Gingrich Lies About Dope-Growing Founding Fathers to New Hampshire Pothead

[kpete]

Settled in to roost in New Hampshire for the next week, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich was faced with some pretty zany questions Wednesday afternoon during a town hall meeting with his potential suitors. Talking health care, asteroid travel, and marijuana, faraway-galaxy-dwelling Gingrich was, as Observer reporter Paul Harris noted, “brought down to earth” by the relative far-outness of some of the audience members. One attendee asked for the candidate’s thoughts on legal homegrown pot, to which Gingrich harked back to his knowledge base, HISTORY, and dropped some knowledge (actually misinformation! love that history!) on how Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would have felt about marijuana.

Said Newt:

“I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana, and their techniques of dealing with it would have been more violent.”

http://wonkette.com/459499/gingrich-lies-about-dope-growing-founding-fathers-to-new-hampshire-pothead#more-459499

oh really?

Both Washington and Jefferson tried growing hemp on their Virginia farms, with mixed success. Washington used some of what he grew to make hemp clothing worn by his slaves. However, U.S. hemp exported to Britain often was of such poor quality that it couldn’t be sold, and Washington was never able to turn a profit on the crop despite sustained effort. Jefferson also seems to have grown hemp strictly for local consumption, from which we deduce he couldn’t make money at it either. In short, not only were Washington and Jefferson marijuana farmers, they were unsuccessful marijuana farmers.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2912/did-george-washington-and-thomas-jefferson-grow-marijuana

...................

Below is a page from George Washington’s diary, where he gives instructions to his gardener for growing hemp:

Look at day 7 (August 7, 1765), it clearly reads “began to separate the male form the female .. bit to late”
http://www.theweedblog.com/americas-founding-fathers-loved-hemp/

.................

Famous Thomas Jefferson quotes include:

“Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.” -Thomas Jefferson

“Some of my finest hours have been spent sitting on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.”
-Thomas Jefferson
http://forums.cannabisculture.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1090706&site_id=1

[deutsey]

1. Newt obviously hasn't seen Dazed and Confused

[arcane1]

2. The historian strikes again

[DefenseLawyer]

22. Laugh if you want

But FannieMae paid him $420,000.00 for that brilliant historical analysis!

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

25. Ha ha, good one...

...eom

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. Newt, you dumbass. go away.

[spanone]

4. newt's natrual arrogance allows him to pull manufactured facts out of his ass

[AlbertCat]

17. newt's natrual arrogance allows him to pull manufactured facts out of his ass

Now, to be fair, he didn't state "facts" but his opinion...

“I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana ... blah... blah... blah...

So it was what he THINKS based on his extensive study of history and especially the Founding Fathers. That what he thinks is totally wrong is however a fact.

Poor Newty... he's so egomaniacal he thinks ANY idea he has is a good one.

This has much to do with his inability to remotely understand the history he loves and studies.

[Bandit]

5. I believe at one time hemp was America's largest export..

Before cotton became king that is....

[tonybgood]

6. Someone needs to release their transcripts!!!

This guy is an historian!!! Are you f***ing kidding me?!!! Who let this jack*** graduate from their institute of higher learning with such an inaccurate picture of the history of this country? Who were his instructors? What grades did he earn? Is this the product of a conservative education? This man thinks he should be the president? There are people actually uninformed enough to VOTE for this person???!!! As Coach Lombardi was quoted once as saying, "What the hell is going on here!!!"

[Charlemagne]

18. He knows very well

What the real truth is. He just wants to sound like a war-on-drugs hard ass. He knows that will work to get the Santorum votes. What he is hoping on is that no one will use the internet to look stuff up.

[Moonwalk]

7. As I recall, Jefferson suffered from migraines and used marijuana to get relief from them...

But unlike Newt there, I'm happy to admit that I could be wrong about that. Still, I'm pretty sure the founding fathers there were not only pot growers (how ever unsuccessfully), but pot users.

[Smilo]

8. Newt must be smoking something..............

[Fumesucker]

9. Sometimes I get tired just smilin'..

But Newt never tires of lyin'.

[Botany]

10. Just remember Newt is a Historian w/a PhD

That Washing grew marijuana @ Mt. Vernon is a well known fact but
that doesn't stop Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich from just making
something up.

[LiberalFighter]

11. Where did he get his degree? And who were the fools that gave him tenure?

[Botany]

14. West Georgia College denied tenure for Newton Leroy in 1978

I have a family member who was a professor and is friends w/
somebody who was faculty @ West Georgia when Newt was there
and he was not liked by the other professors and the college
administration and when he applied for tenure they told Newt to
hit the road.

[IDemo]

12. Growing hemp was actually required at one time because of its value. For instance -

Several tons of hemp rigging were used on the USS Constitution:

[The Genealogist]

13. I am amused that Newt thinks the Founding Fathers were

modern authoritarians like him. I am sure he has so revised actual US history in his mind that he truly thinks the founding fathers WERE and would act like 21st century RWers.

[pansypoo53219]

15. nevermind the founding fathers were probably a little tipsy at all times,

as liquor was the safer libation. lot of wine drunk. washington was fond of madiera.

[AlbertCat]

19. lot of wine drunk. washington was fond of madiera.

Yeah... but did he cry a lot like Boehner. Or fall off his bike and get attacked by a pretzel, like Dubya?

[JoePhilly]

16. He gets paid millions to be a Revisionist Historian I guess

[Trillo]

20. I'm glad I saw this post.

Last edited Thu Jan 5, 2012, 07:00 PM - Edit history (1)

I had often read that our forefathers had grown hemp, however, I'd never seen the exact document proving it (still can't read it haha the script so I'll have to trust you on that), and never had seen that quote of Jefferson's.

Well, I can make out the words "hemp", and "English".

[Warren DeMontague]

21. Little Known Fact: Jefferson absolutely HATED jambands.

In fact, it was well-known in Virginia that he enjoyed going out to the taverns and beating the crap out of hippies.

[AlbertCat]

23. he enjoyed going out to the taverns and beating the crap out of hippies.

True.

Later it was that nubian temptress Sally Hemings who supplied Jefferson with his 1st taste of cocaine. She got him to divorce Martha while she was in hospital being bled, which, along with Jefferson using federal funds to support his habit, prompted the Continental Congress to force him to resign in disgrace. After that, the drugs made him think he could run for President but he had by then become a delusional has-been. When he could no longer buy her expensive jewelry, Hemings dumped him. Cocaine and a mixed race relationship ruined him!

[Warren DeMontague]

24. Indeed. And the blow probably contributed to his lack of cognitive dissonance during the Aaron Burr

infidelity scandal!

[Fokker Trip]

26. Very nice, the two of you.

Made me smile and that's always worth something.

Thanks.

[RainDog]

31. lol n/t

[ThoughtCriminal]

28. Maybe not - if it was planted and harvested by slaves

like say... tobacco.

[RainDog]

29. or, say, tomatoes

the crux of this is that Newton is terribly misinformed about American history.

People used to pay their taxes with hemp. People were REQUIRED to grow hemp. Yet, Newtie tries to co-opt the founders into an anti-marijuana stance - either b/c he's too stupid or b/c he's waaaay stoopid.

[jmowreader]

32. I think there's another thing going on here

Newtie knows the people who are going to vote for him in the primaries don't know hemp and marijuana are the same plant. So he can run all over New Hampshire claiming the Founding Fathers would have disapproved of you growing your own weed.

There are probably a few of Newtie's natural constituency who think the USS Constitution had nylon rigging, which it did not.

[RainDog]

33. or that things like the declaration of independence were drafted on hemp paper

tho the final documents were written on parchment (animal skin paper) because only parchment was more durable than hemp paper.

[Scairp]

30. My god he is dumb

I thought it before, but this proves it. He's not just lying out his ass to further his feeble presidential aspirations, he actually is an idiot.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

34. oh. bullshit, dumbass. how did you get the rep for being the smartest dumbass?

shut up and go home, Porky.

[WI_DEM]

35. Gingrich thinks he is the intellectual in the race!! haha!!

[L. Coyote]

36. Just what the USA needs, another Dumbass who makes things up while thinking he is ubber-brilliant

This is symptomatic of a common Republican mental disorder "GOP syndrome"

Gabbling Oblivious Perplexity