Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Gingrich: free speech getting old

Gingrich raises alarm at event honoring those who stand up for freedom of speech
By RILEY YATES


Union Leader Staff
12 hours, 42 minutes ago


MANCHESTER – Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism.


GINGRICH
Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.



"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade," said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.

Gingrich spoke to about 400 state and local power brokers last night at the annual Nackey S. Loeb First Amendment award dinner, which fetes people and organizations that stand up for freedom of speech.

Gingrich sharply criticized campaign finance laws he charged were reducing free speech and doing little to fight attack advertising. He also said court rulings over separation of church and state have hurt citizens' ability to express themselves and their faith.

Last night's event, held at the Radisson Hotel-Center of New Hampshire, honored a Lakes Region newspaper and a former speaker of the House for work in favor of free expression.

The Citizen of Laconia was given the Nackey S. Loeb First Amendment Award, which is named after the longtime President and Publisher of the Union Leader Corporation, owner of New Hampshire's statewide newspaper.

The Citizen scrutinized the Newfound Area School Board beginning last year over a series of e-mail discussions held before public meetings. It also used the right-to-know law to uncover costly decisions by the town of Tilton this year.

Executive Editor John Howe said the decision to pursue the stories led to at least one advertiser canceling its business with the paper.

"We try to practice what we preach, even if it costs us business," Howe said. "And it has and it will in the future.

Also honored was Marshall Cobleigh, former House speaker and a longtime aide to former Gov. Meldrim Thomson.

Cobleigh introduced an amendment to the state Constitution defending free speech. He also helped shepherd the state's 1967 right-to-know law through the Legislature.

Gingrich's speech focused on the First Amendment, but in an interview beforehand, he also hit upon wide-ranging topics.

Gingrich said America has "failed" in Iraq over the past three years and urged a new approach to winning the conflict. The U.S. needs to engage Syria and Iran and increase investment to train the Iraqi army and a national police force, he said. "How does a defeat for America make us safer?" Gingrich said. "I would look at an entirely new strategy." He added: "We have clearly failed in the last three years to achieve the kind of outcome we want."

Political parties in Presidential primary states should host events that invite candidates from both parties to discuss issues, said Gingrich, who criticized the sharpness of today's politics.

Gingrich said voters unhappy with the war, the response to Hurricane Katrina and pork barrel spending were the main drive behind the GOP's rejection at the polls. But he argued Republicans would have retained the Senate and just narrowly lost the House if President Bush had announced the departure of embattled Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld before, instead of after, the election.

Gingrich said he will not decide whether he is running for President until September 2007.

The event last night was sponsored by the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications. The school was founded in 1999 to promote journalism and other forms of communication.

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Gingrich+raises+alarm+at+event+honoring+those+who+stand+up+for+freedom+of+speech&articleId=d3f4ee4e-1e90-475a-b1b0-bbcd5baedd78

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised Gingrich didn't say "burn the blogs"...not to be confused with "burn the books".

Why must all these pseudo conservatives use Hitlerian rhetoric to "keep Americans safe from terror"?

Surely such an honorable man like Gingrich, who dumped his wife for his mistress and got caught up in in money scandals wich brought him down, would know that Hitler said similar things.

...Or is it the fact that he's considering running for president, a reason why he would like to equate free speech to terrorism recruitment because then you would know his shady past.

I can't believe conservatives fall for this crap.

"We have to put a stop to the idea that it is a part of everybody's civil rights to say whatever he pleases." Adolph Hitler

"Every word that comes from Hitler's mouth is a lie. When he says peace, he means war, and when he blasphemously uses the name of the Almighty, he means the power of evil, the fallen angel, Satan. His mouth is the foul-smelling maw of Hell, and his might is at bottom accursed. True, we must conduct a struggle against the National Socialist terrorist state with rational means; but whoever today still doubts the reality, the existence of demonic powers, has failed by a wide margin to understand the metaphysical background of this war.
The White Rose, Fourth Leaflet

Marc Parent mparent7777 mparent CCNWON said...

Bravo!

Leaflets of The White Rose
*

The First Leaflet


The Second Leaflet


The Third Leaflet


The Fourth Leaflet


The Fifth Leaflet


The Sixth Leaflet

A Seventh Leaflet?

Best,

Marc

CCNWON