10, 11, 12 years of age, buying a costume, and we don’t have any discussion about what’s happened to our culture because while we’re restricting political free speech under McCain-Feingold, we say it’s impossible to restrict vulgar and vicious and anti-human speech. And I would argue that that’s a major component of what’s happened to our culture in the last 40 years.”
Remember, this unhinged nutjob was a Republican Speaker of the House — and is toying with the notion of running for president.
I’ve read over Gingrich’s remarks several times, looking for some kind of coherent train of thought, but I’m afraid it eludes me. He starts off by blaming video games and a lack of appreciation for the Declaration of Independence, suggesting that, together, they contribute to violent killing sprees. This leads to Imus, Halloween costumes, and the problems with campaign-finance reform.
What’s more, Gingrich uttered this nonsense with authority, as if it were obviously true that Halloween costumes obviously contributed to an environment in which a madman felt compelled to gun down 31 innocent people.
Moreover, “we refuse to say … that if you kill somebody, you’re committing an act of evil”? Is there a pro-murder constituency in the United States that I’ve missed?
For that matter, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note the irony of Gingrich, all people, holding himself out as the arbiter of social rights and wrongs, given his colorful background.
I can’t very well say Gingrich has reached a new low, because he’s been at the bottom of the barrel for quite some time. But that doesn’t stop my jaw from dropping when he utters such lunacy on national television.