RUSH: Was Elliott Abrams Deceived on Newt?

RushLimbaugh.com ^ | January 27, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Yosemitest]

Was Elliott Abrams Deceived on Newt?
January 27, 2012

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT



RUSH: I mentioned his name yesterday --

Jeffrey Lord was in the political office of the White House during the first term of Reagan, maybe both terms.
Jeffrey Lord now writes at the American Spectator.
Jeffrey Lord, like me, didn't understand all this stuff at Newt yesterday.

AP has a story referring to me now as "conservative radio titan."
And they describe me as trying to defend Newt on this yesterday, and in the process, nevertheless, recounting all of the things that Newt had said.
I wasn't trying to defend Newt, as AP said. All I was saying was I pay close attention to this stuff.
Even when I wasn't doing a talk show, this stuff was my life.
The last two to three years I was working with the Kansas City Royals (that would have been '81, '82, '83, I got back into radio in 1984) I was immersed in this stuff.
And Newt, the only thing I knew about him was that he was the premiere --
there were a lot of people trying
-- but he was the premiere Reagan defender in those special orders.
And I just had never heard any of this stuff.





Jeffrey Lord, who worked in the White House at the time, had not heard any of this stuff.
So he did some research and has written a piece that is now in the American Spectator, The Spectacle blog.
I just got it. It prints out six pages, and I have not had a chance to read the whole thing,
but it seems like Elliott Abrams has been had.
It seems like Elliott Abrams had a piece at National Review really ripping into Newt, was spoon-fed some out-of-context stuff.

"Abrams quotes Newt for saying in this speech that Reagan's policies towards the Soviets are 'inadequate and will ultimately fail.'"
He quotes Newt as saying that.
So Jeffrey Lord went to the special order, Newt's speech on the floor of the House
when the House had shut down business for the day and listened to the whole thing. It was an hour.

And Jeffrey Lord writes,
"Abrams quotes Newt for saying in this speech that Reagan's policies towards the Soviets are 'inadequate and will ultimately fail.'
This is shameful. Why?
Here's what Newt said -- in full and in context:
' "The fact is that George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Irving Kristol, and Jeane Kirkpatrick are right
in pointing out the enormous gap between President Reagan's strong rhetoric, which is adequate,
and his administration's weak policies, which are inadequate and will ultimately fail." '
In other words, Newt was picking up on a concern, prominent in the day and voiced by no less than Reagan's then ex-UN Ambassador Kirkpatrick."
It was a concern that had also been voiced by Reagan supporters,
George Will and Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol's dad, and the late-Mondale aide turned conservative,
as Mr. Lord writes here, Charles Krauthammer.


"Reagan's anti-Communist policies could be stronger if better institutionalized and not tied as much to the Reagan persona."
Newt was picking up on a concern that these members of the Reagan support team and administration had said.
He's a quoted as saying it. He didn't say it.
It's a classic
take a paragraph or a sentence in quotes and take some of the words out of it but leave the quote marks
to make it look like the Speaker -- in this case, Newt -- was saying these things
when he was picking up on a concern.


"ABC News. Now here's a little juicy tidbit.
What's been the big news with Newt's campaign in the last week?
That's right. The ABC News 'investigative' piece by Brian Ross in the form of an interview with Gingrich's ex-wife Marianne.
Aired two days before the South Carolina primary, the incident famously backfired
as Gingrich launched an attack on ABC during that now-famous CNN debate hosted by John King.
All new, right? Wrong.

"Five days previous to Gingrich's speech, President Reagan had addressed the nation on what he called 'the mounting danger in Central America' from Nicaragua.
Nicaragua, which Reagan described as 'a Soviet ally on the American mainland only 2 hours' flying time from our own borders.
With over a billion dollars in Soviet-bloc aid, the Communist government of Nicaragua has launched a campaign to subvert and topple its democratic neighbors.'
Typically, the liberal media of the day zapped Reagan.
And sure enough, buried in that March 21, 1986, Gingrich speech on the House floor,
Gingrich was tough on the liberal media's handling of Reagan's speech.



"And who -- quite specifically -- did he single out for criticism?
You guessed it: ABC News.
Said Newt:

'All too often the news media itself is grotesquely uncritical and grotesquely willing to use Soviet language to explain Soviet behavior.
Possibly it reached its epitome when ABC News put on a paid Soviet propagandist following the President of the United States.'
In other words, 26 years ago Newt Gingrich was busy incurring the institutional wrath
not just of the mainstream media in general but ABC News quite specifically over the issue of their 'grotesquely uncritical' treatment of the Soviet dictatorship.

"What America is seeing in real time today in this 2012 presidential campaign
in terms of Newt Gingrich taking on both the media in general and ABC News in particular
is decidedly not new. There is a history here -- a long one -- of Gingrich calling out ABC.
And, as seen in the now infamous ex-wife interview, ABC pulls no punches when dealing with Newt Gingrich."
Anyway, this, as I say, prints out to five pages. The first half of this piece is the most meaningful.
It's all good, but it illustrates here.
The headline of the story is: "Elliott Abrams Caught Misleading on Newt,"
and you have to understand: Elliott Abrams' reputation is beyond repute. He's gold.
He's the coin of the realm, and that's what made people curious.

So Jeffrey Lord got together with some people, and found out that
it appears that Mr. Abrams been spoon-fed some stuff that he didn't question
because there is an institutional dislike for Newt amongst the conservative establishment and so on and so forth.
In fact, here's how Mr. Lord writes about it:
"A piece like the one Abrams wrote depends for its success in garnering headlines -- which it did
-- by assuming no one will bother to get into the weeds and do the homework.
Usually a safe assumption when dealing with the mainstream media,
particularly a mainstream media that, as one with Establishment Republicans, hates Newt Gingrich.

Not so fast.

"Due to the diligence of one Chris Scheve of a group called Aqua Terra Strategies in Washington,
Mr. Abrams has been caught red-handed in lending himself to this attempted Romney hit job.
Mr. Scheve, you see, is himself a former foreign policy aide to none other than Speaker Newt Gingrich in his days as Speaker.
While now out on his own and not working for Gingrich, Scheve is considerably conversant with the Gingrich foreign policy record.
Uh-oh. That's right.
Mr. Scheve, incensed at what he felt was a deliberate misrepresentation of his old boss by Abrams and the Romney forces,
specifically of Gingrich's long ago March 21, 1986, 'Special Order' speech on the floor of the House,
and aware 'that most of his [Abrams'] comments had to have been selectively taken from the special order'
-- Scheve started digging.

"Since the Congressional Record for 1986 was difficult to obtain electronically, Scheve trekked to the George Mason Library
to physically track down the March 21, 1986 edition of the Congressional Record.
Locating it, copying and scanning, he was kind enough to send to me," writes Jeffrey Lord.
"So now I've read the Gingrich speech that is the source of all the hoopla.
All seven, fine print pages worth of it exactly as it appeared in its original form.
I can only say that what Elliott Abrams wrote in NRO [National Review] about Newt Gingrich
based on this long ago speech is not worthy of Elliott Abrams.
Specifically, Abrams implies that Newt Gingrich was spewing mindless vitriol about Reagan on the House floor.

"Not only not so, it was quite to the contrary," which, I'm telling you...
These special orders is where everybody first heard about Newt,
and he was the premiere defender of Reagan.
That's why all this stuff yesterday had me scratching my head.
Here's a quote from Newt on this special order:
" 'Let me be clear:
I have the greatest respect for President Reagan.
I think he personally understands the threat of communism.'
Gingrich then goes on -- at Newtonian length -- praising Reagan for Reagan's understanding of Lenin,
Reagan's understanding of the real 'purposes of a Soviet dictatorship' and much more.

"He lists and applauds Reagan repeatedly for the President's appreciation of 'the threat in a more powerful Soviet empire'
and the threats posed by Communist Cuba and Nicaragua.
He ranks Reagan with the great Cold War presidents in protecting freedom.
In short, time after time after, Newt Gingrich -- true to form -- is there on the floor of the House relentlessly praising and crediting Ronald Reagan.
Is it any wonder that years later Nancy Reagan would speak so publicly and warmly about 'Ronnie' passing the conservative torch to Newt?
Is there any wonder that Michael Reagan has stepped into the middle of this current brawl to endorse Newt?





"Abrams quotes Newt for saying in this speech that Reagan's policies towards the Soviets are 'inadequate and will ultimately fail,'"
and this is the paragraph I read to you at first that references Jeane Kirkpatrick, George Will, and Charles Krauthammer
that Newt references without his words.
"In other words, Newt was picking up on a concern, prominent in the day and voiced by no less than Reagan's then ex-UN Ambassador Kirkpatrick,
not to mention prominent Reagan supporters Will and Kristol and the late-Mondale aide turned conservative Krauthammer,
that Reagan's anti-Communist policies could be stronger if better institutionalized and not tied as much to the Reagan persona.

"The entire [Newt] speech focused on suggestions of how to do just that --
to effectively institutionalize Reagan's conservative beliefs in the government.
Is Abrams seriously accusing Jeane Kirkpatrick and George Will of being anti-Reagan?
Of spewing 'insulting rhetoric' at a president everyone in Washington knew they staunchly supported?
Really? Of course not.
But ... Newt Gingrich appear to be doing just that, Abrams apparently quite deliberately cut out the original Gingrich reference to Will, Kirkpatrick, Krauthammer, and Kristol."

Now, I've got the whole piece. Jeffrey sent me the whole text of the special order.
It is tough slogging, but it confirms my memory.

All I could tell you yesterday is
I did not remember any of this Newt-bashing-of-Reagan stuff.
But there were the videos of some examples selectively edited.
You know, things left out and starting point of the edited version, not really the starting point.
So there you have it.
But, however, folks, I'm just gonna have to assume here that Elliott Abrams was spoon-fed this stuff by the Romney people.
This is a stunning piece. This is an absolutely stunning piece by Jeffrey Lord in the American Spectator.
But the genie's out of the bottle. You can't put all this back in the bottle now --
and the debate last night, that wasn't Newt's.
Santorum was the big winner to me. Romney did better than in a couple of areas.
So that's that.

END TRANSCRIPT

Related Links
• American Spectator: Elliott Abrams Caught Misleading on Newt - Jeffrey Lord
  
  
• National Review: Gingrich and Reagan - Elliott Abrams
  
  
• AP: Gingrich Attacks Media to Fire GOP Base; Now Conservative Media are his Biggest Critics
  
  

[Yosemitest]

Thank you, Rush for that great analysis of HOW the LAME Stream Media, the "Establishment Republicans", and their favored son Willard Mitt Romney trys to deceive the public.

They think we're stupid. Listen here and read here.

[Apollo5600]

This is good news to get play on Rush’s show. It should undo most of the damage done by Drudge and maybe reverse the negative momentum. Not too sure why Rush ends that transcript reminding all of us that Santorum won the debate. He won it since no one was kicking his a** all day.

We ought to pray that Newt wins the nomination in Florida. This ugly nomination process is utterly disturbing and disgraceful. Lets get a Romney slap-down and coast our way into victory.

[RC one]

We have to get off of the defense and start up the offensive momentum again but it’s pretty difficult with all the money being poured into the Romney offense. I don’t think, even with the truth as our ally, we’re going to be able to pull of a Florida win. At this point, I want to make Romney pay heavily for every inch of ground that he takes between now and the convention. I want his war chest empty after Super Tuesday.

[Just mythoughts]

Ah sorry I will not be sold more deception. Elliot Abrams was ‘serving’ US in the White House, when Newt spoke on the House floor. Now if Abrams is senile and signed off on what some flack put in front of him, then retire him out so he does no more harm.

[RoosterRedux]

Abrams needs to issue a public correction and apology ASAP!

[4rcane]

remind me of Palin’s first national interview after being picked for VP. The interviewer asked her a question using fake quotes from her

[Christie at the beach]

This has caused a lot of damage to Newt's campaign.

Gross injustice from the media giants. What has taken place this past week is nothing more that an deliberate attempt to destroy a human being. People should be responsible for their words when hey write and speak untruths. I had to take a break from Rush. He really has let me down. I pray Newt can overcome this.

[Christie at the beach]

This has caused a lot of damage to Newt’s campaign.
Gross injustice from the media giants. What has taken place this past week is nothing more that an deliberate attempt to destroy a human being. People should be responsible for their words when they write and speak untruths. I had to take a break from Rush. He really has let me down. I pray Newt can overcome this.

[petercooper]

Rush was right in there on Thursday piling on Newt with some of these bogus charges. And he was laughing all the way through. He’s for Romney no doubt, and would be happy to see Newt implode.

[nikos1121]

Rush:”I wasn’t trying to defend Newt, as AP said.”

Why not show some guts, you Turd, and support the man.

Rush is nothing more than another gutless wonder. He can’t say enough about Rick Santorum? A good and decent man. Newt is well over 50% if Santorum drops out.

Folks, the world is upside down and crazy since Thursday in my mind. Newt is anti-REagan? And the Washington establishment is sitting back and not coming our for the man.

Shame on you all. Shame on you Krauthammer. You were there.

[Christie at the beach]

Yes, he makes certain if there is 40 seconds to spare before he were to sign off, he gets one more little jab or direction in. I have listened since day 1; soon as he hit the mic. I had to take a break. Personally, I think he owes Newt an apology. He is so lame, covering for a Massachusetts liberal who set Romneycare into law. He claims to be a conservative and defends such a law !? He really is in no position to claim that he is neutral after what he has been doing for over the past 2 weeks when he knows full well that Newt is not anti business. Strange no one is suppose to ask Mitt any substitute questions about his business like Newt was doing. Imo.

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

Thank you, Rush for that great analysis of HOW the LAME Stream Media, the "Establishment Republicans", and their favored son Willard Mitt Romney trys to deceive the public.

They think we're stupid

The problem is not with us Freepers as not only are we NOT stoooopid and can see right thru the thin veneer of these ad hominem attacks but realize where it's coming from and why...

The PROBLEM is that the majority of Republicans are not as informed as we are and much like the bottom-feeding, hate-monger Mittens and the elitist RINO, establishment did in Iowa, their attacks in Florida are taking a toll on Newt and it doesn't look good for the "home team."

I'm visiting here in Clearwater and since I arrived 3 weeks ago, there has been an incessant and non-stop airing (radio and tv) of vitriol and hit pieces (posing as ads) against Newt.

Mittens has deep pockets and will stoop to any level to win in Fl as this appears to be his (and Newt's) Waterloo.

[uncbob]

Rush is all over the place on issues
He has to fill up 3 hours and uses anything he can to do it and then later claims I told you so

I got tired of his BS back in 1998 when I got access to the internet and could get all the news and much earlier without depending on him

[mark3681]

Yea. He’s been stale for quite some time. But so have a few others.
Here’s my list, in order of preference. It could be adjusted a little, depending on my mood.

Mark Levin
Jerry Doyle
Rusty Humphries
Neal Boortz
Greg Garrison
Roger Hedgecock
Bill Cunningham
Dennis Miller
Michael Savage
Dana Loesch
Monica Crowley
Michael Reagan
Hugh Hewitt
Tammy Bruce
Dennis Prager
Howie Carr
Mike Gallagher
Laura Ingraham
Bill Bennett
Peter Schiff
Lars Larson
Rush Limbaugh
Sean Hannity
Glenn Beck

[reasonisfaith]

“Not too sure why Rush ends that transcript reminding all of us that Santorum won the debate”

It seems that Rush—whether he knows it or not—is still acting as part of the anti-Newt agenda. One of the current strategies is to use Santorum to split the vote (if Santorum drops out most of his support goes to Gingrich in a Florida victory).

For Rush to give Santorum a bump is to give Santorum more reason not to quit. So the potential useful idiots in this game include both Rush and Santorum.

[Defiant]

During the 80s, Willard was a democrat. This is amazingly ridiculous, more so coming from him.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Was Rush fooled on Eliot Abrams? No. He was doing as he was told... by somebody.

"Eliot Abrams has impeccable credentials. He is beyond reproach..." If you heard that and weren't counting your spoons, I have a bridge to sell you.

[srmorton]

I do not always get to listen to Rush and only rarely to his entire show, but I have NEVER gotten the impression that he likes Romney or dislikes Newt. He was disappointed when Newt appeared to be criticizing Romney as someone from the left would. He has said that he thinks Santorum is a good guy, but I also remember his being critical of Santorum for supporting Arlen Spector over Toomey in their Senate race. Rush just calls them as he sees them and has always made a point of NOT endorsing a candidate during the primary.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

For Rush to give Santorum a bump is to give Santorum more reason not to quit. So the potential useful idiots in this game include both Rush and Santorum.

Yup.

[Lakeshark]

Rush does not have clean hands on this.

The day before he kept repeating how surprised he was that Newt said this bad stuff about Reagan. He used Fred Thompson and others as examples of why he doesn't endorse, asking what they think now that they have heard all these quotes, quotes that are now shown to be cherry picked and out of context.

Either his show prep was bad, his loyalties conflicted, or he has simply lost his touch. To discover how wrong Rush was, all you had to do was read the articles posted on FR before Rush spoke so negatively about Newt one day earlier.

I've always defended Rush before, he now has me wondering about his core beliefs. His inability or unwillingness to rail against Romney early on, and often has been more than disappointing. Romney has not been a conservative in the past, has been running a scorched earth negative campaign from the beginning, and if he wins he will bring down everything that Rush has claimed to be for.

He's been more disappointing to conservatives in the past month than I can express.