Newt Blasts Obama at GOP Dinner

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was in Connecticut Thursday and blasted President Barack Obama.

In a speech in Stamford, he compared President Obama's administration with the one-term presidency of fellow Democrat Jimmy Carter, taking Obama to task for what he called a weak foreign policy.

The Georgia Republican also added that Obama's foreign policy appeases U.S. enemies and sets up programs that won't work.

He called Obama's May 21 speech about closing the Guantanamo prison a tactical mistake because it happened the same day as former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech defending the Bush administration's national security policies.
 
"One was chief of staff, secretary of defense and a vice president who concentrated on national security," Gingrich said. "The other read a couple of left-wing books on the CIA."
            
Gingrich was in town to rally local Republicans at the 31st annual Prescott Bush award dinner, which is named for the former Connecticut senator who was father of President George H.W. Bush and grandfather of President George W. Bush.
            
The speech comes as the Republican party fights to maintain a foothold in Connecticut, which has swung more Democratic in recent elections.

Republicans held three of the state's five seats in the U.S. House of Representatives as recently as 2006 but are now shut out of the Washington delegation.

The state’s highest-ranking Republican, Gov. M. Jodi Rell, is now weighing running for re-election, but Democrats hold a veto-proof majority in both houses of the General Assembly.
            
Gingrich said the next few years "are going to be a great moment in history for people to decide between bureaucracy and the Republican Party of reform."
 
He decried the government's $50 billion investment in General Motors and the deal that gives the United Auto Workers a 17.5 percent stake in the troubled automotive company.
           
"The UAW crippled GM, crippled Chrysler, and is rewarded," he said.

Gingrich said Democrats in Congress are showing arrogance "because they feel they can do anything they want because they have the power and we don't."
 
Gingrich did not mention Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, a day after sending a letter to supporters that said he shouldn't have called her a racist.

Gingrich said in the letter that his words had been "perhaps too strong and direct" last week when he called Sotomayor a reverse racist, based on a 2001 speech in which she said she hoped the rulings of a "wise Latina" would be better than those of a white male without similar experiences.
            
Gingrich's remarks created a furor among Sotomayor's backers and caused problems for GOP figures who have been pushing to bring more diversity to the party.            

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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