Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blew his stack at a range of antagonists during Sunday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” lashing out at Vice President Joe Biden, GOP strategist Karl Rove, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Democrats in general for their party’s position on abortion.
Gingrich took a shot at Crossroads GPS chief Karl Rove for his disparaging remarks about embattled Missouri Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin, and launched into a one-two punch about Biden’s “chains” speech and Democrats’ official position on partial-birth abortion.
“I’m frankly fed up with the one-sided bias, OK?” Gingrich said. “Let me give you two examples. [The] Vice President of the United States goes to a black audience and says if the Republicans win you will be ‘in chains.’ Now, where is the — how can Biden remain as vice president? Where is the outrage over overt, deliberate racism? And we talk about people [like Akin] saying things [where] they ought to get off tickets. How come Biden shouldn’t get off the ticket?”
“Second example: The Democratic Party plank on abortion is the most extreme plank in the United States,” Gingrich continued. “The president of United States voted three times to protect the right of doctors to kill babies who came out of abortion still alive. That plank says taxpayer-paid abortion at any moment of — meaning partial birth abortion.”
“That’s a 20 percent issue. The vast majority of women do not believe the taxpayers should pay to abort a child in the eighth or ninth month. Now why isn’t it shocking that the Democrats on the social issue of abortion have taken the most extreme position in this country, and they couldn’t defend that position for a day if it was made clear and vivid — as vivid as all the effort is made to paint Republicans?”
Friedman didn’t tackle Gingrich’s argument, simply describing himself as a “Planned Parenthood Democrat.”
“I’m a Planned Parenthood Democrat on — on — on the issue of — of choice. And I think that that is where the country should be,” he said. “That is where many, many women in this country are. And I’m glad there are people running for the presidency who will defend that position. Period. Paragraph. End it.”
Gingrich pushed back when host David Gregory on seemed to let Biden off the hook by saying Republicans had spoken to black audiences in the past about figurative “shackles” represented by government over-regulation.
“Biden was not talking to a black audience about regulatory shackles, OK?” Gingrich said. “But I’m making — let me go back to Tom’s point, because I’m — So you think it’s acceptable to have a party committed to tax-paid abortion in the eighth and ninth month? And you think that’s a sustainable position in the United States?”
“If the news media spent as much time on the extremism of the Democrats as they spend trying to attack us, you would — they would not be able to adopt that plank this week.”
“Yeah, I do believe that’s a defensible position,” Friedman said. “But I also believe I’m here as a journalist,” he dodged. “I’ll let the Democratic Party defend it.”