Tony Blankley From Beyond the Grave

The following obituary ran on January 8, 2011

Excerpting from:

Tony Blankley died this weekend after a long battle with cancer. His passing is a sad loss for America, the nation’s capital and The Washington Times, all of which he served with great honor and decency. He was editorial page editor of this newspaper for five years. His example, wisdom and political perspective will continue as guiding lights for the work we do here.

After years in the spotlight, Mr. Blankley achieved that status sought by so many but found by so few: He was instantly recognizable to the man on the street. He wore fame well and never stopped being a self-effacing gentleman. He was committed to responding to all of his correspondence and spent hours of each workday hammering away at the keyboard in discussions with cranky strangers who emailed criticism of his work. It was his view that it is the people who count in a democracy, and if their vote mattered on Election Day, their opinions should be respected every other day at a newspaper.

Mr. Blankley was part of every campaign Ronald Reagan ever ran, and he came to Washington as part of the Gipper’s California team after his election as president in 1980. His career skyrocketed when he served as spokesman for House Speaker Newt Gingrich and became a familiar TV face for the new Republican majority after the historic GOP takeover of Congress in 1994. Born in London, he retained an émigré’s nostalgia for the land left behind and admired things British, especially literature and history. His father was Winston Churchill’s accountant, and Mr. Blankley’s office was adorned with a wartime poster of the prime minister telling his people, “Deserve victory” – timeless advice Tony believed America needed to heed.

Mr. Blankley’s last column - published prior to his death - bears reposting:

America has been bewildered, shocked and disoriented since Sept. 11, 2001.

The economic collapse and the unprecedentedly statist policies of the past three years have just compounded the anxiety.

The rise of China, the fall of Europe and the chaos in the Middle East has been startling in their swiftness - and the lack of American leadership as these dramatic events unfold is sending a shudder throughout the world.

We don’t know what to make of events. We have not been convinced that either President George W. Bush or incumbent President Obama have had a clue about how to make things right.

The GOP primary voters reflect this helter-skelter search for leadership. I predict that when the general electorate is engaged in the election campaign [this] year, the independents and some Democrats will reflect the same desperate confusion and search for the right kind of leadership for these treacherous times.

But what kind of candidate is most likely to be able to make sense of the terrible events and forces that weigh down our country, be capable of vividly describing our plight and what needs to be done and convince the public that he has the intelligence, courage, experience and sheer will to force events favorably to America’s historic interests and needs?

As I have chosen to phrase that question, the question answers itself. It is the GOP candidate currently at the top of the polls, my former boss, Newt Gingrich.

But most Washington politicians don’t see it that way.

They see a conventional close election - not a bold, historic lunge by the voters to save the country.

They suggest Mitt Romney may be best positioned to stitch together a safe campaign that noses out President Obama by a point or two, or comes up short by a point or two. He might be that candidate. Thus, Mr. Romney received the endorsement of the GOP political types - congressmen and former congressmen. Now they are doubling down on their early bet and are out telling reporters that Newt was never much of a leader and never got much done.

Curious. I remember most of them enthusiastically following his leadership year after year as Republican whip from 1989 to 1994.

It was the most successful congressional opposition movement since Benjamin Disraeli formed the modern Conservative Party in Britain in the mid-19th century.

And after the GOP took back the House for the first time in 40 years (and the Senate, too, by the way), Newt’s four years as speaker proved to be the most productive, legislative congressional years since at least 1965 to 67, and they were led by Lyndon B. Johnson from the White House.

Working against - and with - Democratic President Bill Clinton, we passed into law most of the Contract With America, welfare reform, telecommunications reform (which ushered in the modern cell-phone and Internet age) and the first balanced budget since before the Vietnam War, and we cut taxes and lowered unemployment to less than 5%.

Just who the heck do all these professional political wizards think managed all that? It wasn’t us clever staffers or many of the now grumbling GOP K Street crowd.

We helped but Newt led.

I admit Newt’s methods were not orthodox. He modified the seniority committee chairman system and picked the best members for the key posts. More than a few feathers got ruffled. One of his key insights was to recognize that the two-dozen Northeastern moderates and liberals in the GOP caucus held the balance of power - we didn’t have 218 safe conservative votes in the House. Newt needed to prevent them from playing off the GOP against the Democrats (which is what such a faction in any congressional party normally tries to do), but rather feel fundamental loyalty and value in sticking with the GOP working majority. To do that, they had to get some of the provisions that they wanted in bills often enough that they would stick with conservatives on other issues. This required a lot of maneuvering by Newt. Conservative members got frustrated that he did that. They called that erratic behavior on Newt’s part. No, it was necessary and calculated maneuvering. He was actually shrewdly managing a precarious majority. If he hadn’t kept the Northeastern liberals in the fold, very little would have been accomplished in those spectacular four years of legislating and leading.

But when it came to fundamental conservative principles and the political strategies necessary to protect them, Newt saw the threats to them and never wavered. I was amused to see Gov. John Sununu, President George H. W. Bush’s chief of staff and a current Romney supporter, criticize Newt last week. I remember back in 1990, just after Newt had become GOP whip, when Mr. Bush, urged on by Mr. Sununu, was about to break his campaign pledge and raise taxes, which eventually cost him his re-election bid against Mr. Clinton. It was Newt who opposed it. In fact, Marlin Fitzwater, the loyal and shrewd White House press secretary, and no fan of Newt’s at the time, later wrote in his memoirs, “As it turned out, one of the few people on the Republican team who understood this trap [the Democrats demanded Bush raise taxes as the political price to reduce the deficit] was Newt Gingrich. … Newt had … recommended a different course of action: Abandon the budget negotiations [with Democrats], keep the tax pledge, insist that Congress cut spending, and make a political fight out of it. It’s clear now that we should have followed his advice.”

Years later, when Newt was speaker, he followed his own advice. He refused to raise taxes, he made a political fight of spending cuts with Bill Clinton (paying a big price in personal smears run against him), but we won the historic balanced budgets. In dangerous times, the safer choice for president is not the candidate who has always played it safe, nor is it the candidate who has not already faced and defeated adversity.

Amen, my friends... amen.