• If Gingrich couldn’t control his hard-line freshman class of 73 members in 1995 — he jokingly referred to them then as ‘a third party’ — it’s hard to imagine how the kinder, gentler Boehner will control his 87 freshmen, many of them lacking government or legislative experience, let alone the gene for compromise.
• New York Times columnist Frank Rich • Offering the assessment of why the GOP should avoid playing the government shutdown game. It’s something that Rich says a number of GOPers are trying to argue doesn’t match the political playing field of 1995, where a defiant Newt Gingrich overplayed his hand too much and caused much embarrassment for the Republican party in the process. However, Gingrich doesn’t remember it that way, strangely enough. In a Washington Post column, he claims that he, on the other hand, plowed the way for much larger cuts in the ensuing years. Nice revisionist history, Newt. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • Permalink