Here’s the thing about this absurd idea that Newt Gingrich is
some kind of skilled debater or unflappable tough guy: Gingrich
himself knows it’s a fraud. Here, from
the review of a book about Gingrich’s reign as speaker:
Amazon.com Review
A blow-by-blow account of the “Republican Revolution” in Congress,
which collapsed after little more than a year, this feast for
political insiders includes moments both absurd (Newt
Gingrich confessing to White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta that
“I melt when I am around” President Clinton) and critical.
(Gingrich’s realization, at the start of 1996, that “He had
grievously miscalculated his opposition and strategically botched
the most important political battle of his speakership.”) As an
insider’s analysis of what went wrong with the largest rightward
tilt in the U.S. Congress in this century, Maraniss and Weisskopf’s
book is indispensable.
He admitted the same to his wife (from
the book by the execrable Sidney Blumenthal):
Gingrich regularly traveled up Pennsylvania Avenue filled with
bravado and returned confusedly explaining Clinton’s logic to his
cohorts. “I melt when I’m around him,” he admitted to his wife.
Soon the Jacobins no longer trusted their Robespierre. They
insisted that he never meet with Clinton alone. Dick Armey went
with Gingrich on every trip to the White House to ensure that he
did not lose his will.
In this great
article in Esquire, his ex-wife explains:
But there was something strange and needy about him. “He was
impressed easily by position, status, money,” she says. “He grew up
poor and always wanted to be somebody, to make a difference, to
prove himself, you know. He has to be historic to justify his
life.”
As for his hypocrisy, she says this:
He thinks of himself as president, you tell her. He wants to run
for president. She gives a jaundiced look. “There’s no way,” she
says. She thinks he made a choice long ago between doing the right
thing and getting rich, and when you make those choices, you
foreclose other ones. “He could have been president. But when you
try and change your history too much, and try and recolor it
because you don’t like the way it was or you want it to be
different to prove something new … you lose touch with who you
really are. You lose your way.” She stops, ashes her cigarette,
exhales, searching for the right way to express what she’s about to
say. “He believes that what he says in public and how he lives
don’t have to be connected,” she says. “If you believe that, then
yeah, you can run for president.”
Former American Conservative Union Chairman Mickey Edwards was
even blunter:
“I’ve known Newt now for thirty years almost,” says former
congressman Mickey Edwards. “But I wouldn’t be able to describe
what his real principles are. I never felt that he had any sort of
a real compass about what he believed except for the pursuit of
power.”
There’s also all sorts of information about Gingrich’s
erraticism, his emotional instability, and other unseemly
characteristics. Wow. Tough stuff.
The research continues…..
