Iraq War Critics: Newt Gingrich (?!?) (Corrected)

After I made the last post, I took at look at Amitai Etzioni's Weblog. And, lo and behold, he has this entry posted:

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, recently told a Washington DC meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations that he fears that the Bush Administration will conduct an election in Iraq in June 2004, declare a victory, and go home "hoping the thing will hold together until [the elections in] November." In the past, Republicans feared that Carter would spring an "October surprise" (getting the hostages out), and later, that Clinton would start a war in order to affect the outcome of the presidential election.

Wait, that means that Newt Gingrich (sort of) agrees with what I said in my last post. That's just too creepy to think about.

[10/11/04 update. I just double-checked this reference at Etzioni's Weblog, and it turns out it was Josephe Nye, Jr., that made that comment, not Gingrich. Here is the revised version of Etzioni's post:

Joseph Nye, Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, recently told a Washington DC meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations that he fears that the Bush Administration will conduct an election in Iraq in July 2004, declare a victory, and "just make sure it doesn't collapse before the end of November." In the past, Republicans feared that Carter would spring an “October surprise” (getting the hostages out), and later, that Clinton would start a war in order to affect the outcome of the presidential election.(Just another campaign issue? 10/07/04)

The post now provides a link to the transcript of the Council on Foreign Relations meeting in question: The U.S. National Security Strategy: A Debate 09/25/03.

I guess there are no blogosphere standards for making corrections to blog posts. In this case, I'm letting the original post stand as it is (though I corrected a weird thing that was happening in the text with quotation marks showing up as boxes). Etzioni didn't indicate that he had made a correction; I can't say for sure whether the original Etzioni post had a link to the transcript. Normally, I check the actual transcript if it's available. Etzioni is a scholar with a solid reputation; but even the most careful researchers make mistakes sometimes.

But it seems my surprise at Gingrich saying such a thing was justified.]

Tags: amitai etzioni, iraq war, joseph nye jr, newt gingrich