This article caught my eye this morning and reminded me of what was semi-headline news only a decade ago. Although I don't think former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a real threat, I know the shallow-in-thought Republican voter is easy to trick and loves the negativism and personal attacks which come so easily to Newt. Marc Cooper has a quick synopsis in today's Los Angeles Times. You may have chosen to forget or may be new to the Progressive movement, but a little refresher wouldn't hurt.
Gingrich's political career flat-lined a decade ago when he resigned as speaker of the House under a cloud of dishonor, disgrace and corruption. Yet the dead man again walks among us. Flip on a cable news show, a Sunday talkfest or C-SPAN, or crack open the national section of a major newspaper, and Gingrich is seemingly everywhere, positioned as no less than the leading opposition figure to President Obama.
Strange, because the Republican Party certainly didn't elect him to this position. Indeed, some of today's top GOP leaders -- among them Sen. Lindsey Graham and House Minority Leader John Boehner -- were among the Republicans whose disillusionment with Gingrich's speakership in the fall of 1998 left him little choice but to resign his post.
New't Greatest Hits
Gingrich had to pay a $300,000 fine after his colleagues in the House voted to reprimand him for ethics violations.
...there was the small matter of the congressman's $4.5-million book advance from Rupert Murdoch, whose corporation had several pieces of business pending before the House over which Gingrich presided.
Gingrich effectively shut down the federal government in a budget dispute, telling reporters that he was playing hardball with President Clinton in part because of having been "snubbed" on Air Force One, where he was assigned a seat at the rear of the plane.
Gingrich handed his wife a divorce ultimatum in 1981 while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery (an illness Gingrich shamelessly exploited during his 1978 House campaign). Published reports at the time said his ex-wife had to depend on church donations because Gingrich wouldn't provide adequate support for her and his daughters.
Six months after that first divorce, he remarried and stayed married until an affair he was having with an aide 23 years his junior led to yet another divorce. Gingrich was carrying on with his aide, he later confessed, at the same time he was pushing for Clinton's impeachment because of his dalliance with Lewinsky.
And although I'd like to think that his collegues would be his first hurdle to national elective office, we've seen plenty of examples of loyal cheerleading despite the promotion of a largely unqualified candidate.
By overplaying the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Gingrich so mismanaged the political moment that his party actually lost five House seats in the 1998 election -- the worst midterm outcome in nearly a century for a party not holding the White House.
There's an obvious shortage of leadership in the Republican party and many are seeking to fill the void if only by outrage and insult. But as Newt seems to have found a stage, I always like to have some relevant facts ready to go. If only for a 4th of July barbecue.