[Gingrich’s] description of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s current occupant is factually correct, both narrowly and broadly. Stating that fundamental truth does not make Gingrich or anyone else a racist, as leftist smear merchants in government, the Democratic Party, and the establishment press want America to believe.Blumer, among his many hard facts, takes up the claim that Gingrich is wrong when he states that more people have been put on food stamps under Obama than under George W Bush. To be more accurate, Gingrich is just slightly premature:
In the past fiscal year under Obama, while the economy added over 1.6 million seasonally adjusted jobs, the food stamp rolls still grew by over 3.3 million. Finally, food stamp program spending under Obama is on track to exceed all that was spent during Bush’s eight years by June, the administration’s 41st month. [That’s three years, five months, if you’re in public school and don’t have a calculator nearby.]
As to charges of racism, he cites as example Ann Curry of NBC asking Gingrich, in light of his “food stamp president” criticism, “Are you intentionally playing the race card to win votes?” Gingrich’s reply:
When conservatives care about the poor and conservatives offer ideas to help the poor, and conservatives suggest that the poor would rather have a paycheck than a food stamp, the very liberals who have failed them at places like the New York Times promptly scream “racism,” because they have no defense for the failure of liberal institutions which have trapped poor children in bad schools, trapped them in bad neighborhoods, trapped them in crime-ridden situations. Liberal solutions have failed, and their only answer is to cry “racism” and hide.But Curry’s question is itself based on the mistaken belief (dare we say ‘racist’?) that the majority of food stamp recipients are black. They’re not, by a wide margin.
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