Conservative Forum

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Gingrich, the Wayward Conservative?

I love HUMAN EVENTS and am proud that you have published articles that I have occasionally submitted to you. In that mood. I might congratulate you on the terrific articles in your October 1 issue by Jerry Bowyer on the possible reasons for the collapsing price of New York Times stock ["Why the New York Times Has Been Such a Bad Investment," page 3] and by Deborah Corey Barnes on the financial motivations behind Al Gore's global-warming crusade ["The Money and Connections Behind Al Gore's Carbon Crusade." page 19].

But I write instead to quibble-in the strongest possible way-about the headline of your interview with former Speaker Newt Gingrich: "Gingrich Lays out Course for Conservatives for '08" [page 7). Isn't this rather like the leftist publications and politicians that pretend to give good advice to their dim conservative opponents?

While Mr. Gingrich is a highly partisan Republican to whom great credit is due for the Republican congressional victory in the 1994 elections, he has always been a wayward and confused conservative at best. On some fundamental issues, he is much worse-he is a committed opponent of core conservative principles and values.

In particular, his beliefs and record on environmental issues have been disastrous for the conservative cause and for the constitutional rights and material wellbeing of millions of rural Americans. Mr. Gingrich wus (and perhaps still is) a long-time member of the Sierra Club. Early in his years as speaker, he blocked a vote on the floor of the House on a major reform of the Endangered Species Act that had overwhelming Republican and significant bipartisan support. Since this harmed Republican electoral prospects, particularly in the intermountain West (and continues to do so), it suggests that Mr. Gingrich put his environmentalist commitments ahead of conservative principles and even ahead of his own partisan self interest. Mr. Gingrich has in recent years taken credit with his allies in the environmental pressure groups as the person who single-handedly saved the Endangered Species Act from reforms that would respect people's property rights.

Speaker Gingrich then created a process that gave then-Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R.-N.Y.) veto power over all environmental bills coming to the floor. Boehlert led a small rump group of liberal green Republicans who seldom voted with the conservative Republican majority on any important issues. The result was that all efforts to pass needed reforms of America's environmental laws were stymied while Mr. Gingrich was Speaker.

More recently, he debated Sen. John Kerry [D.-Mass] on global warming. It turned into a love-in, because Gingrich agreed with nearly everything Kerry said. He offered his usual concoction of "visionary" rhetoric about providing incentives to develop the whiz-bang new technology he loves but also added, "I am not automatically saying that coercion and bureaucracy is not an answer." You can say that again. The whole point of global-warming alarmism, like most environmental issues, is coercion and bureaucracy. If the solution to global warming doesn't involve big-government command-and-control, then it's not recognized as a solution. And Mr. Gingrich must know that.

On this issue, as on most issues, he tries to escape confronting disagreements between the left and conservatives over fundamental principles by claiming that the real answer is to be found in new technologies administered by new technocracies that transcend these disagreements. This puts him in much the same position as those pathetic Republicans in the 1950s who promoted themselves to voters as more efficient operators of FDR's welfare state. If Mr. Gingrich's innumerable ideas and proposals are going to guide the conservative movement in the future, then please let me off the ship now before it sinks.

-Myron Ebell, Washington, D.C.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Oct 15, 2007
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