***UPDATE: Legal Insurrection DISAGREES***
Verum Serum dug this up yesterday. I don’t think it’s a big surprise given that we know Gingrich had vocally supported the mandate as recent as 2011.
And at this point in the game, there’s been so much blodletting that I’m honestly not interested in rehashing ‘old’ wounds. I’ve made my peace with it and unless something substantially new gets uncovered and I’m ready to get on with the election and defeat Romney, then Obama.
But you can make of it what you will. Here is the audio:
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Also, it’s worth noting that Michelle Malkin has a superb piece this morning that you should read. She goes through all the candidates and in the end says:
And at this point in the game, Rick Santorum represents the most conservative candidate still standing who can articulate both fiscal and social conservative values — and live them.
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UPDATE: Our friends at Legal Insurrection disagrees with the conclusion made by Verum Serum. Here’s the most important part of his writeup:
The actual discussion in the recording is nothing new, listen for yourself, it shows Newt saying what he has said before about not allowing free riders at hospitals including either having insurance or showing that you have the ability to pay. You can like it or not, but it’s not new or news, as Verum Serum acknowledges in its post.
The recording does not support the conclusion that Newt supported Obama’s federal mandate, which uses the police powers of the state to force people to buy insurance or face penalties.
At the time of Newt’s presentation, in May 2009, the earliest versions of Obamacare had not yet been released. Newt specifically notes that the details of what would be proposed were unknown and (at 27:00) the process was still in the “wish list press conference stage.”
The initial version of Obamacare was not released until early June 2009. My first blog post about the early draft (the Senate HELP Committee version) of Obamacare was on June 16 regarding the CBO assessment. Various iterations of Obamacare were proposed throughout June -August. The Obamacare legislation and mandate eventually focused on using the IRS as the enforcer.
The Verum Serum recording was before there was a specific proposal, much less a specific Obamacare mandate which turned into enforcement through tax returns and penalties.
It is not true, at least not based on the May 2009 recording posted at Verum Serum, that Newt supported the Obamacare mandate.
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