Ah, 1998.
The year the Republicans finally thought their six years of fishing expeditions and witchhunts (aka CoupGate or The Hunting of the President) would bear fruit. Newt was predicting 60-seat gains in the House and a dozen Senate seat pickups for the GOP.
Instead, it was the year that saw the Republicans have a net loss of five House seats and zero Senate seats. (They took out three Senate Democrats but lost an equal number of their own - and tellingly, the Republicans who lost included Al D'Amato and Lauch Faircloth, the two Republican Senators most eager to impeach President Bill Clinton.) It was the first time since 1934 that the out-of-the White-House party failed to gain congressional seats in a mid-term election, and the first time since 1822 that the party not in control of the White House failed to gain seats in the mid-term election of a President's second term.
It was also the Year of the Three Speakers.
Follow me past the cartouche for the deets.
As many of you likely know or remember (having lived through it), Newt Gingrich resigned from both his Speakership and his House seat quite suddenly in the wake of the November 1998 election results.
His resignation was widely stated to be because his fellow Congressional Republicans wanted him to pay for leading them down the electorally-poisonous impeachment path - which makes no sense as the House Republicans eagerly voted for impeachment during the lame-duck session anyway.
The real reason is the same reason why Newt's chosen successor, Speaker-Designate Bob Livingston, would also resign his House seat shortly after being named as Newt's chosen replacement: Because Larry Flynt had the goods on him, and Larry Flynt had set his sights on Congressional Republican hypocrites who were having extramarital affairs that made Bill Clinton's look tame in comparison, yet were actively backing his impeachment over sex.
Here are the details that never ran in any US paper or TV show. (About either Newt or Livingston.)
It was left to the Irish Times to print what no American newspaper would, which is ironic in view of the graphic accounts the US media outlets ran with when trying to take down Bill Clinton (emphases mine).
Here's the skinny on Newt's hasty departure:
Mr Flynt hired a Washington firm of former CIA and FBI officials to help him assess the responses to his ad and confirm their credibility. One of the first investigations surrounded Mr Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House.
Mr Flynt began negotiating with several parties, people described as having an association with a prostitution ring, for a series of credit card receipts that showed Mr Gingrich paying for services.
In the midst of that negotiation, Mr Gingrich resigned suddenly.
And here's the comparable skinny on Bob's:
The Irish Times has learned that Mr Livingston became aware that Mr Flynt had in his possession audiotapes of sexually explicit telephone conversations between Mr Livingston and a woman. It was the nature of the sexual talk that was so disturbing, said this source. It was clearly a sexual relationship of a sado-masochistic or dominant-submissive nature.
At one point in the conversation, Mr Livingston asks the woman a question to the effect, can't I be the victim next time? (The precise wording of the question could not be confirmed.) What was clear was that Mr Livingston was clearly interested in playing a sexually submissive role.
Mr Flynt, for the record, did not wish to disclose the specific nature of the evidence he has against Mr Livingston. "It was much more than he said in his initial statement. He knew our investigation was under way."
With a sly smile, Mr Flynt looked into the camera at CNN and said: "Let's say I understand why he resigned. I'm happy if our efforts had anything to do with it."
In retrospect, it's a pity that
Dennis Hastert had just enough brains not to be in the vanguard of the impeachment caucus, because I'm sure Larry Flynt could have taken him out, too.