Notwithstanding that teensy little exception

Matt Yglesias flags this latest Newt embarrassment:

VAN SUSTEREN: How is President Obama doing on Egypt?

NEWT GINGRICH: I don’t think they have a clue. I think it is very frightening to watch this administration.

VAN SUSTEREN: Would anybody?

NEWT GINGRICH: Reagan would have. Reagan would have had — Reagan would have thought about and studied radical Islam and Reagan would have had a strategy and would have pursued it. He didn’t do that in the 80s some are going to want to complain for a practical reason. Reagan had one foreign policy goal in the 1980s, defeat the Soviet Union. He didn’t divert himself because he wanted to defeat the Soviet Union.

This reminds Yglesias of "What Would Brian Boitano Do?", but Gingrich's wayside "some are going to want to complain" is hysterically awful. Our Afghanistan policy in the 1980s was not the work of someone who had "studied radical Islam" and "had a strategy." And I'm sorry, but you are not allowed to be president of the United States and have just "one foreign policy goal." It's a big world.

As it stands, "radical Islam" killed more Americans on 9/11 than the USSR ever did.