Chicago Sun-Times columnist Laura S. Washington chastises GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich for trying to paint President Barack Obama as a socialist by aligning him with Saul Alinsky, a Chicago community activist, whom she describes as a populist. She says that defaming his opponents will not help Gingrich.
In Newt Gingrich’s alternative universe of “radical socialism,” Bernardine Dohrn reigns atop a pedestal on Mt. Olympus.
For weeks, the Republican presidential candidate has been stumping to “take back America.” He denounces President Barack Obama as a food stamp-loving socialist-commie-leftie-Saul Alinsky-acolyte. On the night of the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary, Gingrich claimed his 12-point victory by defining the presidential election as a battle between “two Americas.”
The choice, he exhorted, is between “the America of the Declaration of Independence. The America of Saul Alinsky. The America of paychecks. The America of food stamps. The America of independence. The America of dependence.”
He is running against Obama’s “brand-new secular, European-style bureaucratic socialist system.”
That Saturday evening, while Gingrich was bloviating at his grandiose best, that “other” America was shimmying, grooving and celebrating an icon.
At 70, Bernardine Dohrn remains a singular champion for social justice and human rights around the world. She’s not going anywhere.
The famed ’60s radical celebrated her 70th birthday at a hulking warehouse on West Wabansia, with a couple of hundred friends, family and fellow travelers.
Read Laura S. Washington's entire column at the Chicago Sun-Times.