Newt Gingrich On Energy: Left Doesn't 'Believe The Wright Brothers Invented Flying'

Place Newt Gingrich in office, and he vows to get gas prices down to $2.50 a gallon. Place a liberal in office, and Gingrich vows that energy progress will fall victim to fear.

In a radio interview on Tuesday, Gingrich blasted the left on oil, drawing upon some of the greater moments in American history to make his point.

"The Left has believed for at least forty years now in a concept called Peak Oil that says 'gee, we're about to run out.' Well, it turns out that our reserves in the U.S., because of new technology, which is something that the Left rejects - they don't believe the Wright Brothers invented flying, they don't believe Edison invented electric light, and they don't believe we're about to invent the next generation of interesting things."

President Barack Obama countered Gingrich's rhetoric in his Thursday energy policy speech, directing a similar charge against the GOP field. Speaking at a community college in Largo, Md., Obama labeled Republicans as the ones unwilling to embrace alternative energy sources, injecting his own dose of history in the process.

"They dismiss wind power. They dismiss solar power. They make jokes about biofuels. They were against raising fuel standards. I guess they like gas-guzzlers. If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail, they probably must have been founding members of the flat earth society. They would not believe that the world was round."

Energy is not the first instance of Gingrich inserting the Wright Brothers into political discourse. Last month, the former House Speaker made an Ohio campaign stop at Orville Wright's home in Dayton. Gingrich likened his space plan to the same innovation captured within Wright's aviation achievements. If elected to the White House, Gingrich has vowed to establish a moon colony, among other things.

Comments

[mamacat]

09:52 PM on 04/07/2012

What the Left doesn't believe is that Newt has a lick of sense.

[Genders]

10:16 PM on 03/25/2012

Bingo, the pro nukes fossil folks are the Luddites....

[Redhunteur]

06:10 AM on 03/20/2012

Edison didn't invent the electric light. Moron.

[Genders]

10:17 PM on 03/25/2012

He just invented the first pratical electrical light.

Does that help?

[Redhunteur]

06:02 AM on 03/26/2012

It doesn't help Newt to be right, no. There were at least seven inventors before him who worked on it and one who originally invented it. No matter how you add that, Edison did NOT invent the electric light as per the quote above.

[mijjy]

11:32 AM on 03/19/2012

My hometown is south of Dayton, and I can JUST imagine his audience thoughts' when they heard Newt hold forth on THIS.

Even alot of conservatives in my state use their brains: it's why we're known for crossing aisles, so to speak.

It's a shame that when The Historian 'remembers' a line of coff coff thought, he forgets five times as many facts that should be considered. It might help him hold forth with something called truth, and to spin it to his desired effect. Oh wait, what am I thinking?

[vetxcl]

02:52 PM on 03/18/2012

'To the moon, Newt!'

[ZeraLee]

11:37 PM on 03/19/2012

"Bang! Zoom!"
One of these days, Alice!

[vetxcl]

03:07 PM on 03/20/2012

Indeed! And away he's going!

[JacksonJones]

12:23 PM on 03/23/2012

But can it core a apple, oh Chef of the Future? :-)

[vetxcl]

02:49 PM on 03/18/2012

New Newt for Brains bumper sticker: "Hey! I make stuff up! So?"

[giant1]

10:37 AM on 03/17/2012

Newt Gingrich On Energy: Left Doesn't 'Believe The Wright Brothers Invented Flying

Well no wonder those lefties don't believe in a moon colony.

[hopeisalive]

09:18 AM on 03/17/2012

Strangely enough Mr. Gingrich, the Wright Brothers didn't invent flying, they were just the first to have a heavier than air motorized plane fly. Such things as balloons and gliders were in existance for years before the Wright Brothers' flight.

[Robert Lee Harrington]

01:38 AM on 03/17/2012

Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich...represented Georgia's 6th congressional district as a Republican from 1979 until his resignation in 1999, and served as the 58th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999.....

...Eighty-four ethics charges were filed...All were eventually dropped except for one...claiming tax-exempt status for a college course run for political purposes...the House officially reprimanded Gingrich (in a vote of 395 in favor, 28 opposed) and "ordered [him] to reimburse the House for some of the costs of the investigation in the amount of $300,000". It was the first time a Speaker was disciplined for an ethics violation...the House Ethics Committee concluded that inaccurate information supplied to investigators represented "intentional or ... reckless" disregard of House rules...Gingrich had violated federal tax law and had lied to the ethics panel in an effort to force the committee to dismiss the complaint against him...

...Gingrich..."I did not manage the effort intensely enough to thoroughly direct or review information being submitted to the committee on my behalf. In my name and over my signature, inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable statements were given to the committee, but I did not intend to mislead the committee.... I brought down on the people's house a controversy which could weaken the faith people have in their government..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich

[Frickett]

10:54 PM on 03/16/2012

Newt the Poot. The Wright Bros invented flying? No, they didn't actually. They just were the first to built a vehicle that would stay in the air for a few minutes. Pterodactyls haven't been around since Newt was a kid, but hasn't he ever seen a bird or a bee?

[barnybilt]

09:42 PM on 03/16/2012

Historians Kill Me not just Newt. The only way they can learn History is from books, and there are few ways to prove what is wrtiten in Books is the truth. The person writing the book probably didn't live in the day They are writing about. So they like these Historians are going what they read or were told. Second person evidence isn't allowed in Court, and shouldn't be allowed in History. You can't truly be a Historian unless you lived in the History You sware You know so much about.

[Margot707]

10:44 PM on 03/16/2012

I wonder what you have to say about the bible and other ancient mythologies.

[barnybilt]

09:36 PM on 03/16/2012

You have to take Newt as the lunitic that He is and always was. HE wasn't a fabulous Speaker of the House. He was disgrace as Speaker of the House. He didn't do all the fabulous things He says He did. He has such inflated opinion of Himself that it's a wonder He doesn't float away.

[Horus45]

05:29 PM on 03/16/2012

Edison didn't invent electric light, he stole the idea from Tesla.

[William Diaz]

06:15 PM on 03/16/2012

The light thing is much like Bell's 'invention' of the telephone. Edison invented the telephone, but Bell patented it first, thus causing him to be thought of as the inventor despite his phone having never been used or produced outside of Bell's lab.

Have a great day!

[Redhunteur]

06:11 AM on 03/20/2012

Edison was like 7th in line to improve the electric light. Newt is a muckin' foron.

[TaylorsLatte]

04:07 PM on 03/16/2012

A Gingrich colony on the moon could be a great political step forward - Sarah Palin can declare herself President of the United Federation of Planets and both of them can leave the Earth. I see nothing wrong with this plan.

[rtgmath]

03:56 PM on 03/16/2012

Newt calls himself a Historian? Birds flew long before man existed. Michelangelo studied birds' wings, drew concepts of gliders and even a helicopter. And balloonists were aloft far before the Wright Brothers. Newt has a lot to learn. Flight isn't only about powered airplanes!

Ditto on Edison and electric light.

Edison and the Wright Brothers were definitely pioneers in their fields, but they they were not the only pioneers. They did not start the fields they had success in. Like good scientists, they built on knowledge that already existed.

Unlike Newt, it seems. Newt doesn't know his history very well. He needs to quit the Presidential race and go back to college, where he might learn something if he can keep his mouth shut.

[angusmciver]

09:33 PM on 03/16/2012

You really know how to kill a politician's line of thinking.

[Margot707]

10:47 PM on 03/16/2012

It was Da Vinci who built the first flying machine - a glider actually - not Michaelangelo.

[rtgmath]

02:22 PM on 03/17/2012

(Slaps forehead) Yikes! I said the wrong name! Thanks!