Newt Gingrich--what a swell guy! (Part 6--more proof that hypocrisy is his SOP)

Overview

Up to this point, I have shown many examples of the hypocrisy of Newt Gingrich, and this post is going to show several more. These additional examples go to the core of Gingrich's "politics" and how he has used power. These additional examples show that a primary part of the Gingrich standard operating procedure (SOP) is say and do whatever it takes to get what he wants and that often that means he says or does something one moment and then says or does just the opposite the next. In other words, for Newt, shameless hypocrisy is SOP.

One of the sources for this post is the "Frontline" interview with Fred Wertheimer (the same interview reference in Part 1). That interview provides an in-depth view of Gingrich's SOP, but it was done over 10 years ago, so I will also cite some articles within the last year that show Newt's SOP has not changed.

Example 1: campaign finance and "soft money"

Part 2 examined this example in part , and contained some excerpts from the Wertheimer interview. I noted that

In other parts of the interview, Wertheimer explains 1) that before he became Speaker, Gingrich tried to shut down the "soft money" and PACs; 2) that during this time Gingrich was his ownself building a political machine fueled by soft money and PACs; and 3) once he became Speaker, he took steps to preserve the very system he had publicly condemned as corrupt.

Here are the "other parts of the interview:"

The 1994 election was a rejection of the Democrats and part of what they were rejecting was this corrupt system in Washington. A corrupt system that Newt Gingrich had been attacking for 16 years. Now Newt Gingrich wins, he becomes speaker, you don't hear the words from his mouth any more about the House being a corrupt institution. You don't hear him talking about a corrupt system any more. He somehow seems to believe that his presence as speaker has magically washed away all the problems that come from these millions of dollars of corrupt campaign contributions. He too was trying to get away with it.

*******

A millionaire [candidate or incumbent] has a big advantage, in terms of being able to spend all his/her money. However, they're a small problem compared to the so-called soft money system, which has allowed millions and millions and millions of dollars in huge corrupt contributions to come into the political process of both parties.

The soft money system was used to fuel his own PAC, GOPAC. Now, last Congress when he had no power, he co-sponsored legislation to shut down the soft money system. To end it. When he testified recently, that wasn't on his mind somehow. So if you talk about millionaires, you ignore the biggest problem in the system, you're trying to get people's attention away from the real problem. He has played games with the issue of money and politics for a career when he was in the minority and now he's playing games when he's in the majority. The stakes are much larger for him now because huge, huge amounts of money are flowing to the speaker and his party, at the Congressional level, at the party level and they don't want to turn those spigots off. They want to let that corrupting money keep flowing -- How do they do it as revolutionaries?

*******

The speaker is trying to argue that money corrupts when it goes to Democrats. Ethics are a problem when they go to Democrats. The institution is corrupt when the Democrats control it. Now we control things. We shouldn't spend too much time worrying about drowning in this special interest influence money, let us do our populist revolution.

*******

But Newt Gingrich has managed to oppose every comprehensive reform effort that in part was designed to get more money to challengers. He opposed public financing. Fine. There are proposals for free tv time. I haven't heard him talking about that. There are proposals to require networks and broadcasters to sell time at fifty percent below cost. That's a way of reducing the cost. That would be very helpful for challengers. I haven't heard him talking about that. I don't want to call his approach to all of this a flim-flam, but, it is. That's what we're dealing with here. And here is the test: you always have to watch and see what the speaker is saying about the soft money system. That's the system that allows the largest contributions, unlimited contributions from corporate America, unlimited contributions from wealthy individuals, to flow into Washington and to exercise enormous influence at the expense of the average citizen.

You have to remember that when the speaker had no power, he said, shut that system down. And as long as the speaker is not supporting and talking about shutting down the system, that is the biggest finance abuse in America, You know, the speaker is not for real on campaign finance reform. You know he's trying to have it both ways. Out of this side of the mouth he's trying to say we gotta deal with this problem. This is a serious problem. But when it comes to the use of his power, his power is being used to make sure that the heart of this corrupt system stays in place.

(emphasis added). Gingrich's shifting position on campaign finance and soft money has a few sub-parts to it, as explained below.

Example 2: Jack Abramoff

Gingrich has attempted to distance from the most widespread scandal to hit the GOP in the last few years--Jack Abramoff. As reported by Michael Scherer in a January 5, 2006, article, Gingrich at the first of this year was busy attacking Abramoff and anyone connected to him at a press conference at the Hotel Washington on January 4, 2006, where he said, "The more I have learned about this, frankly the angrier I have gotten. The indifference to right and wrong is very troubling."

In an April 2006 Vanity Fair article, writer David Margolick was given the following quote from Rick Tyler, Gingrich's spokesman: "Before his picture appeared on TV and in the newspapers, Newt wouldn't have known him if he fell across him. He hadn't seen him in 10 years." When told of this, Abramoff gave Margolick a strong reaction:

Abramoff becomes clear as he rummages through a box of old memorabilia with me. "Here's [former Republican Texas congressman and House majority leader] Dick Armey," he tells me. "Here's Newt. Newt. Newt. [Former president Ronald] Reagan. More Newt. Newt with Grover [Norquist, the Washington conservative Republican Über-strategist and longtime Abramoff friend] this time, and with [Seattle arch-conservative Republican] Rabbi [Daniel] Lapin. But Newt never met me. [Indicted Iran-contra figure and longtime Abramoff friend] Ollie North. Newt. Can't be Newt … he never met me. Oh, Newt! What's he doing there? Must be a Newt look-alike. I have more pictures of him than I have of my wife. Newt again! It's sick! I thought he never met me!"

What makes this interesting is that 1) Abramoff was ground zero for the GOP/K Street/lobbyist money machine, and 2) as explained below, Gingrich helped establish that machine and used it extensively when he was in Congress.

Example 3: the Bug Man and all that implies

This example is related to Example 1, but it delves a bit deeper into Gingrich's hypocrisy.

I have documented extensively on this blog that I am no fan of the Bug Man, a/k/a Tom DeLay. And judging from Gingrich's actions this year, one would say that at he and I share at least one opinion. The AP reported on April 13, 2005, that Newt called on Delay to stop claiming that he was the victim of a left-wing political conspiracy and make his case to the American public. Gee, that's not at all what Gingrich did when he was mired in allegations of ethical violations. As explained in Part 1 and Part 3, Gingrinch did everything he could think of to stall and dismiss the ethics investigation against him, including 1) objecting to calls for a special prosecutor even though he had called for one in the Jim Wright matter; 2) accusing the Democrats of being on a political witch hunt to drive him from power; and 3) basically lying to the House Ethics Committee at least twice.

The Scherer article said that on January 3, 2006, Gingrich called for the GOP House caucus to hold an election to replace DeLay as Majority Leader. Not that the Bug Man deserves any sympathy, but Gingrich's words must have particularly stung. As Scherer described:

Back in 1997, when Congress was debating a reprimand of Gingrich, DeLay spoke out in defense of him and in favor of party unity. "Let's stop this madness," DeLay declared on the House floor. "Let's stop the cannibalism." Nine years later, Gingrich shows no signs that he plans to return the favor.

Yeah, Bug Man, back in the day you at least made a public showing of having Newt's back, but when you could have used the same treatment from Newt, he put a knife in your back. Then again, what choice did Newtie have? If he was going to run for President, he could not run even the slightest risk of being tainted by your troubles, now could he?

Ah, but the ties between Newt and the Bug Man go even deeper. What eventually brought down the Bug Man was the lobbying/money/fund raising machine that he helped build. However, as Gary Ruskin, director of the Congressional Accountability Project, a watchdog group that hounded Gingrich during the 1990s, told Scherer, "Gingrich has a tremendous pot-calling-the-kettle-black problem. This hardball fundraising strategy was started by Gingrich." And therein lies the real depth of Gingrich's hypocrisy.

In the July/August 2006 issue of the Washington Monthly, Alan Wolfe had an article entitled "Why Conservatives Can't Govern," and while the premise for the entire article is certainly worthy of discussion, for this post post I will cite the portions of the article which compare Newt and the Bug Man in matters that go beyond the money and corruption issues.

Transforming the Republican Party into a highly disciplined organization determined to get its way without cooperation from the Democrats was an another objective shared by Gingrich and DeLay. Indeed, the former, not the latter, deserves the credit for substituting British-style party discipline and ideological extremism for bipartisan cooperation and moderation in the U.S. House of Representatives. Name an innovation associated with DeLay, and one discovers that it was previously institutionalized by Gingrich: developing redistricting rules to favor Republicans; encouraging House Republicans to vote as a unified bloc; weakening seniority so as to strengthen party leaders; freezing the opposition party out of a role in governance. It would take a decade after the Republican revolution of 1994 for the U. S. House of Representatives to fully transform itself into a body that no longer made a pretense of valuing fairness and deliberation. But that is only because Tom DeLay possessed a political advantage denied Gingrich: a fellow Republican in the White House.

(emphasis added). In short, Gingrich is primarily responsible for the the attack-dog style of partisan politics that run rampant in this country. And here's some proof. As described in both Peter Boyer's July 1989 Vanity Fair article and Gail Sheehy's September 1995 Vanity Fair article, Gingrich made a speech in the House Chamber in 1984 wherein he accused the Democrats of believing that "America does nothing right," and questioned the patriotism of the Democrats by saying they were blind to Communism.

And now Gingrich is trying to pass himself off as more of a centrist interested in working with Democrats on some issues--like health care with Hillary Clinton (and then there is Hillary trying to pass herself off as not-so-liberal by working with Gingrich). Some people can change, but those who are ego-maniacs who have engaged in all kinds of hypocrisy to gain and keep power are not likely to. Go back and read Parts 1-5 and decide for yourself if Gingrich can be trusted to act any differently. More to the point, ask yourself if you can trust him as President.