Renewing politics

Under a curious headline, "Gingrich aims to renew politics," Cal Thomas writes,

Admit it, you hate politics: the gotcha games in which a quote can be taken out of context and used as a pretext for bashing one's opponent; the sound bites replacing reasoned argument; the focus groups and pollsters who tell candidates what to say instead of encouraging them to believe in something; the concentration on gaining and then maintaining power for its own sake; the enormous cost of elections, which transforms politicians into servants of those who give the most money.

Is it possible to have cleaner and more engaging politics that challenge the mind and offer real solutions to our problems, instead of crass appeals to our lower nature, the flip-flopping in order to garner favor with a particular interest group and the insincerity that seems to be behind it all?

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich believes it is, and he has developed a compelling approach to new and better politics not seen since the days of Abraham Lincoln.

If the ever irrelevant Mario Cuomo wants to pretend debate Newt "Honest Abe" Gingrich, he's welcome to. But this is the Newt Gingrich I've always known and loved.

How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane.

Listen for yourself.

He's renewing politics, that's for sure.