Newt Gingrich hates the Constitution

Back with a vengeance.

Newt Gingrich has emerged as the "conservative" alternative to Mitt Romney. Right.

Over the remainder of the primary season, we could probably dedicate a post a day to some of the absurd, statist, fundamentally unconservative things Gingrich says.

The idea that Gingrich is "conservative" is truly laughable.

If you believe this, you are stupid, ill-informed and a sucker for cheap political demagoguery.

In the 1990s, Gingrich supported a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, which would be the centerpiece of Obamacare 15 years later.

He appeared next to Nancy Pelosi in a cap-and-trade commercial sponsored by an Al Gore-funded outfit.

He took $1.6 million of taxpayer money from Freddie Mac during the height of the housing bubble, all while endorsing its business model and the idiotic liberal ideal that, irrespective of a person's credit history or income, everyone should own a house -- things for which Ron Paul and Michelle Bachmann have rightfully excoriated him.

He pushed congressional Republicans to pass the budget-busting Medicare Part D in 2004, while taking money from Big Pharma. Medicare Part D was the largest expansion of the welfare state since the Great Society.

This is arguably just the tip of the iceberg, but I'm getting tired of not addressing what I just read 10 minutes ago.

On Face the Nation this morning, Gingrich doubled down on his outrageous idea that Congress should have the power to subpoena federal judges whose decisions they oppose. Not only did Gingrich reiterate his support for idea -- which is a completely unconstitutional usurping of the separation of powers doctrine -- but he endorsed the use of the federal marshals to haul these judges into the Rotunda. This is truly outrageous. A President Gingrich's first act would apparently be to put the Constitution through a paper shredder.

Furthermore, Gingrich told Bob Schieffer that he is running for president to stop federal judges from encroaching on the president's commander-in-chief powers.

This is outrageous. It should make any liberty-loving American sick to his stomach. The judiciary is charged with enforcing the Constitution, and it admirably curbed the grave excesses of the Bush administration during its unconstitutional assault on the Bill of Rights. Even Antonin Scalia and John Roberts -- conservative jurisprudence's two shining lights -- levied harsh criticisms of the unprecedented powers. Does Gingrich really believe what John Yoo and Dick Cheney believe -- that the Constitution is suspended, and the president can do whatever he wants, so long as the president says we're at war?

We should be thankful that someone so grossly unfit for the presidency comes across the American stage so infrequently. He believes that the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine should be junked, that the president should be able to operate without the constraints of the Constitution, and apparently, that big government can and should be used for "conservative" ends. And who is the ultimate arbiter of what is and isn't "conservative"? Gingrich, of course. Despite the fact that this man is so delusional and so outrageous, he is remarkably self-assured, such that many conservatives actually buy this nonsense. If Newt Gingrich is the nominee, it should be the end of American conservatism as we know it. Gingrich's deluded ideal of America has more in common with a Middle Eastern banana republic than it does the vision laid out by the Founders.

The fact that Republicans actually consider him the conservative alternative to anybody is sickening. The people who believe this are fools. Gingrich represents everything that Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan opposed. Even as much as Barack Obama -- and perhaps, arguably, more -- Newt Gingrich is an enemy of the Constitution.