“There is steady encroachment of secularism through the courts to redefine America as a nonreligious country and the encroachment of the courts on the president’s commander-in-chief powers, which is enormously dangerous,” Gingrich said on CBS’s Face the Nation.
Polls in Iowa and nationally show Gingrich ahead of Romney in the race for the GOP nomination. Gingrich has acknowledged that Romney’s repeated attacks have taken a toll on his campaign and is looking to stay at the top.
To do that, Gingrich is focusing on ideology as he courts the Iowa conservatives he needs to win the caucuses and challenge Romney’s well-organized campaign in what could become a drawn-out primary. He has mounted a broad attack on federal judges and the Supreme Court, arguing that they are legislating from the bench and have more control over the country than they should. It’s an argument that drew sustained applause during a debate last week in Sioux City, Iowa — and one that could have particular resonance in a state where Republicans fought a protracted battle with state Supreme Court judges over gay marriage.
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page chided the former House speaker for his "lack of candor" about his work for Freddie Mac. When the issue was initially raised during a November debate, for example, Gingrich said Freddie Mac had hired him because he is a historian.
The Journal pointed out that Gingrich had defended Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as recently as 2007, when he said he would be "very cautious about fundamentally changing their role or the model itself."
Gingrich told host Bob Schieffer "that we earned that editorial" by failing to give a full accounting of his work for Freddie Mac "from Day One."
"The facts are, I didn't personally get that kind of money; it went to a consulting firm which had offices in three cities and the share I got was relatively small," he said.
Gingrich said the firm offered "consulting advice" to Freddie Mac and that the only public document he wrote for it "basically said as part of it, they need more regulations." He added that when he spoke to congressional Republicans in July 2008, shortly before the federal government prevented the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, he urged them to reject a bailout.
"I do in fact favor breaking them both up; each of them should probably devolve into probably four or five companies," Gingrich said, "and they should be weaned off the government endorsements."
Late last week, federal officials accused six former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives of misleading investors. Gingrich told Schieffer he was not aware of wrongdoing while his firm advised the company.
In Fort Dodge, Iowa, rival candidate Michele Bachmann slashed at Gingrich, calling on him to return the $1.6 million from Freddie Mac, and castigated him for his past positions on immigration and his willingness to support GOP candidates who did not oppose so-called partial-birth abortion.
"He's trying to sound like a conservative, but actually he sounds more like the 30-year establishment Washington insider that he is," she told reporters.
With the final U.S. troops to leave Iraq due to return home over the next two weeks, Romney and Gingrich briefly addressed the nation's handling of that conflict. Romney criticized the president's decision to withdraw troops by the end of this year in accordance with President Bush's agreement with Iraq.
"We're going to find that this president, by not putting in place a status-of-forces agreement with the Iraqi leadership, has pulled our troops out in a precipitous way, and we should have left 10, 20, 30,000 personnel there to help transition to the Iraqis' own military capabilities," he said.
Romney would not say whether, in hindsight, he would have made the same decision as President Bush to invade Iraq. Gingrich, by contrast, noted that he had said as early as 2003 that the U.S. "had gone off a cliff" by engaging in Iraq.
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