Jack Kemp

Well, Jack Kemp weighed in on Newt Gingrich's criticisms of the State Department last week, but I was unable to remember where I had seen his comments. Fortunately his article today is all about putting the hammer to Newt. A few choice tidbits.

"By constantly harping on the need to reform and transform the State Department without providing any specifics, it becomes clear that Gingrich is using the easy target of the State Department bureaucracy as a pretext for criticizing Bush's diplomatic policies through Powell. Gingrich appears to be attempting to drive a wedge between the president and his secretary of state in the name of reform, which plays right into the hands of America's adversaries. It also plays right into the hands of the Daschle Democrats who would love nothing better than to create dissention over foreign policy within the ranks of the Bush administration and blame the president for a failure. . . .

"He really goes over the top when he lashes out at Powell for "throw(ing) away all the fruits of hard-won victory (in Iraq) by going to Syria." In Gingrich's words, "The concept of the American secretary of state going to Damascus to meet with a terrorist-supporting, secret-police-wielding dictator is ludicrous."

"What's ludicrous is the implication that Powell would go to Syria on his own without orders from the president."

Good stuff. However, don't think this particular issue is over. There was an article yesterday by Frank Gaffney that stated, "Official Washington is notorious for its tendency to respond to unwelcome performance assessments by "shooting the messenger." The reaction to Newt Gingrich's recent, scathing critique of the State Department's conduct of diplomacy in recent months, however, seems closer to the gruesome punishment of "drawing and quartering" -- in which the victim's arms and legs were chained to, and then pulled apart by, four horses." Gaffney goes on to largely reiterate Gingrich's attack.