Gingrich's Political Revival Just Wouldn't Be the Same Without His Two Faces; Former Speaker Wins GOP Hypocrite of the Week

Newt Gingrich

Welcome back to the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

This week's winner should really come as no surprise to BuzzFlashers. When one is a Republican operative for this long, one ends up contradicting oneself plenty (see Gingrich's ethical violations and his about-face on the sanctity of marriage). Not that this is any excuse. The exhumation of Gingrich's political clout goes to show how old GOP 2.0 really is.

It seems that in the recent s**t storm of Republican hypocrisy we've seen of late, that good old fashioned Gingrich duplicity slipped past the BuzzFlash radar, and we've set out today to fix that grave error. The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd added to her vast reserves of Cheney hate columns Wednesday. This in itself is not news, but Dowd did do us the favor of pointing out some hypocrisy that doesn't belong to Cheney:

In 2002, when Bush Junior was ramping up to his war against Saddam, Al Gore made a speech trying to slow down that war resolution, pointing out that pivoting from Osama to Saddam for no reason, initiating "pre-emptive" war, and blowing off our allies would undermine the war on terror.

Charles Krauthammer called Gore's speech "a disgrace." Michael Kelly, his fellow Washington Post columnist, called it "vile" and "contemptible." Newt Gingrich said that the former vice president asserting that W. was making America less safe was "well outside the mark of an appropriate debate."

"I think the president should be doing what he thinks is best as commander in chief," Gingrich said flatly. Now, however, Gingrich backs Dick Cheney when he asserts that President Obama has made America less safe.

Indeed, just last month Gingrich said Cheney was "clearly right" when Cheney said Obama was making the country less safe. Not sure what the "clearly" part refers to; have there been terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since January 20 that BuzzFlash somehow missed?

So let's make sure we get Gingrich's logic right: A Democratic former VP is totally inappropriate when he criticizes the president. But if he's a Republican, fire away!

This fits right in with the general hypocrisy Republicans have been spewing of late. They've equated any criticism of President Bush as mutinous sedition for the past eight years. But now it's A-OK to call President Obama a terrorist-loving socialist who wants to tear our great nation down. These days you can even suggest actual secession without being seditious (as long as you're a Republican, that is).

For buying into this double standard wholesale, even when he's old enough to know better, we bestow upon Newt Gingrich BuzzFlash's GOP Hypocrite of the Week Award.

Remember our motto: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.

Catch up with you soon.

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This is the third HOTW Award for Newt Gingrich. He also won the award on March 21, 2008 and September 8, 2006. You can see a list of all previous nominees here.

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