Delusions of hope? Or welcome thaw?

Every once in a while I read something that makes me pause and reconsider what I thought were very basic political assumptions. In particular, in the past I have repeatedly attacked Newt Gingrich for his seemingly insane drug war stances. He’s one of the most prominent Americans to actually go on record advocating the death penalty for drug offenders.

Yet now, that same man has recently authored a Time magazine piece that looks as though it might have been written by a compassionate human being. Had M. Simon not linked the piece, I probably wouldn’t have known. (These days, I’m more interested in ceramics than politics.) What amazes me as much as Newt’s pronouncements is the list of the co-authors:

Newt Gingrich, Patrick J. Kennedy and Van Jones.

Huh?

Newt Gingrich actually co-authored a piece sympathetic to addicts with a liberal and a commie?

Wow.

Maybe the times are changing. It’d be nice to roll the clock back to the more peaceful, less drug-crime-ridden days before there were drug laws, but it’s nice to see signs of hope.

(Well, it did take a bona fide Cold Warrior like Nixon to break the ice by visiting China…..)