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
  
  

[AlwaysFrosty]

I hope that the tea party is getting mobolized fast in Florida! If we have any chance of beating the establishment it has to start here and at the grassroots level!!!
Go FLORIDA TEA PARTY!! Do it for all of us! Do it for the cause! I do believe we are seeing something far bigger taking place than just a primary...but FLORIDA WE THE PEOPLE need you to RISE UP!!! This is an important moment in the struggle ahead!

[blueunicorn6]

I remember watching a televised press conference the first President Bush had. Some reporter asked a stupid question and President Bush basically told him that only an idiot would ask a question like that. I could feel the anger in my living room from the old media reporters. The old media didn’t just go after him because he was a Republican, they went after him because he insulted one of the kingmakers. President Bush went from a 90+% approval rating to losing a bid for a second term. The old media certainly shills for the Democrats, but if you insult them, and telling the truth about their shilling for the Democrats is insulting to them, they will spend every waking hour trying to destroy you. They are arrogant and they believe that they’re the kingmakers. They want the Republicans to fear them. Our free and impartial press, freely and impartially shilling for the Democrats with absolutely no self-examination. Any advertiser sponsoring the old media should only be paying 10% of what they’re billed.

[Sharkfish]

bump

[KansasGirl]

I agree. Rush helped spread these Newt smears and now he is trying to reconcile with Newt supporters. I don’t trust Rush anymore. Oh well, with Romney as the nominee I have no reason to listen because I really just don’t care anymore. I am feeling disillusioned. I no longer believe that the GOP is the party of smaller Gov’t. Otherwise, why would they be pushing a candidate like Romney?

[darrellmaurina]

Thank you.

It says a lot that Rush Limbaugh had to publicize research that should have been done by the Washington Times, Washington Post, and the capital bureaus of other major national newspapers. It's not like Newt Gingrich's speeches in the Congressional Record were classified information. This was all there for anyone to find who cared to fact-check by visiting a library and looking at hard-copy records of the speeches.

This is why sound-bite journalism is dangerous. TV has a place, but long-form articles existed for a reason, and a big part of the reason was so reporters could check out allegations.

Since there's probably no future for print newspapers, I sincerely hope crowdsourcing and internet media will be successful at retaining the “long form” journalism that was once a major purpose for newspapers, namely, digging into stuff and doing fact-checking.

[darrellmaurina]

15 posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 8:10:26 AM by reasonisfaith: “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.”

Please be careful with guesses that Santorum supporters are secret Mittbots. Many of us are not, but you are right — it does seem obvious that some in the national Republican Party leadership are trying to use Christian conservatives to split the anti-Romney vote.

Reality is that Christian conservatives have a long and bad history of naivete about the realities of politics, and our emphasis on high standards sometimes results in making perfect into the enemy of the good, with the result that horrible candidates win because politically active Christians backed somebody who couldn't win.

That's not a problem for me here in Missouri where Santorum is on the nonbinding primary ballot a week and a half from now, but Gingrich isn't. I can't think of any good reason why an evangelical or a conservative Roman Catholic in Missouri shouldn't vote for Santorum — we in Missouri won't be splitting anyone’s votes since Gingrich isn't on the ballot.

Who would you like us to vote for? Romney? Paul? One of the withdrawn candidates?

Rush Limbaugh's brother, David Limbaugh, is endorsing Santorum and next week Friday is speaking at the Texas County Lincoln Day Dinner, which is one county away from me and immediately south of Fort Leonard Wood. That's four days before the nonbinding Missouri primary.

This thread and another one today have made me decide I'm probably going to attend the Texas County event after all. Redistricting divided our rapidly growing county into three state representative districts and I've got a Texas County candidate asking me to cover him since some of my readers are now in the district for which he is running. I guess I now can tell him even if I didn't think his state rep race was important enough to drive down there, David Limbaugh's endorsement of Santorum is worth the drive.

If any other media are present I'll post a link on Free Republic to their article on David Limbaugh's speech and anything he says about Santorum/Gingrich/Romney. If I'm the only reporter present or if I think the other media totally missed the story, I'll post my own article on Free Republic unless the site owners object. I definitely **DO NOT** want to be accused of Gingrich-bashing or lose my account over accurately reporting what Rush Limbaugh's brother may say in my own back yard.

[x]

Deceived? How?

Gingrich was saying the same thing as Abrams's father-in-law, Norman Podhoretz, at the time, so there's some deception or disingenousness involved on his own part.

Elliot Abrams is very familiar with the position Newt represented at the time, and it's not exactly what he wants readers to assume it to be, and what deception there is is most likely his own and conscious.

On the other hand, few people would probably want Podhoretz for president, so maybe there's some sense after all in Abrams's attack (and nobody outside can really say for sure how Elliot might actually feel about Norman).

The statement that Newt's comments showed him to be reliably conservative in attacking Reagan from the right is a little iffy, though. In one way, there may be some truth in it, Newt was being more Reaganite than Ron Reagan.

But Newt's criticisms also showed some grandstanding and a desire to show off that might come out in other ways. There were plenty of Republican congressmen who had qualms about what Reagan was doing who didn't showboat as Newt did.

[Maryhere]

Ditto

[Maryhere]

Finally some commonsense.

[srmorton]

Thanks! I'm beginning to wonder what show these people are listening to - or even if they listen to Rush at all. :)

[ansel12]

Rush was waving the bloody shirt in victory after his performance on Bloody Thursday.

Rush did his dirty work on Thursday, and this is how he rubbed our faces in it, he knew what he was doing, he teased us with the fact that he knew the truth, and then tossed the truth into the trash.

RUSH (on ‘Bloody Thursday’) But I’ve got a blog here, guy named Dan Riehl. He claims that the video of Newt bashing Reagan is bogus, this 1988 audio that we played of Newt saying that Reagan’s wrong.

Here’s the little blog post. “There’s a short excerpt of a 1988 C-SPAN video purportedly showing Newt Gingrich bashing Reagan when talking about how Bush, Sr. should run” his campaign, should not run as more Reagan, but do something new. Riehl writes, “As I suspected, it’s edited to give a false impression. What you don’t see is immediately after when Gingrich praises Reaganism and the Reagan platform. If you can’t watch it all, it begins at about 2:30 in to confirm it’s the same segment. It’s the minute or two afterward you also need to hear to understand that Newt wasn’t bashing Reagan at all. He was merely saying, Bush isn’t Reagan and the GOP needs something new to sell.”

So I knew something like this was gonna happen. It’s not really that it’s been doctored, but that it has been selectively chosen from. So I sent it up to Cookie ‘cause I can’t listen to it, I didn’t have the time to listen it. Cookie said, “Look, this thing is an hour long. I’m sure he praises Reagan at some point or another, but I wouldn’t say it’s doctored.” So my expert says it’s not doctored. The blogger says it’s been selectively edited or chosen. So I just wanted to get it out there. I think Cookie is protesting having to listen to an hour of Newt, basically, in order to find — (laughing) — what I asked her to find. He-he-he-he-he-he.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Cookie is defiant. She’s giving me a minute and a half after of the Newt bite and she’s insistent that nobody’s doctored this and nobody’s changed — and I’ve read the transcript, that’s true. Newt still says look, the eighties were great but we gotta look forward, people — people care about the future, da-da-da-da-da. He praises Reagan in the bite, which the first — the — the excerpted bite doesn’t include any of but it doesn’t change the fact that while praising Reaganism, he still says to George Bush, you — you’re wasting your time if you campaign on Reaganism. Nobody wants more of the past. We want to look forward, nothing changes about that. So the — the Cookster was right.

END TRANSCRIPT

[ansel12]

Newt was a part of the Reagan revolution, he was handed the torch as it passed from Goldwater, to Reagan, to Newt Gingrich.

Romney was anti-Reagan, and anti-Republican, anti-conservative, and pro-democrat, abortion, homosexual agenda, and the rest of it.

Instead of running an a stealth anti-Newt campaign, why don’t you just come out and promote Mitt Romney straight up?

[x]

Newt was a part of the Reagan revolution, he was handed the torch as it passed from Goldwater, to Reagan, to Newt Gingrich ...

... and dropped it?

Instead of running an a stealth anti-Newt campaign, why don’t you just come out and promote Mitt Romney straight up?

Like a lot of people I have reservations about Newt. I have reservations about Mitt, too. But I don't hate either man and I'm trying not to oversimplify either candidate's career and positions. It's pretty clear from your posts that you can't say the same.

[topfile]

I’ve lost confidence in Drudge’s reporting. I hope Drudge is the one most damaged by these stories.

[ansel12]

x, as a long, long, time, romneybot your attacks on Newt are just a way to push Romney in a childlike, cowardly way while avoiding confronting us about Mitt Romney.

You are single mindedly devoted to Mitt, and never let up.

[x]

I posted to point out that things you said about Romney weren't proven and may not have been true, and I think I've done a pretty good job of it. I've also posted to point out that the charge that Newt Gingrich was anti-Reagan in some fundamental way is misleading and not really true. But there's nobody pushing that line everyday, so my objection was more muted.

I have reservations about Mitt. I expressed them when the campaign started and during the 2008 campaign as well. I'm not sure that he's that good a candidate or that he'd make the best President. But one can decide not to vote for someone and still not malign and vilify him or her. One can disagree with a candidate without trying to destroy him or her.

You've got so much hatred for Romney, his family, his religion, that people are going to react to it -- assuming anybody's paying attention that is, which isn't the case most of the time. Some people will be spurred on by your venom. Others will react against it.

But it's not really about Romney himself. I can see that he's not the best possible choice. But given the imperfect alternatives, some conservatives -- people I've respected -- have settled on him. Even if it were okay to slam Romney himself, burning bridges with people who chose one poor alternative over another was foolhardy and wrong, and it's something we'll regret.

I wish I could be one of the many who just ignore your posts, but since I paid attention to them, I can't help reacting as I have. If there's a lesson in this, it could be that sometimes less is more. A more modest discussion of the available facts does more to convince than efforts to demolish people.

[Maryhere]

Me too. I have seldom seen such hate from freepers. I wonder if they really are conservatives. Newt is really getting bombed and mostly with lies or the stretched truth. I have gone to praying now. I did e-mail Santorum and asked him (nicely because I like him)to drop out and let the conservative vote do the deciding between Mittens and Newt. Then this AM I saw on TV that his daughter was rushed to the hospital and not doing well. She is 3-1/2 and really should not have lived past infancy. Have a good day.

[ansel12]

Romney is a disgusting monster of a man, a failed Governor, a great power within the Mormon cult.

Romney has devoted himself to corrupting people, and converting them from Christ.

We can see Mitt on video in interviews and TV appearances selling abortion with great passion and convincing sincerity.

Romney is a true, natural born liberal, who has never serve conservatism in any way, he has only fought it.

Abortion, pro-homosexual-radical agenda, anti-Reagan anti-guns, dishonesty and compulsive lying, Romneycare, left wing judges, anti-American, anti-military service. Romney covers the full range of true liberalism.

[piasa]

There’s a clip being played of Newt apparently describing himself as a “Wilsonian progressive.” He better explain what context that soundbite was in because as it is it sounds bad and Beck has been playing that unrefuted for weeks.

[unsycophant]

I stopped listening to Rush years ago when he started throwing in with many knee-jerk pundits and spouting nonsense that didn’t help our side at all. I lost respect for him then, after 20+years of being an ardent supporter.

Glad to see he can admit to being wrong and will correct the record.