Did George W. Bush destroy America? Will Gingrich?

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 12/19/11

Ruling class suggests Kim Jong-il’s son is in charge, as sclerotic North Korea like Greece pitches its third family member. And Jeb Bush likewise hovers this morning again at the top of the WSJ op ed page as his family seeks, strives and hopes for a brokered convention. Because without Bush (III) there is no America. And given the state of the Republican Party, crippled by money, influence, think tanks, nostalgia, the WSJ op ed page, too many Bushes and dead ideas as it seeks it's worthy, it is not unlikely. Newt Gingrich? That Gingrich this weekend brings in Abraham Lincoln, liberator of the world, avatar of the awakening centuries, to legitimize a miscreant like George W. Bush and advance his own feral visions of dictatorship and authoritarianism borders on the demonic. Iowa voters take note.

Time measures us by the size and status of our enemies: Nelson/Napolean, Grant/Lee, Churchill/Hitler, Roosevelt/ Stalin, George W. Bush/Kim Jong-il. But Gingrich begins the age. His claim that if elected president he would reign in the judiciary is a brilliant and dangerous ploy, peeling back the illusions of the American dilemma and slashing its idols, Lincoln, to expand his ever-growing girth. The Presidency has the right to reign in the Supreme Court, he claims, because it has done so twice before. The president of course has no right to reign in the Supreme Court and a president who does so should be thrown in the D.C. jail with the general population.

Then what was Lincoln’s authority in the invasion of the South and for freeing the slaves? Not the constitution. "Higher law." The law of God. In freeing the slaves Lincoln took the “higher law” path and even Rand Paul, primo libertarian and states’ rights advocate, acknowledges that morally, he did the right thing. Likewise, in the same theme and forum, God apparently gave Bush the right to torture the already pitiful foreign devils under the thumb of Osama bin Laden.

This authority came from God? As did Henry VIII, W. Bush declared himself to be the agent of “higher law” and the emissary of God. And Gingrich intends to do so as well.

In the Washington Post this weekend comes essential reading. The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq this month marks the passing of an era, claims Andrew J. Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and Boston University professor, who would make a very excellent VP candidate for Ron Paul if Wes Clark can’t take the job. President George H.W. Bush heralded the approach of a “new world order” he writes. But lacking poetry, his formulation never caught on. And that which never began ends today with American troops leaving Iraq.

Gingrich is today as always, the Trickster. But as Obi-wan Kenobi advanced it, the Trickster’s power is only advanced by the people’s inclination to deception. He tips the statues of our gigundous idols to find the weasel work underneath. But in this we find Newt, the Tea Party champion to be in fact the antithesis of Tea Party. Tea party speaks for the states as Rick Perry does and Ron Paul does. In that regard, Tea Party speaks to our future. Newt paves the way to Bismarck, Kim and himself and he understands that we are at the moment of essential change today and it can go either way.