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The official record reflects one minor ethics violation to which Gingrich pled guilty, though there were originally more than eighty specifications of unethical behavior in the complaint against him. But whether the one violation to which he pled guilty was significant or not, the sanction his colleagues imposed on him was a fine of $300,000, and he was forced to give up the post of Speaker a year later, albeit in the main because his strategy of partisan warfare led to a rout of his party in the mid-term election of 1998. Notably, the vote to accept his plea and the sanction proposed was nearly unanimous with only 28 no votes in a Republican controlled Congress, and some of the no votes were a reflection not of support for Gingrich, but of protest against the modesty of the sanctions imposed. The reason for Newt's plea is something that only he can actually know, although if he had been censured, he would have been removed from the post of Speaker automatically, and it is pretty clear that Newt loves to be the prince. But again notably, by pleading guilty he avoided a public airing of his conduct at a hearing before The Congress, which there was pressure to televise. A year later, he was forced out of the role of Speaker, at which time he resigned his seat having just being re-elected a day earlier. And now, with Gingrich minimizing his violations as technical in nature, which he most likely has convinced himself that they were, Nancy Pelosi, a Democratic former Speaker herself, has threatened to disclose the particulars of Gingrich's ethics violations. Newt says that would violate the rules of the ethics committee; rather than clarify the nature of his alleged misconduct and defend himself, he is coercing someone who threatens to reveal the details. So we are left to guess what he was accused of doing, and in fact whether he did those things, and former Speaker Gingrich prefers that to telling the whole story, suggesting that while running for office, either the details will not serve him well, or he is unwilling to confront reality himself.
Besides his disjunction from reality, there are his positions on many issues that may well determine whom rank and file Republicans nominate for president. He openly advocated for the "cap and trade" system of carbon emission reduction through credits for those who reduced their pollution emissions below those permissible and selling the resulting carbon credits to others but now he denies it. He also espoused a reform of insurance law to require everyone who could afford it to buy health insurance with penalties for those who did not do so even though they could afford it. Now however, he characterizes the Affordable Health Care Act, the very thing that he once advocated, as tyrannical and requiring repeal. And while he diametrically opposes positions he once took on important political and social issues of the day, he accuses his primary competition for the nominations, Mitt Romney, of vacillating for political gain. Hypocrisy, thy name is Newt...or is it self-delusion, thy name is Newt.
Now, Gingrich says his heart goes out to "Herman," as he calls his friend Herman Cain, an oft accused philanderer and solicitor of sexual favors. Perhaps condemning Cain would be too hypocritical for even Newt Gingrich given his own record. Throw in Gingrich's desire for the youthful poor to work as janitors in their schools because they don't have a work ethic while he proposes elimination of the capital gains tax for the children of the idle rich, many of whom never have, and never will work for a living. Then add his preposterous claim that Freddie Mac paid him $1.8 million to be their "historian." And top it all off with his characterization of his marital infidelities, his mistreatment of the women he discards after having affairs with and marrying them, his ethics lapses, none of which he is inclined to explain, and the fact that he did all these things as he was hectoring others for doing the same, and you have a portrait of a man who is either in denial or who is a pathological liar, in either case, not so good for a president.
I, for one, want a president who has some imagination, but Newt Gingrich is ridiculous.
Your friend,
Mike
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