Fox News anchor, Martha MacCallum, interviewed Newt Gingrich on Friday. Gingrich was strong overall, though I was a bit disappointed by a couple of things he had to say. But I must take my hat off to MacCallum who revealed in this interview what a sharp mind and clear voice she has. Here is a transcript that represents most of the exchange.
MM: Let's start with the fact that Congress has not authorized a war against ISIS yet. I mean, I think a lot of people, given what's happened in California now, wondering how that could possibly be.
NG: Well, I mean first of all, the president didn't ask for it and wasn't all that interested in it. And if you remember, described them as the JV team, said they'd been contained. I mean now he's trying to get ahead of the curve and catch up with where he should have been. But ISIS itself is a term that has very limited meaning. We're in a war with the international effort to create Islamic supremacism.
…I think that this is a much more complicated story and I would like to see Congress go back to the beginnings and take a look at it.
You know, in my own experience, as early as December of 2001, I was out at the CIA counterterrorism center and they were briefing me. And I said what's the size of the potential recruiting base. And they said, oh, 3 - 5 percent of Islam. At that time, that was 39 - 65 million people. And I said what's your target set at. They said about 5,000 people in Al Qaeda. Well, if you're targeting 5,000 but the real recruiting base in 65 million you clearly don't have the right sized strategy and you don't have the right sized approach. So that's part of why I wrote Duplicity to make the case that this is a virus. This is much more like Ebola. You have to think of it as an epidemiology problem and you have to say to yourself, how am I going to track down and defeat this ideology everywhere that it appears.
MM: You call for essentially a world war against Islamic extremism. And I think there've been a lot of comparisons made by a lot of very smart people, yourself included, to the fight against communism, to the fight against Nazism – that this is the fight of our time. But you don't even hear Republicans obviously control the Senate and the House and you really don't even hear them speaking in a unified way about a recognition that that's what's going on in the world. I mean they kind of nibble around the edges on that and some people are more outspoken than others, but it doesn't feel like there's a unified thread that is pulling them together to declare just that.
NG: Well there isn't. And that's why we need a series of hearings that begin to lay out the facts….
MM: …When you talk about, well we need to have hearings so that Congress understands what's going on in the world, I think a lot of people say, you know what, that's exactly what's wrong with Washington. Everybody out there seems to be understanding it pretty clearly. Congress needs hearings to understand what's going on at this point?
NG: Yeah, I think that the truth is. Think about it for a second. It's very frustrating. We are fourteen years into the world created by 9/11. We're actually 36 years into the world created by Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979. And remember, Jimmy Carter at one point suspended all visas to anybody from Iran in an effort to isolate Iran. So this has been a long fight and we still haven't had the courage to come to grips with it. This administration should be massively helping Jordan, which is our most stable ally in the region. This administration ought to at least have the guts to recognize, as you just reported in the last section, that the guy wielding knives in California while carrying a flag ISIS is a terrorist. I mean, if the President of the United States can't say that's a terrorist, there is no possibility that this president has a clue about the real world.
MM: Who do you see on the Republican side that would be the leader, the articulator, of this fight? You know, you think about Churchill, you think about people who personified the fight of their times, the kind of thing that you're describing. It doesn't look like there's anybody on the Republican side who's doing that in a coherent way that would be able to explain it to everybody and get them on board.
NG: Well, I think the person who's come the closest is Chairman McCaul of the House Homeland Security committee….
MM: He's great on the topic, but I was asking about people running for president.
NG: I think you've got four or five people who could do this. But, again, I think presidential candidates ultimately inherit an understanding from the larger world. But I think clearly you have in Trump, in Cruz, in Rubio, in Bush, in Kasich, in Christie. Any of these guys could carry that message. We're migrating towards it….
Here are a few of my thoughts:
Gingrich has the big picture pinned down and can speak to this threat like few can. However I think he is off the mark about the president as he, like most, dare not question the motives of the man-child who sits in the Oval Office. To assume Obama has no clue about the real world is, in my view, much too forgiving. I believe Obama absolutely has a clue about the real world and has a worldview that does not favor America.
I also thought there needed to be a greater sense of urgency. Gingrich is wildly intelligent and full of great ideas. But to say that any number of the GOP presidential candidates could carry the necessary message forward is too passive. Maybe some of them could, but we haven't the luxury of indulging the idea of a candidate's potential for developing a deep and broad understanding of the threat before us (no less having a comprehensive plan about how to face it down). We need people up and running at full capacity. Now.
Gingrich feels we're "migrating" toward a place we need to be. I'm not sure we migrating toward it, but if we are, we're going much too slowly. Related to that, I was cheering MacCallum when she expressed dismay at the suggestion that Congress hold hearings on the matter. As she noted, why is it that ordinary Americans understand the grave and growing threat we face, yet our elected officials (including most Republicans) seem utterly lost and/or if clued in at all, merely nibble around the edges?
If we are to survive, our leaders and future leaders must do better. Much better. Because while we migrate, while we hold hearings, and while some leaders show potential the Islamic world advances. The Islamic world knows what it wants and is going after it in any and all ways.
Who appears most committed to this 1400 year old battle of Islam vs. civilization? Because that's who will win.
Hat tip: Counterjihad Report
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