The author provides a litmus test up front by which one can decide if they want to read the book–ten questions. I agreed with 94% of his propositions. The issues he has chosen to highlight here are not perfectly reasoned, but they are the best available and worthy of support.
In the one area where I have spent a lifetime, that of intelligence, Newt Gingrich is flawed on the one hand–suggesting that we need to triple the amount of money we spend on intelligence is certainly well-intentioned but understandably uninformed about the nuances of national intelligence–more money just makes these people worse [see my book On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World, with a Foreword by Senator Boren, and The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption with a Foreword by Senator Roberts]–and brilliant on the other. When he writes so clearly about how we need to monitor all knowledge being created worldwide, with virtual real-time translations services, a Google for science & technology, and no publication overseas going more than ninety days without being translated into English, I am just blown away. This is what the national Open Source Agency recommended by the 9-11 Commission is supposed to do, but CIA is trying to “capture” that mission, which they have consistently screwed over since the end of World War II. Where it really matters, Newt Gingrich not only gets it, he is leading us. He also focuses on our lack of participation in global knowledge forums across all domains, and he champions nothing less than a global presence and global monitoring of all knowledge. This is *powerful* stuff.
I miss Ronald Reagan. No one now running as a Republican candidate, except Ron Paul, comes close. Somewhere in there, Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan have important roles to play. They have earned the right to share–but not monopolize–leadership in America.
See also, with reviews:
Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit
Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart
The New American Story
