Glenn Beck’s Interview with Progressive Republican Newt Gingrich

Yesterday Glenn Beck gave Newt Gingrich the toughest interview he is likely to face for the duration of the 2012 presidential campaign. While Gingrich has been leading in the polls recently, there is great reason to question why. Beck even asked “tea partiers” today on the radio if the tea party rallies over the past couple years were really about conservative values and opposing big government–or if it was really just because the president was black?

Beck’s interview exposes how all the “liberal” things Gingrich has done in the past, were not just mistakes as he now claims, after going on his listening tour with tea partiers over the past six months.

Gingrich uses carefully crafted language and impressive references to history in his answers, which definitely helps him come across as a desirable candidate to those who are itching for a candidate to destroy Barack Obama in 2012. But after listening to this interview, one can easily understand, Newt is an establishment-beltway republican who believes that big government really is the solution to our problems, as long as it is big government he can control.

GLENN: Why would we, why would we go into subsidies, though? Isn’t ‑‑ aren’t subsidies really some of the biggest problems that we have with our spending and out‑of‑control picking of winners and losers?

GINGRICH: Well, it depends on what you’re subsidizing. The idea of having economic incentives for manufacturing goes back to Alexander Hamilton’s first report of manufacturing which I believe was 1791. We have always had a bias in favor of investing in the future. We built the transcontinental railroads that way. The Erie Canal was built that way. We’ve always believed that having a strong infrastructure and having a strong energy system are net advantages because they’ve made us richer and more powerful than any country in the world. But what I object to is subsidizing things that don’t work and things that aren’t creating a better future. And the problem with the modern welfare state is it actually encourages people to the wrong behaviors, encourages them not to work, encourages them not to study.

It is easy to wonder how self-proclaimed “conservatives” can even begin to support this big-government progressive. If tea partiers want to restore the constitution and conservative values, they’re going to have to get back to supporting the real conservatives in this race. Newt Gingrich is simply not one of them.

Read the full transcript.