A close look at Newt Gingrich would not be complete without addressing the character issue, or more accurately, the lack thereof. Newt has reinvented himself as a God-fearing and moral person, engaging in religious rhetoric that sounds just like the hollow party pandering it is.
Gingrich recently converted to Catholicism; but contrary to being humbled by the conversion, or feeling any need to atone for his past, Newt seems to believe he has now been anointed to pass judgment on others’ lives. A smug piousness has become part of his overblown self-importance.
Gingrich claimed when speaking to the Catholic News Agency,
“Any leader should seek God's guidance,” he said. “The teachings of the Church inform my thinking about solving earthly problems.”
Uh, not really.
According to
Think Progress, when asked in an interview to explain religious leaders who supported The President’s healthcare plan, Gingrich’s fake reverence for the church is exposed:
"A lot of religious leaders…come out of basically a socialist background. They don’t create wealth. They don’t create jobs. They in fact redistribute wealth and so from their perspective this is just one more opportunity to redistribute — this is sort of compulsory charity, what we used to call taxes."
Aside from being absolute gibberish, Gingrich, knowingly or not, labeled Pope Benedict (His Pope) a socialist. David Gibson, religious reporter for the
Huffington Post, wrote a column on The Pope’s statement to the annual conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry in 2010. The Pope declared:
"Health justice should be among the priorities of governments and international institutions."
Benedict's secretary of state and second-in-command, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, read the papal statement to the conference…then delivered remarks that were even clearer than the pontiff's.
"Justice requires guaranteed universal access to health care," Bertone said, adding that the provision of minimal levels of medical attention to all is "commonly accepted as a fundamental human right."
Another of Gingrich’s claims to fame has been his serial adultery. By now, most people have heard Gingrich’s inane excuse for his actions, but just in case you missed it, he explained on the
Brody File:
“There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”
Imagine the moral meltdown that would occur under the demands of being President; taxpayers could end up footing the bill for a Whitehouse harem.
Though Gingrich tries to wrap his infidelity in the flag, (a truly novel approach), cheating is not an accidental occurrence; it requires deception, selfishness, and a total disregard for those closest to you. It is not the result of “working too hard; it’s the result of a serious character flaw.
When asked by his ex-wife how he could preach family values while committing adultery, Newt explained,
"It doesn't matter what I do, People need to hear what I have to say. There's no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn't matter what I live."
I think that’s actually part of the Republican platform now.
Gingrich’s infidelities are hardly the only things that call his character into question; there are numerous past employees and fellow lawmakers who have few if any positive things to say about him.
In a Mother Jones expose on Gingrich in 1984, his friend at the time Lee Howell had this to say
"...Very candidly, I don't think that Newt Gingrich has many principles, except for what's best for him, guiding him."
And in the same article Mary Kahn, the wife of an early campaign manager stated,
"Newt uses people and then discards them as useless. He's like a leech. He really is a man with no conscience..."
Gingrich ascribes statements like this to “disgruntled employees”, but according to Dot Crews, a campaign scheduler for Gingrich in the 70s,
“There are no former disgruntled employees," We're all just sorry that we ever went to work for him in the first place and that we didn't get out sooner."
According to some, ethics have always been a problem for Newt. In a Mother Jones
article article in 1989, Delores Adamson, a former Gingrich aide was interviewed,
“Though the rules prohibit it, Gingrich many times tried to use tax-paid staff and office space for campaign work, according to Adamson. "I would say no, you can't do that. You'll have to go to someone's home ...It always would amaze me how insignificant Newt thought all of that was…"
"…after returning from a week-long vacation, she found out that against her wishes Gingrich had put the district office staff to work editing and copying early drafts of [his book] Window of Opportunity. "In my mind, it was illegal," Adamson says, and by strict interpretation of the law and House rules, she may be correct. Not long after that confrontation with Gingrich, Adamson quit.”
Gingrich
explains things with ambiguous statements like
"Everything we did was clearly, without any question, within the normal pattern of American politics."
(Note the missing phrase “perfectly legal”)
In the first “Contract With America”, Republicans promised
"THE CITIZEN LEGISLATURE ACT: A first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators."
But in a
Buzzflash interview, Congressman Pete Stark (D-Ca) recalls:
"In the "Contract with America," they talked about term limits. As soon as they took control of the House, somebody said, “Well, term limits are unimportant because we're in the majority now.”"
There have been questionable practices in Gingrich’s business ventures since leaving office as well.
In 2009, according to
Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen
"Dallas businesswoman Dawn Rizos received the unexpected invitation by fax: Come to a "private dinner" with Newt Gingrich in Washington, where you will be named an "entrepreneur of the year."
The catch: Rizos had to pay a $5,000 membership fee to Gingrich's group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, to get the award.
It turned out that Rizos owns an upscale nude-dancing club. When Gingrich's group found out, it canceled the 2009 award and returned the money.
…the "entrepreneur of the year" scam appears to be part of an elaborate network of Gingrich-related enterprises."
Then in 2010, the
Huffington Post reported
"Gingrich sent faxes out to “100 or so” doctors he had supposedly chosen as "2010 Champions of Medicine."
"I am having a party in Washington at the historic Ronald Reagan Building on Election Night, November 2 to honor you and a few of the others who have been selected to receive this prestigious honor," the letter from the "Desk of: Speaker Newt Gingrich" reads…
But, …“it’s a bit of a sham. There is no mention of the fact that attendance [for the “award recipients”] at the event costs $5,000. Nor, for that matter, is there an explanation as to what merits qualify someone for the 2010 Champions of Medicine" honor; or that hundreds, if not thousands, have received the same fax."
But probably one of the most despicable things Gingrich has ever said or done took place at a
conference in 1985 where he outlined this particular political strategy:
“…going after homosexuals by using reference to AIDS.
He said: "AIDS is a real crisis. It is worth paying attention to, to study. It is something you ought to be looking at." He added, "AIDS will do more to direct America back to the cost of violating traditional values and to make America aware of the dangers of certain behaviors than anything we've seen." He concluded, "For us, it's a great rallying cry."
The first case of
aids had only just been reported in the U.S. in 1981, but by the time Gingrich made this callous statement in 1985, people in the U.S. were dying from the disease at a rate of 150,000 per year.
Gingrich's half-sister, who is a lesbian, actually published a letter to him in the Huffington Post, where she condemns his having built his career
"...by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right..."
She goes on to say,
"...you've also mastered taking the foolish actions of a few people and then indicting an entire population based on those mistakes. I fail to see how any of these patterns coincide with the values of "historic Christianity" you claim to champion."
She closes her letter, and I end this look at Newt Gingrich, with a paragraph that expresses the attitude of many voters;
she writes,
"You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it."
A Close Look at Newt Gingrich Part 1: Wait, What Do I Think?
A Close Look at Newt Gingrich Part 2: The Parts of His Record He Doesn't Talk About
A Close Look at Newt Gingrich Part 3: The Special Interests' Candidate