US News

GINGRICH RAPS OBAMA ON CHAVEZ HANDSHAKE

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich slammed President Obama’s cordial greeting with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez – saying “taking a picture that clearly looks like they’re buddies hurts in all of Latin America.”

In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show this morning, the Georgia Republican also accused the administration of being slow to react to North Korea’s launching of a rocket test and said it has reached out too much to ease relations with Cuba.

Gingrich said this weekend’s handshake with Chavez, a harsh critic of the US, “sends a terrible signal to all of Latin America, and a terrible signal about how the new administration regards dictators.”

In another appearance on the Fox News Channel today, Gingrich said: “This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter. Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead.”

At the conclusion Sunday of a Latin American summit in Trinidad, Obama said he didn’t think greeting Chavez would be “endangering the strategic interests of the United States.”

But Gingrich disagreed and complained that photos and video showing a smiling Obama shaking Chavez’s hand would be used in Venezuela as political propaganda.

“I don’t think there’s any downside to talking to him,” said Gingrich. “But I think being friends, taking a picture that clearly looks like they’re buddies hurts in all of Latin America.”

The criticism is déjà vu for the Obama team. It is similar to what Obama’s presidential opponents – Hillary Clinton, now secretary of state, and Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) – said of him during the 2008 campaign: that he was too willing to talk to US adversaries.

“I’m for doing things methodically and calmly… things that will work, but I’m not for deluding myself about smiles and words,” Gingrich said.

Two Republican senators – Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and John Ensign of Nevada – joined in the criticism today, with Ensign calling Obama’s greeting of Chavez “irresponsible.”

Gingrich, whose name has been mentioned as a possible 2012 presidential candidate, added, “How do you mend relationships with someone who actively hates your country?”