Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich rips the Bush administration for incompetence, perhaps foreshadowing the central campaign theme of his possible presidential run would be not "compassionate conservatism" but competent conservatism.
"The administration has very, very high goals -- Democracy throughout the Middle East -- and very weak bureaucratic support for those goals, and the result is an enormous mismatch in just sheer implementation. And this is, in the end, a practical country. Americans want their government to work," Gingrich said.
Citing the current immigration bill making its way through the Senate, Gingrich said, "The base of this party is looking up going, 'What are we in the middle of -- why are we ramming through an omnibus Teddy Kennedy bill, and attacking Republicans who criticize it, and calling us,' for example, as one senator did, 'bigots, when all we're saying is this government couldn't possibly implement this bill?'
Gingrich also praises three of the leading GOP contenders - Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, though pointedly not John McCain.
The Washington Times has another report on Gingrich's recent spate of criticism of the Bush adminstration.
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