Watch The Real Newt Gingrich: Progressive Newt? Narrated by John McManus, President of the John Birch Society. http://a12iggymom.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/the-real-newt-gingrich-progressive-newt-3/
Newt Campaigned for Rockefeller,
Voted to create the Department of Education,
Voted for MFN status of China,
Voted for Amnesty,
Voted for funding the NIA,
Voted for a presidential line item veto,
Voted against cutting $32B of foreign aid by 1%,
Was named Man of the Year by Time Magazine
NEWT ON THE CONSTITUTION:
Newt asked congressmen to read 8 documents including the Federalist Papers and Declaration of independence. The Constitution was not on the list but “The Third Wave” By Alvin Tofler (a long time friend) was. It urged a “radical change” away from constitutional principles promoted by the founding fathers. It called The Constitution “obsolete” and urged the “death and replacement of the American Constitutional system”.
Newts Book “To Renew America” mentions the Constitution only once, and then just that it exists.
In 1990 he joined the CFR, and organization that according to Richard Gardner, one of its heavyweights, promotes an “end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece“. He promoted us joining GATT which gave unprecedented authority to an international organizations and created the WTO and IMF (I think).
Newt joined Clinton in 1995 and told the audience that he was. “a big fan of Franklyn Roosevelt” and “a big fan of Woodrow Wilson“. Warren Christopher was asked to lable Newt in one word and chose “internationalist“. The NYT claimed that Newt’s foreign policy mentor was Henry Kissinger.
Newt organized House opposition to Ron Paul’s fun for Congress. In 1995 Newt gave a speech in which he said, “The American Challenge in leading the world is compounded by our Constitution”. He said that we would have to “rethink our constitution”. He said, “I believe in a very strong central government. You can have a very strong but limited federal government.” WTF?
Most of the people that don't like Newt remember the Nancy and the couch incident or campaigning for health care reform with Hillary or his train wreck of a personal life. They need to to go back and learn who Newt was (and is) and stop remembering the Clinton / Gingrich years and some kind of good old days. I've had FReepers telling me that because Rush Limbaugh supported NAFTA it's a good thing. Delusional.
Oh, and watch out for that quote you put up about rethinking the constitution; there's a lot of context around it. As far as I know the transcript of that speech is not available anywhere on the Internet. I got a copy from someone who bought it.