After endorsing Carl Paladino in the New York gubernatorial race today, Newt Gingrich explained to WNYC radio’s Brian Lehrer why he infamously claimed that President Obama has an “anti-colonial” worldview, which was always a strange critique, since the tea-party movement Gingrich so adores is based upon the principles of anti-colonialists. So what does it mean, as an insult?
“In a very minor sense, it means you send Winston Churchill’s bust back to Great Britain, because you don’t see Winston Churchill as the man who helped defeat the Nazis or the man who helped stop the Soviet Union. You see him as somebody who tried to preserve the British empire.”
Well now. That’s certainly ungrateful of Obama. Winston Churchill saved Europe and perhaps the entire free world with his stubborn, courageous leadership of Great Britain during World War II. But let’s assume for a minute that Gingrich can’t actually glean much insight into what Obama thinks about Winston Churchill based on how he decorates the Oval Office, and that a much more accurate look into Obama’s feelings on the subject would come from Obama himself. Say, in his commencement address to Arizona State University students last year.
“Saw Great Britain through its finest hour”? Now we don’t know what to think!
