I guess it should be no surprise that Mr. Endless Bloviation -- Newt Gingrich -- pops out with more and more insane, unconstitutional proclamations about how he would wreck the country and establish a dictatorship if he became president. The latest bizarre-o world proclamation: He would ignore Supreme Court decisions he didn't like, and use the Capitol Police to arrest judges in order to enforce his imperial decrees.
To justify this, he hoists up the Dred Scott decision. And in the process, this self-proclaimed historian demonstrates his own shallow and, in truth idiotic, declarations of history.
Why is it that the Repubs who babble on and on about Founding Fathers and American history are the same ones that know so little about it? Whether it is Sarah Palin's absurdity about Paul Revere riding around ringing bells to warn the British not to take our guns, or Gingrich with this latest hooter, their knowledge is frighteningly weak.
Gingrich, in particular, utters words that make him a buffoon. Here are the real facts surrounding the Dred Scott decision: the Supreme Court ruled that no person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the U.S. The decision was issued in 1857. Gingrich said that Lincoln ignored it. Except....
Lincoln assumed the presidency in 1861. James Buchanan was president when the Scott ruling was handed down, and he abided by it. Lincoln came in, and two years later, issued the Emancipation Proclamation as an executive order that, in fact, would nullify the Scott decision. Except....
This wasn't some extra-constitutional decision. Lincoln didn't say "I don't like this decision, therefore I will ignore it." In fact, there was something else going on. Gee, I know this. What was it?
Oh, yeah! Here's what Newt forgot! The friggin Civil War The opening days were in April, 1861. In 1862, just as the Brits were considering intervening, the Union forces defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Antietam, a major victory that was one of the first strong signs that the Confederacy would lose.
Days later -- no surprise -- Lincoln announced his intent to issue what ultimately became the Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued in early 1863. This was not on the basis of "Gee, I don't like the Court's ruling.'' This was an action, taken by a wartime president, in the face of insurrection (as defined by the Constitution) acting in his commander-in-chief authority in what, in truth, amounted to nothing more than a statement of abolition as a goal for the war. In the North, there had largely already been emancipation, although the proclamation did free tens of thousands of slaves right off the bat. The proclamation was directed primarily to the confederate states, which at that point, were not under the authority of the president (at least not the U.S. president) Border states, and states like Tennessee, which were under union control at the time, were not named in the proclamation -- so their slaves remained slaves.
So, in other words, Lincoln didn't nullify a court decision because he didn't like it. He made an executive order, one of little application at that moment, under his authority when facing a rebellion, as accounted for in the Constitution.
Newt is not only a political idiot, he is an idiot on history as well. If there is a civil war about health care reform, than perhaps his analogy might work. But, the most frightening thing is, this is a man who is willing to misstate history -- or doesn't even know it -- for the purpose of declaring himself dictator.
He is scarier than the rest, because at least everyone KNOWS that the rest are idiots. Newt gets a pass from the media, because they don't know history either.