Newt Gingrich at Garrison
Scripps promotes real ideological diversity
Hannah Burak & Breanna Deutsch
Last Updated: 3/6/10 Section: Features
Though Gingrich never directly mentioned God or religion, he managed to convey his belief in the importance of values, insisting that "unless you start at values, you don't know what you're doing." That worthwhile assertion no doubt indicates what inspires the beginning of many political careers, but unfortunately does not usually define the end of them. This is perhaps the reason for Gingrich's next suggestion that one should "make [the values] come alive in a vision statement." His discussion of thinking about the future repeatedly harkened back to the importance of clarifying values and planning backwards from a goal or definition of success.
Gingrich labeled the action of implementing such plans as metrics, which he explained as "staying in touch with reality." His talk focused on examples of successful leadership accomplished by forging connections between identified problems and workable solutions. These included stories from his experience in briefings taken with national security advisors, as well as an examination of Rudi Giuliani's successful campaign against crime in New York City. The stories were entertaining, nonpartisan, and well-received.
The Q&A session better demonstrated the Speaker's ability to respond to specific issues. The first Scripps student to take the mic questioned him about the future of women in political leadership, a topic which Speaker Gingrich should have been well-prepared to answer considering the audience. Asked to name a specific challenge women face and how to overcome it, Gingrich instead noted that he saw no "particular disadvantage to being a woman seeking leadership" and offered up examples of the careers of figures like Hilary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, and Indira Gandhi. From that point, Gingrich seemed to flounder for a few seconds before landing upon a comparison between men and women. He attributed any "disadvantage" to women in politics to a female insistence on maintaining everything including "the mommy track, and the professional track, and the wife track." Men, he insisted are "basically a lot more selfish" and more likely to stick to a "football-watching track and a beer-drinking track." The image tickled the audience, which burst into appreciative applause at his conclusion that in the U.S. "talent competes, rather than gender or race."
Although Elizabeth Hubert Malott's intention was not simply to bring conservative principles to the Scripps community, Gingrich's measured example is a proud testament to her legacy to the School. As the audience in Garrison learned, he was anything but the crazed ideologue his critics portray, and the entire community is richer for the encounter. Malott would be proud. A member of the Malott Commons Event Committee promised that future speakers will be chosen based on their potential to "expose students to thoughts or ideologies they may not be familiar with, or they may not agree with, in hopes of sparking discourse about these issues in the community." That's exactly what the CI would like to see more of in the future
Gingrich labeled the action of implementing such plans as metrics, which he explained as "staying in touch with reality." His talk focused on examples of successful leadership accomplished by forging connections between identified problems and workable solutions. These included stories from his experience in briefings taken with national security advisors, as well as an examination of Rudi Giuliani's successful campaign against crime in New York City. The stories were entertaining, nonpartisan, and well-received.
The Q&A session better demonstrated the Speaker's ability to respond to specific issues. The first Scripps student to take the mic questioned him about the future of women in political leadership, a topic which Speaker Gingrich should have been well-prepared to answer considering the audience. Asked to name a specific challenge women face and how to overcome it, Gingrich instead noted that he saw no "particular disadvantage to being a woman seeking leadership" and offered up examples of the careers of figures like Hilary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, and Indira Gandhi. From that point, Gingrich seemed to flounder for a few seconds before landing upon a comparison between men and women. He attributed any "disadvantage" to women in politics to a female insistence on maintaining everything including "the mommy track, and the professional track, and the wife track." Men, he insisted are "basically a lot more selfish" and more likely to stick to a "football-watching track and a beer-drinking track." The image tickled the audience, which burst into appreciative applause at his conclusion that in the U.S. "talent competes, rather than gender or race."
Although Elizabeth Hubert Malott's intention was not simply to bring conservative principles to the Scripps community, Gingrich's measured example is a proud testament to her legacy to the School. As the audience in Garrison learned, he was anything but the crazed ideologue his critics portray, and the entire community is richer for the encounter. Malott would be proud. A member of the Malott Commons Event Committee promised that future speakers will be chosen based on their potential to "expose students to thoughts or ideologies they may not be familiar with, or they may not agree with, in hopes of sparking discourse about these issues in the community." That's exactly what the CI would like to see more of in the future
Be the first to comment on this story