As a special Xmas present from the Permanent Government, Bob “The Man Who Doles Out the Secrets” Woodward got the top of the Washington Post website to share some of the early legislative history of Newton Leroy Gingrich, troublemaker:
On the evening of Oct. 4, 1990, Newt Gingrich and his then-wife, Marianne, were enjoying a VIP reception at a Republican fundraiser when they were suddenly hustled over to have their picture taken with President George H.W. Bush.
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“I thought it was a bad idea,” Gingrich said in a series of interviews in 1992 that have not been previously published.
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“We went over and I said [to Bush], ‘I’m really sorry that this is happening,’ and he said with as much pain as I’ve heard from a politician, ‘You’re killing us, you are just killing us.’ ”…
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Gingrich’s revolt highlighted a rift that persists to this day within the Republican Party, between a pragmatic establishment open to dealmaking and a more rigid conservative base that prefers purity over compromise. That split has benefited Gingrich at times during his political career, including in his current bid for president, as he is tied at the top of the Republican field with Mitt Romney, the establishment choice…
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Gingrich’s defiance and high-visibility debut as provocateur in 1990 was a decisive moment for him. It was the first chance he had to exercise real political power, providing an early glimpse of the complexity and the contradictions that he has displayed since.
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Bush’s budget director, the late Richard G. Darman, said that the White House was not given serious notice that Gingrich would balk at the deal and that his revolt was “an act of political sabotage.” In one 1992 memo, Darman wrote in capital letters of the “1990 GINGRICH STAB IN THE BACK.”…
… Gingrich said that immediately after he walked out, key anti-tax conservative Republicans who had served in the House and were then holding some of the highest positions in the Bush administration called him with private words of encouragement, secretly cheering him on.
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According to Gingrich, the first call was from Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense. “ ‘Richard,’ I said, ‘I can’t tell you how much it helped me to go back and look at the courage you showed in 1982 when you opposed [Reagan’s business tax increase]. And that one of the things that strengthened me in this decision was knowing that I’d have your firm moral leadership.’ ”
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The next morning, Darman called Gingrich. Darman made notes of the conversation, in which Gingrich told Darman “you’ve got to go” and said that he wanted Bush to be defeated.
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Gingrich did not dispute Darman’s version of the conversation, but he said he later told him that he had changed his position and did not want to knock off Bush. “I am a loyalist,” Gingrich said, adding that he worked hard for Bush’s reelection in 1992.
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Darman was not impressed. He called Gingrich a “neo-media-pop-opportunist” who is “interested in personal power, media attention, aggrandizement.”…
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Weber portrayed Gingrich in various ways throughout the 1992 interview, at one point calling him “a high-maintenance friend and ally, needy” and at another saying that “Newt, as you know, views himself as the leader of a vast, national interplanetary movement.”
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But, in the end, Weber concluded that Gingrich was not as he often appeared.
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“Gingrich is viewed as this hard, tough ideologue, and he’s not an ideologue, but beyond that he’s the easiest guy in the world, if you understand him, for people to buy off.”
Thus endeth the article — emphasis mine. Even if you discount the wilder accusations against Bob Woodward, he is very much The Voice of Official Washington, the reporter most trusted by those for whom DC is the company town whose economic product is national politics. Woodward has just announced to the world, via the company paper of the company town, that New Gingrich is a “bomb-thrower”; an incorrigible self-aggrandizer who’s spent at least twenty years operating in the psychological twilight zone between narcissism, borderline personality disorder, and sociopathy; a man who habitually says one thing while doing its opposite. Most importantly, to the Washington Villagers and their media coutiers, Woodward labels Gingrich as the man most responsible for denying good grey Bush the First his second term, the wilful traitor who turned the White House over to those dreadful Clinton people.
So, in case there was any doubt: Gingrich is not going to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012. If he’s half as smart as he thinks he is, he’ll retreat to his safe fat career hawking The Gingrich Experience to the conserva-rubes and enjoying the charms of Callista, because Bob’s just let him and the whole world know that his many enemies have been stockpiling two decades’ worth of ammunition.
Time for us Democrats and other members of the Reality-Based Community to go back to hating on Willard Romney, and our general slogan:
When You Vote for A Modern Republican, You Are Voting for A Bad Person.
VidaLoca
Yeah but he’s not even a quarter as smart as he thinks he is — which means he won’t retreat, he’ll double down.
Gex
After all we’ve seen, it says something about Newt if he’s the guy who makes them circle the wagon to protect the brand against. Just wow.
4jkb4ia
I would think that has to be read in combination with the NYT story whose thrust was that Newt created a monster with the class of 1994 which destroyed him for not being conservative enough.
Villago Delenda Est
There is no greater crime. The Bush Crime Family is very much old line DC establishment, and the vermin of the Village kowtow to them. Nixon, as we’ve read in Nixonland, was very much an outsider. That’s why Woodward lived after taking him down…Nixon had offended the Franklins, and the Bush Crime Family is very much old line Franklin types.
The thing is, the tiger that the GOP establishment has been riding could very easily buck them and eat them, which is what a Gingrich surge is all about…and is very much what all the not-OvenMitt movement is all about, because OvenMitt is also old line GOP establishment. All the sudden, as Gingrich wanes and Paul surges, the sordid details of Paul’s newsletter past are presented front and center…because Paul, while his newsletter persona shares some of the values of Prescott Bush, the most important ones…the economic/financial values…he does not share.
So he too must be destroyed.
Benjamin Franklin
Woodweird is for Woodweird. He sells books. That’s all he’s about.
BGinCHI
I’m amazed that with all their money, power, and connections, the GOP establishment didn’t work hard to field a candidate that not only represents their interests but appeals to a fairly wide swathe of conservatives.
Two reasons why they didn’t:
1. The party has become incoherent and ungovernable because the GOP has had to play to their base because of its inflexibility. And also because there were no new constituencies available to a party that won’t open itself up to the present/future.
2. They know they can’t beat Obama.
4jkb4ia
Anyone who remembers Newt the Speaker knows that he is wonderful copy and the media is going to eat up all the stories from when he was in power. He got to be in power because he was flamboyant and could get media attention with his marketing expertise as someone else put it. Part of what matters about this story is that Newt opened his mouth in 1992 for Bob Woodward to make him look like a fool. Newt must have thought that he would be the one writing his own history in a more prominent spot by now.
Brian R.
@Benjamin Franklin:
Agreed. He’s the ultimate finger in the wind.
“What’s hot right now? People are mad at Nixon for waging a bloody, illegal war? I’m on it.”
“What’s hot right now? People are excited about Dubya for waging a bloody, illegal war? I’m on it.”
Benjamin Franklin
BTW;
What kind of Junkies post on Christmas Day………….?
Merry Xmas..
Guster
What do we all think about Romney in the general? I was more concerned before I saw just how crappy he’s performing in the primary, but he hasn’t gotten the One True Conservative treatment yet, so …
Gwangung
@Guster: The more I hear about him, the more slimy he appears.
Brian R.
That certainly explains his increasing girth.
Roger Moore
And even if you vote for the very rare Republican who’s personally an OK person, he’ll still go along with the crazies when they vote to do evil stuff.
@VidaLoca:
Of course he isn’t. Einstein wasn’t half as smart as Gingrich thinks he is. Socrates said that the sign of true wisdom is knowing your own ignorance. Gingrich and his ilk are as far from that as it’s possible to be. The guy who thinks he knows the answer to everything probably knows the answer to nothing.
Warren Terra
@Gwangung:
You do rather get the sense Mitt comes pre-equipped with hot and cold running slime, don’t you?
But he should not e underestimated as a candidate. The thing about him is, he’s not stupid, he’s not lazy, he’s got no scruples whatsoever, and he looks amazing in photographs. With the economy being what it is, the Republicans have all too good a chance to win – so long as the public doesn’t realize who the Republicans are, and what they’ve been doing. The answer is Mitt: a bland, well-trained, morally flexible beefcake from central casting. He won in Massachusetts because he was sold not as a political candidate offering leadership and ideas but as a brand of toothpaste. The photo-ops were especially brilliant. He may not give inspiring speeches or answer questions well, but (except for the rare occasion that he offers a $10,000 bet) when he’s done talking you can’t really remember anything he said. Given what the Republicans have to say, that’s an avantage.
Guster
@Gwangung: Yeah, but is that going to hurt him in the general, or will it be magically transformed into ‘competent’ or something?
I’m wondering how quickly and completely the winger base will unite around him.
PeakVT
@Guster: I think Romney is more dangerous in the general because it will be easier to spin him as a moderate than the others would be, and he’ll pick up more low-info swing voters. He still won’t win, though. What he will do is depress the base enough (a few percent) that it will make a difference down-ticket.
Benjamin Franklin
This is the salient point.
Nixon won in ’68 by promising to end the Viet Nam war. Lies we want to believe.
Warren Terra
Bill ORLY
@Guster: When the choice is between Mittens and the Kenyan, they will turn so fast there will be an audible “pop.”
BGinCHI
@PeakVT: Agree with this.
Also the worst thing about Romney isn’t Romney. It’s that he’s just going to hold the door and the flashlight while his Masters loot the economy, treasury, your bank account, your health care, our education system your…..ad infinitum.
You don’t just get one man when you vote for the GOP Presidential candidate, you get a virus.
Cat Lady
From the “Obama isn’t stupid” department, the White House has always thought it would be Romney. They’re ready.
Brian R.
@Benjamin Franklin:
And on a campaign theme that pretty much killed irony forever: “Bring Us Together.”
Nellcote
@Guster:
He’s a liar. He lies about anything and everything. He lies about his own damn name.
Maude
@Villago Delenda Est:
Reagan changed the GOP forever. He brought in the fanatics and gave them power. The religious right began to split the party. This year we have seen those splits crack wide open.
The R’s used to be known to stay on message and get their candidate elected. Look at this pre primary mess of candidates. The obvious extremes are out there for everyone to see.
The old line R’s has been gone for a long time. They died off and so when Reagan took over, there was no one to claim a sense of false dignity.
Gingrich was the best thing to happen to Clinton.
Benjamin Franklin
@Brian R.:
Too funny. i forgot that line. It was so funny because the hah school athlete had the coordination of a monkey on morphine. When he described
‘coming together’ with a gesture, he splayed his arms wide, depicting the opposite.
Nellcote
@Benjamin Franklin:
The teabaggers won in ’10 by promising “jobs! jobs! jobs!”
chris
Spent some time with a dyed in the wool evangelical republican the other night at a party (we ended up shouting at each other before it was over–though we made up at end with me refusing to agree to disagree). But since I had to talk to this person..after we stopped screaming I asked. “What about Romney? Do you people like him?” (I really enjoyed saying “you people”) The answer was no. Its all “Meh”…all the way. They are doomed in November. This is the cannon fodder they should be feeding to teh Democrat hordes…and I didn’t get any impression that this person had any desire at all to lay down for Romney.
Geoduck
As Chris says.. Another factor to consider with Romney is that nobody really likes him. He’s such a transparent phoney, at best people are going to hold their noses and vote for him. He will inspire absolutely zero genuine passion. Whether the Obama-hate will be enough to counter it.. we’ll see..
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Guster:
1) Romney was governor of Taxachusetts and did all sorts of nasty Lie-brul stuff, including passing a healthcare plan identical to the Islamocommiesoshulist death-panel plan the usurper-in-chief just forced through.
2) He was a one-term governor who basically quit halfway through that one term.
3) He’s a career politician (yes, he is), the son of a career politician, and wooden and stiff in demeanor.
4) He’s a richy-rich type who is wooden and stiff in demeanor.
In other words, he’s 1) Michael Dukakis, 2) Sarah Palin, 3) Al Gore, and 4) John Kerry all rolled into one. Plus 5) If Bill Clinton was a “draft-dodger”, so was he.
If the Obama campaign can’t hang him out to dry, I give up.
Brian R.
@Geoduck:
Romney really is what America thought Kerry was. Simple as that.
priscianusjr
No question this is a clear signal that the Establishment will not countenance Newt as nominee. But unfortunately for them, things being what they are with the base, Newt now wields a lot of power as the “anti-establishment” candidate. They will have to buy him off somehow or he is in a position to make a lot of trouble, like for example running as an independent and taking at least half the Republican votes with him.
The Republic of Stupidity
Sorry, but that really did need fixing…
Allan
@Brian R.: This.
Trentrunner
I think a lot of people–and I’m lookin’ at you, ladies–are thrown off by Newt’s animal magnetism.
They sense the undulating rolls of pasty fat underneath the overpriced suit paid for with lobbying spoils. The crusty cake of interstitial sweat residue that fills each fatfold crevice emits the pheromones that drive ladies (and not a few dudes) wild.
Moreover, the crunched, bully-faced visage across whose rugged plains no look of empathy–simulated or otherwise–has swept sends a strong sexual signal: “I’ve got 4 1/2″ of pinky-shaped love-pokin’ here for you, ladies. And have I mentioned Tiffany’s?”
Brian R.
@Allan:
To expand the bumper sticker:
There are, as others have noted, elements of Dukakis and Gore in Romney, but he is essentially embodies the media myth of Kerry. He’s a rich, out-of-touch, flip-flopping politician from Massachusetts who seems incapable of speaking clearly (or consistently) and, moreover, incapable of connecting with average Americans.
And Kerry, let’s remember, was an actual war hero, and someone who showed courage when he came home to speak out against that war, and then became a politician to do a lot of good. His flip-flopping charges boiled down to garbling an explanation for how he voted for financing the Iraq War — “voting for the $87bn [with a way to finance it] before I voted against it [when it was added to the deficit].”
Romney, meanwhile, dodged the draft to live in a mansion in Paris for three years, and then became a poster boy for the One Percent by firing thousands of American workers during his stint at Bain Capital. His flip-flopping charges extend to literally every single hot button political issue out there, in terms anyone can readily understand and in sound bites that will destroy him.
That’s not a Christmas tree on the White House lawn. It’s a massive erection at the thought of running against Romney.
Brian R.
@Trentrunner:
The only place Newt has 4 1/2 inches is in the flab under his chin.
What passes for his penis is probably an innie.
amk
@Brian R.: Perfect bumper sticker to sell in south.
BGinCHI
@Brian R.: Trying to eat dinner here, people.
Loneoak
Any chance of an open thread for the football game?
Linda Featheringill
@Trentrunner:
#34
I had to laugh out loud because I have been wondering for some time how it was that he kept getting his women. I couldn’t see what the attraction was.
amk
@Loneoak: Wish granted. santa coleus has come through.
Villago Delenda Est
@Linda Featheringill:
As Henry Kissinger remarked, while dating Jill St. John, to some reporters: “Power is an aphrodisiac.”
Schlemizel
@Trentrunner:
Look at the dumpy troll Kissinger – he was dating hot model/actress types despite being short, ugly, dumpy and having the personality of an agar dish of slime mold spores.
Hank the Tank explained it all, Power is the great aphrodisiac.
If Noot were just a third rate professor of history at some fourth rate community college (the job he is marginally qualified for) he would still be married to wife one & whacking off in his office while dreaming about the co-ed in his third hour class.
Beauzeaux
a “neo-media-pop-opportunist” who is “interested in personal power, media attention, aggrandizement.”…
Doesn’t anybody else read this as a precise description of the half-term governor?
arguingwithsignposts
@BGinCHI:
bumper sticker material there. kudos.
brettvk
@Linda Featheringill: It’ a sad commentary on my gender that Newt has been able to reproduce at all. It seems to me that there is no man so unattractive that some woman, somewhere, won’t take him on, but Newt’s early career must have been something to behold. Marrying his [former] teacher? I speculate that Newt has the sort of radar for vulnerable women that pedophiles have for emotionally neglected children.
elftx
@Trentrunner:
EEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Frankensteinbeck
@Guster:
Mitt has tons of baggage, weapons already pointed at him ready to fire, and the base is utterly apathetic about him. Even given their rabid, festering hatred of Obama that’ll shave percents off the final vote.
All of that may be secondary. Mitt has the charisma of a plank of wood. He’s a one term governor because he couldn’t win any other elections. He is stiff, is prone to strange non-sequitors, not just out of touch but *visibly* Can-I-Have-Foie-Gras-With-My-Large-Mac rich person out of touch. Nor is he swift and witty.
The lesson of George Bush’s election was that a LOT of voters don’t care about (or don’t understand) issues, they want to be charmed. Mitt is as charming as cardboard.
brettvk
@Frankensteinbeck: If the race falls out as Mitt v. Obama, it’ll be interesting to see how the GOPsters handle it. Lots of negative ads against Obama while Mitt kind of disappears into the background? If they go nuclear neg against Obama it’ll be a little too easy to slip into the-sheriff-is-near territory on live TV.
Frankensteinbeck
@brettvk:
If you’re running a presidential campaign and your strategy is to have your guy be as invisible as possible, you are in trouble.
brettvk
@Frankensteinbeck: My thoughts exactly. I’m trying to imagine a strategy that makes Mitt attractive to likely voters, but I really can’t picture it. Maybe if you prop him up in front of a flag and run 10 second spots 40x an hour…
rikyrah
@Frankensteinbeck:
One has to RUN for President. Put themselves forward.
Villago Delenda Est
The ownership situation of the Packers scares the bejebus out of the rich assholes who constitute the ownership of the rest of the NFL.
Villago Delenda Est
Doh! I managed to post my Packers comment to the wrong thead.
Villago Delenda Est
@brettvk:
Shit, a sizable percentage of them want to go there.
You can tell that Rush Limbaugh, for example, yearns to use the N word on his program to describe Obama.
WereBear (itouch)
On that note, I’m always impressed that Rush Limbaugh does find women to marry him; though they don’t stick around for long. Apparently there are some things a person won’t do for money.
SiubhanDuinne
@Trentrunner:
I just threw up in my mouth.
brettvk
@WereBear (itouch): Well, Rush’s #4 wife is still on duty, two years as of next June. One assumes the prenup ran to multiple pages. Like Callista, perhaps Kathyrn’s best strategy is to hold on to the bitter, bitter end and collect the rewards of being the final wife.
brettvk
@Villago Delenda Est: The N-word is the one thing that finally took Dr. Laura down, and it might be radioactive enough that even Rush wouldn’t go there. Maybe.
Yutsano
@brettvk: There’s a no sex clause in the pre-nup. For both of them. Which is logical since Noot only likes oral and Rush likes Dominican rent boys.
brettvk
@Yutsano: I’d really, really like to know the backstory on the Dominican V**gr* incident [geez, sounds like a Vatican problem]. Someone’s got a book contract after Rush dies.
brettvk
@Yutsano: I’d really, really like to know the backstory on the Dominican blue pill incident. Someone must have a book contract pending Rush’s death.
Joey Maloney
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
I think the Obama campaign should publicly thank Romney for his bold, courageous actions here, for bucking his party orthodoxy. They should do it early and often. Especially on Fox News.
LosGatosCA
@Geoduck:
Hate, resentment, victimhood are inexhaustible sources of energy once tapped. Almost every sports team has used the ‘they don’t respect us’ , ‘nobody believes we can do this”, “Everyone thinks we’re not good enough,” etc. to rise to the occasion at the point of the existential attack.
They will do it, no doubt about it. Only the mirror image of channeling the hate, resentment, and victimhood against the bankers in 2012 will save Obama from defeat.
Mnemosyne
Like I kept telling all of you all during the Newt surge, Newt is not The Right People. He didn’t go to Phillips or Andover. He’s a cracker from Georgia and there was no way in Hell he was going to get within spitting distance of the White House with George Romney’s son in the same race.
AxelFoley
@4jkb4ia:
Wouldn’t it be sweet if President Obama was the one who took down and destroyed the asshole who brought this climate of partisanship to DC back in the 90’s?
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@brettvk:
Wow, I think you nailed it here. It fits the personality I read about.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
The problem is, Romney was 50/50 to get the nomination anyway, and all his opponents – including Newt – were circus clowns giddily strapping dynamite to their own foreheads. And everybody knew all of this. I don’t think anybody will be able to call an ‘I told you so’ until the nomination is won, and even then it’ll only be if the way the primaries themselves play out is revealing. Until then, the only person totally counting Romney out of this Race-To-The-Top-Of-The-Feces-Pile is M-C, which… says it all, really.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@AxelFoley: Plz, don’t ever use the words “thrust” and “Newt” again in the same comment.
KTHXBAI
AxelFoley
@Brian R.:
This. So very much this.
AxelFoley
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Oops, my bad.
AxelFoley
@Villago Delenda Est:
Wait, what? How..?
Fuck it, I’ll never understand some women.
To this day, I can’t believe Rush Limbaugh tapped Daren Kagan.
drkrick
@brettvk: Fascinating Newt fun fact – he has never had an adult romantic relationship that began in a licit, above board situation: Wife one was his high school teacher who he began dating when he was a minor. It today’s environment, a chunk of the beginning of their marriage would have been conducted through a prison visiting room window. Wives two and three famously “interned” as mistresses until he ditched the then-current wife and promoted them. I’m sure there were plenty of other mistresses and one nighters along the way.
The moral rot of a man who has never managed to begin a relationship with a woman in an honest, legitimate way is just stunning, especially from someone who thinks he’s the defender, definer and leader of the forces of civilization.
Marshall
@Mnemosyne – Newt’s from Pennsylvania. We actually have a word for his sort – carpet-bagger.