Newt Gingrich appeared this morning on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopolous, and gave a very reluctant endorsement of the bailout package as described in reports this morning:

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Speaker Gingrich, there’s also, I think, a recognition, at least in some of the polls I’ve seen, that something has to be done.”

SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH: “Sure, look, something has to be done. … I suspect were I still in Congress, in the end George [Will] is right, and I probably would end up voting reluctantly yes, because I think when you’re given no choice …”

I’ll try to get more of Gingrich’s remarks. He makes a good point in the comments here that we’re buying years of bureaucracy for a short-term problem, but the problem will be a lot longer than just two weeks if government doesn’t act to support the prices on the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that it insisted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issue on boatloads of bad loans. Without action, the collapse would probably take place in two weeks, leaving us years to pick up the pieces — and that would cost more than what’s being proposed.

Will Gingrich’s reluctant, watered-down endorsement make conservatives more willing to accept this solution?