Newt Gingrich: Only Ronald Reagan Truly Knew Of True 'Change'

This really is an excellent piece by Newt Gingrich - he lays out the scenario of the days when Ronald Reagan took the lead in our Land and saved this country. You can (and should) read the entire offering by Newt here at Family Security Matters. What I take out of Gingrich's article is this - a true facilitator of change does so BOLDLY and without hesitation. Ronald Reagan took over a country damn near in ruin from four years of incompetence by Jimmy Carter - there really was no choice for Reagan but to change most everything. But Reagan didn't get up on a stage and refer to change...no, Reagan stood up and told the world WHAT HAD TO CHANGE. And in that time, Reagan laid it out bluntly - that the Soviet Union had to die and go away. Now, how many times have you heard people from the Right criticize Barack Obama for doing very little to define this "change" he is always spewing about? Reagan looked the Soviets in the eye and told them we were going to destroy them. Barack Obama has looked the American people in the eye and has dropped his gaze to the floor while muttering the words..."change, change, change." It takes balls to change things. It takes an empty suit to say the word change.

What I'd like to do is just list some of the interesting points of Gingrich's piece, his references to today's political choices with Reagan in mind:

On McCain:

Some people today say Sen. John McCain is too old to be President. But what if, in 1979, Ronald and Nancy Reagan had decided they were too old to serve America? What if they had decided to stay at the ranch and enjoy life?

I believe there would still be a Soviet Union and we would still be threatened by the Cold War. This is a good week to think about these possibilities and to learn these lessons.

On Barack Obama:

Last month, when the Senate was considering the Protect America Act, Sen. Obama voted to deny protection for telecommunications companies under the bill.

But just last week, Sen. Obama's adviser, former CIA official John Brennan, told the National Journal that he disagrees with his boss's vote.

"I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity," said Brennan. "They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context."

On Reagan:

On March 8, 1983, Reagan offered his most forceful moral claim for this new strategy of victory in the Cold War. In a speech calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire," he defined the illegitimacy of the Soviet dictatorship. It was a speech that Natan Sharansky, then a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag, said galvanized the hopes of the prisoners and raised their morale while demoralizing the Soviet guards and undermining the authority of the Soviet system.

America's elites were shocked by these two speeches. They ridiculed and attacked them.

Less than nine years after Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" and "SDI" speeches, the Soviet Union disappeared.
They were wrong, and Reagan was right.