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Friday, December 8, 2006
Notes from Iowa: Phil Gingrey, you’re no Larry McDonald
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Des Moines, Iowa — U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey has been among the most critical of Georgia’s Republican delegation when it comes to the Iraq report by the Baker-Hamilton team.
“I am deeply troubled by many parts of the report, most prominently its recommendation for consultation with Iran and Syria. Neither of these regimes support a free and democratic Iraq, and both would demand a steep and dangerous price for any assistance they provide,” says Gingrey, on and off camera.
Gingrey holds the congressional district once conquered by Larry McDonald, the Democratic arch-conservative who was killed in 1983 when a Russian MIG shot down the South Korean airliner the Georgia congressman was aboard.
By comparison, Gingrey is downright moderate. No, we’d have to say that McDonald’s current ideological successor is U.S. Rep. Steve King, a Republican from west Iowa. This was his statement on the report:
“The commanders in the field know that the most treacherous terrain in their battle is American public opinion. Every day the mainstream media seeks to shift American public opinion against this war, and since the leaks of their apparent sympathizers within the Iraq Study Group were published last week, they have seized upon the findings of this unelected unaccountable and autonomous committee to usher in a full-scale retreat from Iraq and from the front lines of the war on terror.”
This according to the Des Moines Register.
