Today on NPRs
Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Terry interviewed Dana Milbank. Milbank has a new book out titled,
The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican PartyMilbank states that this destruction began 25 years ago in the mid-90s when Newt Gingrich of Georgia, became the House Speaker and took the House in a more divisive direction than it had been. Milbank states that Gingrich pioneered "savage politics."
Gingrich replaced Bob Michael, a genial WWII vet, who had been the House Minority speaker for fourteen years. Michael was all about making deals and compromise. Then came Newt Gingrich - a bomb thrower who spoke a completely different language from Michael. Gingrich recommended to his peers, that they needed to started labeling Democrats as traitors, as liars, as cheaters - an entirely different way of talking about an opponent as your enemy. Defiantly a revolutionary way of speaking in politics.
When the Republicans took the House and Sentate in 1994, America never had a Speaker of the House speaking in this manner before.
The problem with Republicans is that they have not been nasty enough. We need raise hell all of the time.
- Newt Gingrich
