Well here’s a tangible difference between a Newt Gingrich administration and a second term for President Obama if ever there was one. In Washington Wednesday, Gingrich told a crowd at the Republican Jewish Coalition forum that he’d nominate former Bush administration UN envoy John Bolton as Secretary of State.
Yes, that John Bolton.
In his speech, Gingrich took aim at Obama’s State Department, claiming under the command of Hillary Clinton it’s become an agency focused on “appeasing our opponents.”
Gingrich said Bolton be charged with cleaning that problem right up.
“I will only appoint him if he will agree that his first job is the complete and thorough transformation of the State Department and the replacement of the current foreign service culture with a new entrepreneurial and aggressive culture dedicated to the propositions that …defending America is the first business of the State Department.”
Bolton, who remains a foreign policy star in the GOP after leaving the Bush administration, briefly flirted with his own run for the White House before finally abandoning it in September. Now Gingrich has pulled him back into the presidential fray.
Asked to respond, Bolton’s office didn’t exactly leap at Gingrich’s offer.
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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