Newt Gingrich Flip-Flops On Occupy Wall Street

Newt Gingrich made some comments recently about the Occupy Wall Street movement that got a lot of airtime on both TV and radio. Gingrich said that the people of Occupy Wall Street should, "Go get a job right after you take a bath."

There has been a lot of discussion about whether or not Gingrich was too harsh in his comments, especially with unemployment over 9%. What I haven't heard anyone talk about though is that this is a complete 180 from what Gingrich said less than two months ago. Back then, the Occupy Wall Street was getting off the ground running and finally starting to make headlines. Most of the GOP candidates running for President came out against the movement with the exception of Newt Gingrich. Instead of bashing the Occupy Wall Street movement like most of the candidates were doing, Gingrich instead tried to garner their support and redirect their anger towards Washington and President Obama.

Back then Newt Gingrich said about the Occupy Wall Street movement, "I think they have a lot of good reasons to be unhappy and I think we ought to indicate that their unhappiness should be aimed at the government. Because its the government's that's failed them." When Gingrich was asked if he would reach out to the Occupy Wall Street groups for support he said "absolutely."

Gingrich even seemed to sympathize with the young members of the Occupy Wall Street movement when he said, "If you're a 22 or 23 year old kid, and you're sitting out there with no job you're looking at these things and you're saying 'let me get this straight.' How much did Goldman Sachs get? How much did the Paris bank get? How much did the bank of Libya get? And I'm supposed to pay off my student loan?"

Of course two months in Presidential politics is a long time. Back then, Gingrich wasn't the frontrunner. Now he is. So now Gingrich has to cuddle up to his far right-wing base who aren't very fond of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Gingrich did a great job of cuddling up to the right-wing base by saying the Occupy Wall Street protesters should "Go get a job right after you take a bath." I guess Gingrich's hope is that those same people he got a massive applause from for that line, don't go back and read what he said before he was the frontrunner. So far with little to no news coverage about Gingrich's flip-flop, he may very well be successful in avoiding scrutiny about it.

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