As is always the case, Newt Gingrich delivered a speech that did not bore on Friday at CPAC. Entering the hall to a mob of college students, "Eye of the Tiger," blaring in the background, he was perhaps inspired by the pugilistic soundtrack. He opened his speech with a challenge for Attorney General Eric Holder, who called the U.S. "essentially a nation of cowards" in a Black History Month speech to Department of Justice employees.
"We now have more than enough evidence of what this administration thinks of the American people," Gingrich said. "Let me say to Attorney General Holder, I welcome the opportunity to have a dialogue with you about cowardice, anywhere, anytime."
He suggested the face-off- "dialogue, not a debate. Let's be above partisanship," he said. -could happen in Detroit, Mich., a city ill-served by the liberal policies Holder and the Obama administration promote
"Let's discuss the total failure of the Detroit political system, which has taken a city of 1,800,000 with the highest per capita income and has driven it into the ground so that there are now fewer than 900,000 living there," he said. "With a per capita income that is 62nd in the United States."
"It is the function of bad government, bad politicians, bad bureaucracy, bad ideas, Let's talk about that," he said.
He called the state of such cities a "betrayal" of the Americans who live there, and urged conservatives confront liberals about the failure of their policies in order to "eliminate bad government" and "liberate the people of Detroit from the terrible circumstances."
"I hope Attorney General Holder will talk about the failures of the institutions he supports, the failure of the unions he supports, the failure of the policies he supports, and let's talk about it in a one of the cities that has been betrayed by those policies most sadly and most tragically."
A challenge to take on the first black attorney general in Detroit's inner city on race issues and the domestic issues that disproportionately affect African-Americans? You can't fault him for not being bold.
