conTEAmptuous!

Newt Gingrich see an evolving role for the Tea Party, as the " militant wing" of the Republican Party.

He makes that observation with a certitude befitting the groups recent activities.

The dominance of the two party system almost certainly puts the Tea Party in the Republican camp, given their conservative bent, and their obvious distaste for everything Obama.

A recent poll confirms Newt's prescience regarding the group:

"The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45."

Also, according to the same poll, these white males aren't hayseeds, poverty-stricken, or likely to be, and neither are they grade-school dropouts.

"Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class...."

Assuming the accuracy of the poll, these aren't the typical malcontents, the usual suspects we might find protesting the size of government, or its overreaching ambitions to usurp state powers.

These aren't your "bitter" white men clinging to their "guns or religion." Obama captures this group with deft words, but is later skewered for it:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

"And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

We have a new breed: These are "bigoted" white men, clinging to their 401(K)'s and the religion of non-governmental interference in free-market activities.

It doesn't matter that this selfsame market and its unscrupulous adherents nearly brought our economy to near collapse. What's important is that it remains "free".

And this is the mantra that emanates from this movement.

Liberals, with their misguided efforts to address society's deficiencies, and ills, are perpetrating the greatest crime, the unforgivable offense: They're depriving Americans of their constitutionally protected freedom.

The freedom to participate, or not to participate.

It doesn't matter that that freedom was a myth, almost from the inception of this Republic, Tea Partiers are intent on resurrecting that myth, and expanding the mythology.

They distance themselves from regular, run-of-the-mill Republicans by holding "more conservative views on a range of issues than Republicans generally. They are also more likely to describe themselves as 'very conservative' and President Obama as 'very liberal.'"

And Tea Partiers are "angry," more angry than their fellow conservatives:

"And while most Republicans say they are “dissatisfied” with Washington, Tea Party supporters are more likely to classify themselves as 'angry.'"

Given the movement's emphasis on a "smaller government," you wouldn't expect it to give thumbs up to Social Security and Medicare. Yet, it does.

Even more telling is the group seeming antipathy for the poor:

"Tea Party supporters’ fierce animosity toward Washington, and the president in particular, is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country and the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich."

I suppose Tea Partiers see Obama as some modern-day Robin Hood, who takes from the rich and gives to the poor.

Were that the case! For decades we've seen just the opposite: The rich get richer, and the poor, poorer.

Take a look at what has happened to our automotive industry, and the once proud City of Detroit, and why a bailout of General Motors (condemned by Tea Partiers) may have kept the city from becoming as bankrupt as the car manufacturer itself.

Investment bankers have rigged the game to favor themselves, even if it means the collapse of our economy in their pursuit of more and more wealth, and the means of maintaining that wealth, using "too big to fail" as their edge in the game, all but insuring their survival while their less-powerful competition falls by the wayside.

And the most telling aspect of the poll is this revelation:

"They are more likely than the general public, and Republicans, to say that too much has been made of the problems facing black people."

At the risk of painting this group with a broad brush, they have shown themselves to be ultra-conservative to the point of dismissing the poor, and the concerns of blacks, regardless of their merit.

The Tea Party folks are showing what may be the true face of America, a face that I'm all too familiar with.

How do we measure our greatness as a nation? Do we measure it by how many of our people have health care, or by the exceptional quality of our health care system; by the quality education extended to all, or by the state of our educational system for those who can afford it; by the number of people on welfare, or the number who don't require it at all; by the opportunities afforded to all regardless of social status, or race, or the number who are privileged with it from birth by virtue of color?

We're only as great as the number of us who have access to that greatness, the number of us who can rise as high as our talent, skills, and intellect will carry us, without, first, having to throw off the weight of social stigma, and racial inequalities.

Obomba !

The Bush Doctrine is still alive and well. The belief that every security threat to our nation and our national interest must be met with force has grown tiresome. Newt Gingrich is now the current purveyor of this Doctrine, apparently a willing disciple of the previous president.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told “Fox News Sunday” that he would have disabled the long-range missile before North Korea launched it, saying too many people “do not appreciate the scale of the threat that is evolving on the planet.”

“One morning, just like 9/11, there’s going to be a disaster,” Gingrich said. “I have yet to see the United Nations do anything effective with either Iran or North Korea.”

Reacting to President Barack Obama’s speech in Prague, Gingrich called the plan for a Global Summit on Nuclear Security a “wonderful fantasy idea,” saying Russia and other nations can’t be trusted.

“What are they going to promise, and why would we believe them?” Gingrich said. “It’s very dangerous to have a fantasy foreign policy, and it can get you in enormous trouble.”

Host Chris Wallace asked Gingrich: “So you’re saying that President Gingrich would have taken out that” missile?

Gingrich replied: “There are three or four techniques that could have been used, from unconventional forces to standoff capabilities, to say: ‘We’re not going to tolerate a North Korean missile launch, period.’ I mean, the world’s either got to decide that North Korea is utterly dangerous … I’d recommend, look at electromagnetic pulse, which changes every … equation about how risky these weapons are.”

It appears that Gingrich is doing his insane best to fill the Republican Party's leadership vacuum by spouting one outlandish statement after the other. But at least you'd think that a man of his supposed intellect wouldn't try to bamboozle the American people by offering a counterproductive response to North Korea's threat of launching a missile.

All of Newt's responses are madly inappropriate. Russia is a greater threat. But he's not calling for an attack against a Russian missile launch. China is a bigger threat. But he's not calling for an attack against a Chinese missile launch. There's been several in recent months.

But little North Korea, who we all know is like a spoil, brattish child seeking attention from an indifferent parent, he wants to bomb.

"We got to show them who's boss. We got to show them that we mean business. We got to show them that we're sick and tired of them attempting to develop missiles that could reach Hawaii, Alaska, or our nation's mainland."

Gingrich leaves out that Kim Jong-il launched missiles, seven into the Sea of Japan, when the Bush Administration held office, and Bush, then president, did nothing.

If we're to accept Gingrich's solution, Obama must respond more violently than Bush, notwithstanding that Defense Secretary Gates has stated that such an attack against North Korea is ill-advised and impossible to carry out.

His party not able to win the White House and establish a majority in the two houses of Congress, Gingrich is resorting to a Bush and Republican tactic of inducing change, not with hope, but with fear: “One morning, just like 9/11, there’s going to be a disaster,” Gingrich said.

If fear becomes the only weapon Republicans have to fight back, then fear will rule this country, fear will determine our foreign policy, and fear will dictate how we relate generally to the rest of the world.

According to Gingrich, “It’s very dangerous to have a fantasy foreign policy [the total elimination of nuclear weapons], and it can get you in enormous trouble.”

How about, then, having a foreign policy that's not a weaponized one, Newt?

Yet, Ronald Reagan, the Republican that all republicans worship, also proffered a nuclear-free world as a goal worth seeking.

When Obama proffers the idea, it's "fantasy," if Regan supported the same idea it coruscates with brilliance. The hypocrisy is so blatant that you'd have to have the lowest of opinions of the American people's intellect to attempt it.

But attempt it, he did.

If Iraq has taught us anything, it's that our military can't solve all the problems that this country faces abroad, that we don't have the fiscal means to wage wars around the world, that the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes supposedly to disarm an enemy before it has the means or the opportunity to strike us, is blatantly naive, and that if we're going to create a secure America, we can't, with every opportunity, create enemies where none need be.

And did I say, we can't bomb everybody we disagree with?