Gingrich and Obama on Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party, Respectively: A Study in Contrasts (Oh, and Love Your Enemies)

If Ralph Waldo Emerson is correct in asserting that, "There can be no high civility without a deep morality," Newt Gingrich may have provided us with some priceless insight into his character at last weekend's Thanksgiving Family Forum in Iowa.
     The nastiness of modern American politics might fairly be compared to a football scrum, and no one emerges with the ball, so to speak, without throwing a few elbows. But still there remain some standards of decency--however relative they may be. For example, Rick Perry's bald-faced lie that Obama called the American people "lazy", would probably hurt his campaign if it was still viable. And Representative Joe Walsh recently learned that screaming at constituents is generally looked down upon. Another rule is that one should save his harshest punches for fellow pols, treating more magnanimously groups of citizens who don't share your philosophy.
     Which brings us to this demonstration of incivility from a man who will, thankfully, never be the president of the United States:

In comparison, President Obama's analysis of the Tea Party's significance certainly seems like "high civility":

     But since Obama is indeed a politician, and not without his own transgressions, let's conclude with some pertinent advice from a more pristine source:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

-Jesus Christ, Matthew 5:43-48

Gingrich's Climate Change Reversal is Not at All "Inexplicable"

Until very recently, it's been easy to ignore the two Catholic Republicans running for president. That's largely because Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum so tidily fit the stereotype of conservative Catholics: faithful to the Church on social issues, and at odds with the Church on just about everything else. Add to this cliché the fact that neither will be the next president, and it becomes difficult to gather the inertia to pay them serious attention.
     But now that recent polling has confirmed Gingrich's status as the right's flavor-of-the-month, his questionable character and penchant for making objectionable statements take on added import.
     While earning the distinction of 'the intellectual' amongst a field of candidates like Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Michelle Bachmann may be somewhat dubious, the former House speaker did demonstrate passing intelligence (and decency) when he urged bold action on climate change in this 2008 ad with Nancy Pelosi:

     Last week, however, Gingrich seemed markedly less brilliant as he tried to explain this conservative heresy on Fox News:

     His explanation for the "the dumbest single thing" he's done is that it was simply "inexplicable." But the decision to film a commercial advocating-- alongside a political nemesis--a policy violently at odds with a majority in your party is not the result of a momentary lapse in judgment. It's a decidedly deliberate decision--and actually quite explicable.
     Gingrich is an intelligent human being who, when unbound by the pressure of appealing to an anti-science conservative base, is capable of seeing what is demonstrably true: that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is substantially contributing to a markedly warming planet. Gingrich rightly points out that the "vast majority" of the National Academy of Sciences' members hold this view; he could have also mentioned the plethora of other national science academies that concur, or made note of the lack of a single national or international body that dissents. In any case, there is no rational cause for the 99% of us who are non-experts in climate science to deny the probability that the experts are right.
     This is why Gingrich made the ad with Pelosi. It is why John Huntsman advocates this position even though it reduces to zero his chances of making a plausible run for the Republican nomination. It is why Mitt Romney and (former candidate) Tim Pawlenty once advocated regional cap and trade programs. Like Gingrich, they've subsequently seen the light.
     Gingrich will never reclaim the power he once held as Speaker of the House, but if he tells the truth about his noble motivation for making this ad, he can recover some of his integrity.