On Monday evening, disgraced former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took to Twitter to call on the resignation of Secretary of State John Kerry. As Catherine Thompson at Talking Points Memo highlighted earlier on Tuesday, Gingrich was upset that Kerry had made a speech in Jakarta stating that climate change is ”the greatest challenge of our generation.” There was one glaring issue with Gingrich’s Twitter rant. He misspelled Kerry’s name 4 separate times.
The most direct reaction to kerrey’s global warming speech is to ask if he is completely out of touch with reality.
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— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014
If kerrey believes his global warming speech it is a terrifying prospect for American policy. He is making policy in a fantasy world — Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014
Does kerrey really believe global warming more dangerous than north Korean and iranian nukes? More than Russian and Chinese nukes? Really? ? — Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014
Every American who cares about national security must.demand Kerrey’s resignation.A delusional secretary of state is dangerous to our safety — Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014
Someone must have tipped Ol’ Newt off about his multiple faux pas, as he tweeted this shortly after.
I apologize to bob kerrey for spelling john kerry’s name as though he were bob’s relative. Callista caught my error. Please edit to kerry
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014
You know, if you are going to get all righteous and call for someone’s resignation, you should at least get the man’s name right! And it isn’t like John Kerry is an under-the-radar type of guy. He ran for President in 2004. He was a long-serving US Senator that stepped down from that position to become Secretary of State. You would think someone like Newt would know how his name is spelled.
Stepping aside from the complete embarrassment that Newt should feel from getting John Kerry’s name wrong 4 times in a row, Gingrich also made a fool out of himself by completely overstating and misconstruing Kerry’s statements. It is an absolute fact that Kerry called climate change the greatest challenge we face. He also stated,”We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific fact.”
At the same time, he did not discount things like global terrorism, nuclear proliferation, epidemics or crippling poverty. He said that climate change should be looked at in the same level as those issues. The fact that it is being presented as a debate by corporations and political figures, while the science is clear, makes it harder to get solutions in place. It is extremely necessary for people like Kerry and our President to push fiercely on this issue, rather than be concerned with what conservatives, who always find themselves on the wrong side of history, are going to say.
Gingrich is just going to the same dried-up well that he always goes to. He has no fresh ideas. He is now just another pundit on another talk show (CNN’s Crossfire) trying desperately to have some say in current Republican policy direction. He thinks that if he can beat the drums of impeachment or forced resignation like he did during the Clinton years, he might be able to get someone to listen and heed his advice. However, even if some idiotic Republican on Capitol Hill does (hello, Darrell Issa), it isn’t going anywhere. Because there is NO REASON for Kerry to have to step down, let alone apologize.
In the end, this is just Newt being Newt. The only thing he knows how to do is run his mouth in the hopes of bringing attention to himself.
Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).
