Newt Gingrich Gets His Dander Up Over Obama/Chavez Greeting

Newt Gingrich, perhaps longing for the days when his "Contract with America" was the rage, is making the rounds on talk shows and in front of any media he can find of late to lambaste President Obama’s foreign policy moves. Gingrich, speaking of Obama’s recent "friendly greeting" of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, compares the new president to one of days past – namely, Jimmy Carter.

Said Gingrich, "Frankly, this does look a lot like Jimmy Carter. Carter tried weakness, and the world got tougher and tougher, because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators – when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead." Two Republican senators, Judd Gregg and John Ensigh, of New Hampshire and Nevada, respectively, joined Gingrich in criticizing Obama, noting that his friendly handshake was "irresponsible." Responded Obama, "It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. I don't think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela."

Ironically, Obama’s willingness to engage America’s enemies in conversation was a charge leveled at the president during his campaign in the general election against Senator John McCain. Perhaps even more ironic, however, is that Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, also charged Obama similarly during the run up to the Democratic nomination. Said Obama of those exchanges, "We had this debate throughout the campaign, and the whole notion was, is that somehow if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness – the American people didn't buy it."