Gingrich unafraid to go where no man has gone before

Mitt Romney seemed to be calling Newt Gingrich spacey during Saturday's debate when he said that a point they differentiated on was Gingrich's "idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon."

"Spacey" might be too limiting of a word. A policy position becoming more prominent in Gingrich's campaign makes him borderline Treky.

From the New York Times:

At a forum in Des Moines on Saturday for military veterans, Mr. Gingrich said an electromagnetic pulse attack was one of several pressing national security threats the United States faced. “In theory, a relatively small device over Omaha would knock out about half the electricity generated in the United States,” he told the veterans.

He also referred to the apocalyptic novel “One Second After,” written by a friend and co-author of his historical novels, William R. Forstchen. The book describes an electromagnetic pulse attack on America, conjuring a world in which cars, airplanes, cellphones and refrigerators all die, and gangs of barbarians spring to life.

In the book’s foreword, Mr. Gingrich calls the grim scenario a potential “future history” that should be “terrifying for all of us.” He says he knows its frightening plausibility from decades of personal study.

No harm in looking ahead to a potential threat. But this is a bit like trying to explain why America should invest in "string theory" research.