Newt Gingrich Responds To Glenn Beck's 'Progressive' Charge (VIDEO)

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Monday defended against recent claims by radio host Glenn Beck that he is a "progressive."

Gingrich was speaking with New Hampshire-based conservative commentator Paul Westcott, who asked him about Beck's recent reproach, in which he concluded that Gingrich was so "progressive" that only racism could explain why Republicans were supporting him over President Obama.

"I don't know," Gingrich responded to the charges, laughing. "It depends on what standard you're using, you know? The fact is that I balanced the budget for four consecutive years. And we did so while cutting taxes and increasing employment so people went back to work, they left welfare, they left food stamps, they left unemployment, they left Medicaid. Who else has a record of that level of achievement? I worked with Reagan in '79, '80. I worked with Reagan for 8 years in defeating the Soviet Empire. I think those are relatively conservative credentials."

Last week, Beck encouraged Republican voters to examine Gingrich's record and judge his political ideology based on the policies he has supported.

"This man is a progressive. He knows he's a progressive. He doesn't have a problem with being a progressive," Beck claimed. "So if you've got a big government progressive [in Gingrich] or a big government progressive in Obama, one in Newt Gingrich, one in Obama, ask yourself this Tea Party. Is it about Obama's race? Because that's what it appears to be to me. If you're against him but you're for this guy, it must be about race."

Comments

[braziliancongo]

03:46 PM on 12/13/2011

Beck is insipid, but it is true that there is little air between Gingrich and Obama.

[SmoothMineral]

03:33 PM on 12/13/2011

Glenn Beck is going double maverick on us?

Either there is good in him, or this is part of his sophisticated plan to get fellow Mormon Mitt Romney the nomination by first supporting the clearly unelectable Herman Cain, and now attacking the only contender left who could compete with Romney. I'm betting on the latter.

[1jdgriff]

03:38 PM on 12/13/2011

Not taking that bet. However, if Newt gets the nomination Glenn will fall in line to kiss his ring, or something else.

[cameron d]

03:02 PM on 12/13/2011

A quick definition of the word Progressive:

Favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters.

Why is this a problem again?

[DaveInFL]

12:20 AM on 12/14/2011

too quick. wrong definition. try - increasing the severity or extent of government.

and change in itself is not automatically good.

[cameron d]

12:35 AM on 12/14/2011

Hey, that's just the dictionary speaking.

[Sieggy]

02:44 PM on 12/13/2011

Beck is, of course, totally wrong. Newt is a dyed in the wool Regressive.

[1jdgriff]

03:39 PM on 12/13/2011

Perfect.

[ElodieStClair]

02:42 PM on 12/13/2011

Gingrich and Reagan didn't have one one millionth of one percent to do with the Soviet Union collapsing.

The Soviet economy collapsed on its own. Gorby set the stage with glasnost and perestroika. The people rose up in spontaneous revolution. And it fell. All internally.

Reagan gets zero credit for that. And Gingrich gets less than zero.

Conservatives can't name one thing that Reagan did that was directly responsible for the Soviet collapse. Not one thing. Because there isn't one.

[cameron d]

03:04 PM on 12/13/2011

Your second paragraph nailed the real reason for the fall of the Soviet Union.

By the time Reagan came around the Soviet Union was a shell of it's former self and couldn't have been less of a threat internationally.

[geaaronson]

04:16 PM on 12/13/2011

There was an internal CIA analysis done by one of its analysts back in the 70`s who gave the SU 15 years at the most. The cost of Russia providing for the "provinces" was too heavy a load, and it was only a matter of time before most realized it.
To give Reagan some credit, he did expedite the breakup as Gorby could not match the West`s sudden splurge on STAR WARS weaponry while at the same time leaking financially to maintain the economy in the hinterland. And of course we can give Reagan credit for claiming credit for the SU breakup. Nothing better than to claim you have defeated the enemy without firing a shot.

[DaveInFL]

12:51 AM on 12/14/2011

wrong. there were multiple reasons for the collapse of the USSR, and a major factor was the flawed system of government which destroyed the USSR economy and in particular its agriculture sector. The USSR would eventually fail as all totalitarian systems do but the actions of Reagen/Thatcher/Pope John Paul absolutely played a part. Their activities increased economic pressure on the USSR and supported resistance by the people (and in the case of John Paul instigating popular revolt in Poland).

Gorbachev recognized that the Soviet system was flawed and perestroika & glasnost were his attempts to improve communism - not replace communism or diminish the power of the government. "Glasnost" was to increase transparency and provide the appearance of input from the people would satisfy the people. Perestroika was intended to give the sub-levels of the government more flexibility to act and hopefully improve efficiency.

The Polish trade union Solidarnosc (Solidarity) formed in 1980 (long before perestroika and glasnost) and led by Lech Walesa were a major contributing force in the social uprising against the USSR. Solidarity had close ties with the Catholic Church and Polish born Pope John Paul. Glasnost and perestroika were attempts by Gorby and the party to retain power and defuse the growing social unrest largely initiated by Solidarity.

As always when people think they know how to control a complicated system, there were unintended consequences. Goby opened the door further with P&G and lost control. He was a follower in reform not a leader.

[ElodieStClair]

12:48 PM on 12/15/2011

Defending the idea that Gingrich and Reagan brought down the Soviet Union makes you a clown. Period.

[Jamf]

02:42 PM on 12/13/2011

Beck is shilling for Willard. Why? Mormon helping Mormon. Beck hopes to be juiced right into the White House.

Gingrich progressive? You bet. His progressive credentials are right up there with Attila the Hun...

[need-to-know]

02:36 PM on 12/13/2011

Yes Glen, its about race. It has always been about race, the term socialist and liberal are code names for there is a black man in the White House.

[opinioned1]

02:31 PM on 12/13/2011

News to me-Is Beck still around?

[PerotVentuSheehCarte]

02:26 PM on 12/13/2011

Even Beck knows exactly what Gingrich is.

[mynamesyow]

02:11 PM on 12/13/2011

The Race to the bottom fo the GOP just kicked up a notch!
yeehah!!!

[slickbottom]

01:50 PM on 12/13/2011

"I worked with Reagan for 8 years in defeating the Soviet Empire"

Do you all remember that when Reagan and Gingrich defeated the Soviet Empire? Gingrich has gigantic balls to claim he had anything to do with the defeat of the Soviet Empire. Of course most wingnuts claim that Reagan was responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Empire when in fact the Soviet Empire just went bankrupt from the arms race.

[limberwulf]

01:59 PM on 12/13/2011

That is actually the basis for their claim, since Reagan is credited with leading the arms race.

[slickbottom]

05:22 PM on 12/13/2011

The arms race began years before Reagan was even a politician. You can easily find the number of strategic nuclear missiles, warheads and throw-weights of the United States and Russian going back to the sixties on the web. The Republican base believes whatever fairy tales are fed to them by the pundits. None of it has any relation to reality.

[mynamesyow]

02:09 PM on 12/13/2011

And dont forget the Osama bin Laden and the Taliban/Mujhadeen in Afghanistan who Reagan and Cheney and Rumsfeld and his boys armed to the Teeth and Trained to take down a Superpower thru a low level gureilla war that would bankrupt their Military and eventually sap the Economy......which had a big hand in doing the USSR in....and then they used it against us.....how odd...

[Truthiness4Me]

01:34 PM on 12/13/2011

I love it when idiots snipe at each other...

[Sieggy]

02:46 PM on 12/13/2011

It's sort of like when the fundies and atheists go at it - no matter who loses, I feel good about it . . .

[F4U Corsair]

01:33 PM on 12/13/2011

Can you imagine a liberal news media person doing their job with "Candidate" Obama? They fawned on the idea of a first black president and made sure no media got in the way of getting him elected.

At least Glenn Beck believes in peeling away the layers. Right or wrong on his analysis, that is his job.

[Gudrun]

02:01 PM on 12/13/2011

Obama ran for a couple of offices before he ran for president. It's really time to retire this absurd notion that we don't know enough about him. Give it a rest, please.

[MarkAntney]

02:15 PM on 12/13/2011

What is it "We don't know" about Obama? I'm sure you have many answers, even if speculative?

[F4U Corsair]

04:29 PM on 12/13/2011

What do we know about him?

We know the media threw Hillary under the bus in enthusiastic support with free cover stories that boosted Barack to Super-star status.

[MaryIndy]

01:31 PM on 12/13/2011

Yeah, Newt, but people want to know what you've done lately -- who's been paying you?

[Caroleeena]

01:30 PM on 12/13/2011

Gingrich is not a progressive.

What I don't get is why these people cling to regressiveness? It's like they still want to be cavemen.

[slickbottom]

01:54 PM on 12/13/2011

It is often thought that Neanderthals went extinct. Republicans are proof that this is not true. They are directly related to a more primitive life form and the Neanderthal species is the most likely candidate.

[limberwulf]

02:01 PM on 12/13/2011

the term progressive, in the political sense, is not the opposite of "regressive". No more than "conservative" really defines the right or "liberal" really defines the left. They are just terms thrown around that have special meanings in political contexts.

[mynamesyow]

02:10 PM on 12/13/2011

The terms Right and Left were actually invented in France in the 1800s to describe seating arrangements in the French Parliment...

[Caroleeena]

02:23 PM on 12/13/2011

No. That's not so. Progressives want to move forward. Conservatives want to stay where things are or even go backward. The words mean what they say they mean. As a result, conservatives keep us from making technological progress (stem cell research, trying to censor the internet, trying to stop community wi-fi), medical progress (medical marijuana, birth control, natural medicines versus big pharma, healthcare for all people), civil rights progress (women's vote, slavery, equal rights for black and brown people, women getting equal pay for equal work, worker's rights, child labor, living wages, etc.)...the list goes on and on. The whole engaging in constant war thing is not a conservative principle but something that people within the party co-opted the party for in order to carry out their world-wide domination agenda. We need to cut these anchors lose. They are keeping us from progressing as a nation, as a culture and as a democracy. They are fearful of anything new. They are the old man screaming, "Get off my lawn!" They need to evolve already. Or we need to ignore them like a two year old throwing a tantrum. Change happens. It's is inevitable. This clinging to yesterday is silly and impossible.