posted on February 23, 2007 12:54:10 AM new
Ha! Oh here's a PRIME repug candidate LOL!!!!! He's perfect....a perfect Republican !
comment | posted January 12, 2006 (January 30, 2006 issue)
Newt's New Con
David Sirota
Of all the voices berating the Republican Party for its culture of corruption, none rings more hollow than Newt Gingrich's. According to the Associated Press, the former House Speaker has said he is considering running for President in 2008. Now, in preparation, he is leading a stampede of corrupt Republicans desperate to distance themselves from the money-for-votes scandal plaguing the nation's capital.
Gingrich isn't stupid. He knows that in today's era of establishment-worshiping journalism, all he had to do was give one speech pretending to be outraged at the scandals and the media would largely ignore that Gingrich was the happy midwife of the out-of-control corruption America is now living through.
Gingrich's calculation was right: The media fawned on cue when he derided his party for engaging in "a system of corruption." He was lauded as "one of Washington's Big Thinkers" by the Chicago Tribune, praised by the Washington Post for issuing a "dire alarm," embraced by Newsweek as a "bipartisan reformer" and venerated by the New York Times as having supposedly headed an "anticorruption revolution" when he came to power in 1994. Other media simply quoted Gingrich saying, "We need to clean this mess up" without so much as mentioning his complicity in making the mess.
And "complicity" is putting it mildly.
Gingrich, after all, was the architect of the so-called K Street Project, which is at the center of the current corruption scandals. As the Post reported in 2002, "Starting in the mid-1990s, some Republicans, including then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and [Representative Tom] DeLay, have advocated tracking the political affiliation of lobbyists, as part of an effort to place more conservatives on K Street." In return, K Street would help the GOP ram through corporate-written legislation and fill GOP coffers with campaign contributions. It worked perfectly. The American Prospect reported in 2000 that within the first six months of Gingrich's tenure as Speaker, "the Republican leadership introduced a spate of controversial bills gutting regulatory agencies" and that "business contributions more than doubled from what they had been during a comparable period in 1993." By 1998 Gingrich wasn't even trying to hide the K Street Project, as he "held up a vote on intellectual property legislation in protest of the Electronics Industry Association's plan to hire a Democrat to run the group," according to the Post. In fact, when Gingrich resigned at the end of 1998, the Hill newspaper ran a story headlined NEWT'S DEPARTURE DEFLATES KEY LOBBYISTS, which detailed the unsuccessful effort by Gingrich and corporate lobbyists to help him hold on to power and preserve K Street's bridge into Congress.
Gingrich is now puffing out his chest and telling everyone what a bad guy he supposedly thinks Jack Abramoff is--but he is noticeably silent when it comes to how he was Abramoff's prime sponsor, the one who helped the GOP lobbyist ascend to power in the first place.
In 1994 Abramoff parlayed his close connections with Gingrich into a big job at the lobbying firm Preston, Gates & Ellis. The firm issued a press release upon hiring Abramoff, noting that he "developed and maintains strong ties to Speaker Newt Gingrich." In 1995 the Times noted how the relationship between Abramoff and the Speaker was fueling the K Street Project: "Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist here who is close to Mr. Gingrich, said House Republicans were watching very closely to see whether lobbyists were making more than a token effort to help Republicans stay in power." That same year National Journal noted that Abramoff was climbing to prominence as the key middleman between corporate interests and Gingrich: "The GOP victories in 1994 transformed [Abramoff] into a valuable asset as law firms recruited activists with connections to the new Gingrich team." By 1998 Washingtonian magazine noted that "few lobbyists in Washington are closer to House power brokers Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay than Abramoff."
But incredibly, reporters now ignore all of this, as it conflicts with the story line of Gingrich-as-clean-money-reformer--even while Gingrich himself is employed as a corporate shill. He is the head of the Center for Health Transformation--an organization, the Times recently noted, financed mostly by corporations that "pay yearly fees of up to $200,000" for Gingrich's legislative expertise in pushing corporate America's profit-at-all-cost healthcare agenda.
The truth is, Gingrich's posturing as an anticorruption "reformer" is as credible as Senator John McCain's calling himself a campaign finance reformer right after being implicated in the Keating Five scandal, and right before using corporate jets to fly all over the country for his presidential campaign. Or, in pop culture terms, it's as believable as Tony Soprano telling the police he's outraged that hit men are carrying out his orders. Only it's worse because the authorities--in this case the media--are swallowing the argument whole.
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posted on February 23, 2007 07:53:15 AM new
linduh says she can't comment until Newtsie "throws his hat in the ring"....so I guess she thinks the corruption will disapear with the "hat in the ring"...and meanwhile has no defense...
posted on March 8, 2007 10:32:03 PM new
Another 'Family Values' hypocrite confesses.
Gingrich had affair during Clinton probe
By BEN EVANS, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 24 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.
"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."
Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.
"The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge," the former Georgia congressman said of Clinton's 1998 House impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. "I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials."
Widely considered a mastermind of the Republican revolution that swept Congress in the 1994 elections, Gingrich remains wildly popular among many conservatives. He has repeatedly placed near the top of Republican presidential polls recently, even though he has not formed a campaign.
Gingrich has said he is waiting to see how the Republican field shapes up before deciding in the fall whether to run.
Reports of extramarital affairs have dogged him for years as a result of two messy divorces, but he has refused to discuss them publicly.
Gingrich, who frequently campaigned on family values issues, divorced his second wife, Marianne, in 2000 after his attorneys acknowledged Gingrich's relationship with his current wife, Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide more than 20 years younger than he is.
His first marriage, to his former high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, ended in divorce in 1981. Although Gingrich has said he doesn't remember it, Battley has said Gingrich discussed divorce terms with her while she was recuperating in the hospital from cancer surgery.
Gingrich married Marianne months after the divorce.
"There were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them," he said in the interview. "I look back on those as periods of weakness and periods that I'm ... not proud of."
Gingrich's congressional career ended in 1998 when he abruptly resigned from Congress after poor showings from Republicans in elections and after being reprimanded by the House ethics panel over charges that he used tax-exempt funding to advance his political goals.
posted on March 9, 2007 03:42:37 AM new
REPUBLICAN FAMILY VALUES AT ITS BEST.
"Although Gingrich has said he doesn't remember it, Battley has said Gingrich discussed divorce terms with her while she was recuperating in the hospital from cancer surgery."
He's the one who gets most of the credit for them LOSING congress in 1994.....and being OUT of power for the next 12 years.
Yep...they're worried he might do it again.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on March 10, 2007 03:20:52 PM new
It cracks me up that liberals here will continue to enjoy posting how American families aren't what they used to be. Almost appear to take GREAT pleasure in the stats.
THEN we all know what they were TOTALLY willing to overlook from their own leaders behaviors....but they have the GALL to turn around and question more than one marriage....or ethics....or or or>
What a LAUGH.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on March 10, 2007 03:25:33 PM new
Just more proof that those who always point fingers and lecture others on morals are usually the low-life ones doing nasty things and then they figure they can pray and it will all be okay again until next time.
posted on March 10, 2007 03:44:11 PM new
LOL.....shows kiara once again doesn't know what she's talking about. As USUAL. tsk tsk tsk
That's NOT the way it goes, kiara....but of course you wouldn't KNOW that.
==================
And that's as opposed to just WHAT? LOL LOL
Saying and supporting anything goes morally/ethically and then the liberals REFUSE to hold anyone accountable for their own behaviors. Nope....the BIG BROTHER gov. [the TAXPAYERS] should be the ones that THEN care for and PAY for the MISTAKES and STUPID decisions the idiots made.
Never expecting those who 'chose the wrong roads' to actually suffer the consequences THEMSELVES.
Heck no....all pay for them.
WHAT TOTAL NONSENSE.
What irresponsible behavior.
Condoning anything as okay....but then others have to 'make it all better'....like mommy does.
GROW UP
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on March 10, 2007 03:50:11 PM new
"""Just more proof that those who always point fingers and lecture others on morals are usually the low-life ones doing nasty things and then they figure they can pray and it will all be okay again until next time. """
You nailed it, Kiara!
Yup, those two-faced Repugs like Newtsy who, while screaming about Clinton, was boffing a little on the side, too!!!
But ya, now he goes all "goddy" and thinks it'll be OK....
They have such DOUBLE STANDARDS!!!!
posted on March 10, 2007 04:40:33 PM newYou only have half of it correct. The second part your are GROSSLY stating incorrectly.
Well, never having done the nasty stuff while pointing and preaching to others NOT to do it and then praying to god afterwards for forgiveness and showing remorse I guess I don't know.
Please tell me how it works seeing as you're the expert on this one, Lindak.
