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Newt 2012

"Gingrich Slams Obama's Failure to Lead" +
  1:55 web video from Jan. 3, 2012.

Gingrich: Let me also comment on the president's most recent comments which I found beyond astonishing.  I mean the president has obviously had problems and he's found it difficult to be president and it turned out to be a really big job.  And having gone off to Hawaii for a while, he's now concluded, at least as I understand the news reports, they've decided they're going to govern without Congress.  Now, I don't know what country he thinks he's in, but it's constitutionally impossible to govern without Congress.  And there's some comment this morning that some White House staffer said now that we got the two-month tax extension we don't need them.  Well what happens at the end of two months?  What happens to all the appropriations bills this coming year?  What happens to the debt ceiling?  What happens to all of our national security concerns.  I mean the idea that a president of the United States a year before the election is going to decide you know I'm going to do it by myself is literally unthinkable.  It's not possible.  And I think it tells you how little President Obama understands about the American Constitution, the American system and the process of governing. 

What you need is the opposite.  You need a president who says how do I get us to work together.  You need somebody who says gee, this has been a mess, why don't we sit down and as a New Year's resolution why don't we all talk to—I'd have felt better if he have invited all 535 House and Senate members to come down to the White House for a couple of days and just chat.  No negotiations.  Just can we find some common ground?  Could we do something together?

"Gingrich: Obama Should Stop Taking His Salary" +
  :34 web video from Jan. 3, 2012.

Gingrich: I mean this is like second graders.  It is so childish and so—  And for the president's staff to announce he's now going to govern without Congress, well that means he's not going to govern; he's going to be a candidate for an entire year.  He shouldn't take his salary; he shouldn't pretend he's president.  He's just a candidate because he's not doing the job of the president.  The job of the president is to figure out how to deliver a state of the union that brings us together, how to send up a budget that has some hope of passage, how to work with the Congress to get something done.

Notes: A bit of scarcasm.  Clips from Gingrich's Jan. 2 appearance at the Heartland Acres Agribition Center in Independence, IA.