Tuesday, May 17, 2011 10:17:45 AM
Gingrich Set to Run, With Wife in Central Role
Newt Gingrich and his wife, Callista, at a movie screening last month. The two began dating while Mr. Gingrich was married.
Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
Callista and Newt Gingrich at a screening in Washington last month of "A City Upon a Hill," a movie in which they both appear.
Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: May 9, 2011
WASHINGTON — Callista Bisek’s friends from rural Wisconsin were stunned when, well over a decade ago, she confided that she was secretly dating an older, married man: Newt Gingrich.
Still in her 20s when they met, Ms. Bisek had been raised in a town of 1,500, the only child of a meat packer and a secretary. A churchgoing Roman Catholic, she had attended a Lutheran college where she practiced piano five hours a day. “Is this the wisest course for you to be taking?” Karen Olson, her best friend, recalled asking.
Today, Ms. Bisek is Mrs. Gingrich, married for 11 years, but perhaps best remembered for the six-year affair that contributed to her husband’s political downfall. His critics cast Mr. Gingrich, the former House speaker, as a hypocrite who sought to impeach a president over infidelity while engaging in it himself with Ms. Bisek, who was a Congressional aide.
Yet in a curious tale of Washington reinvention, the onetime congressman from Georgia is counting on the third Mrs. Gingrich for his political redemption.
As he prepares for a Republican presidential primary run — he said Monday that he would formally declare his intentions on Wednesday — Mr. Gingrich is presenting himself as a family man who has embraced Catholicism and found God, with his wife as a kind of character witness. Depending on one’s point of view, she is a reminder of his complicated past, or his secret political weapon.
Barely a sentence goes by without Mr. Gingrich uttering the words “Callista and I.” They are constantly together — at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, at conservative political conferences, at book signings and screenings of their documentary films. She is the voice on his audio books; her face is all over his 2012 Web site [ http://www.newt.org/ ], where visitors can read “A Note from Newt & Callista.”
At Villanova University [ http://www1.villanova.edu/ ] on a recent Thursday night, Mrs. Gingrich warmed up the audience for a showing of the couple’s movie about Pope John Paul II by signing books and DVDs in her left-handed curlicue. But when asked whether she is ready for the scrutiny a campaign would bring, she smiled tightly and grew silent.
Mr. Gingrich answered for her. “Seems to be,” he said, with uncharacteristic tentativeness. “We’ve talked about it for a year. It’s difficult.”
Mr. Gingrich is well aware that social conservatives are skeptical of him because he did not emphasize their issues in Congress, but also because of his two divorces and admission of infidelity. He has been meeting with religious leaders around the country to address their concerns.
Deal Hudson, president of Catholic Advocate [ http://catholicadvocate.com/ ], a conservative group, said that if Mrs. Gingrich “wants to be first lady,” she would probably have to discuss their relationship as well.
So far she has not. Both Gingriches declined to be interviewed for this article.
“They would say they wished they had met in a different time in their lives under different circumstances,” said Jackie Cottrell, a friend who worked with Mrs. Gingrich as a staff member on Capitol Hill. “But it’s important to note that they brought their family together in a loving way.”
Mr. Gingrich took up golf because his wife plays; she has adopted his political agenda. In 2009, after years of attending Mass to hear her sing in her church choir, he converted to Catholicism. And when Mrs. Gingrich, who plays French horn with the city band in Fairfax, Va., appears in concerts, her husband totes her black instrument case. “I’m a band groupie and a choir groupie,” Mr. Gingrich likes to say.
How eager she is for him to run after he has been out of office since 1999 is a matter of discussion among their friends. Vin Weber, the former Republican congressman from Minnesota, said he is “quite convinced” Mrs. Gingrich is happily on board. “They’ve been out of public life,” Mr. Weber said, “and I think she misses the excitement of that.”
Others say she wants her husband to run because he wants to. She has hired Ms. Olson as her chief of staff; she is also writing a children’s book, due out in September — just in time for her to go on a book tour and reintroduce herself to the public as the primary race heats up.
“I think she has stepped out of her comfort zone more to promote the movies and the books and has found that she enjoyed that,” said Ms. Cottrell. “That’s been a little bit of a toe in the water.“
At 45, 22 years her husband’s junior, Mrs. Gingrich always looks perfectly composed. She favors an almost retro look — platinum hair teased and sprayed, bold-colored suits accessorized by a triple strand of pearls or eye-popping diamond jewelry. In college, friends say, she once signed up for an 8 a.m. bowling class and rolled a 200 wearing a pencil skirt.
Still, they worry aloud that her “physical presence,” in the words of Matt Gunderson, a childhood friend, makes her seem distant or stuffy. They see a woman who, caricatured as a “blond bombshell” in the press years ago, guards her public image.
“That’s a role she has had to assume,” said Tim Peter, a classmate of Mrs. Gingrich’s at Luther College [ http://www.luther.edu/ ] in Decorah, Iowa, “because that one morning you go out for the paper without your makeup on, that’s the day you wind up on the front page.”
As a young girl in Whitehall, Wis., Ms. Bisek experienced politics through the prism of community ties, not ideology. Mr. Gunderson’s elder brother, Steve, was a congressman; as high school students, Ms. Bisek and her friends knocked on doors and appeared in parades as a singing campaign troupe.
“We were ‘Glee’ before ‘Glee,’ ” the younger Mr. Gunderson said.
If she had a career dream, it was playing for an orchestra, not making headlines in Washington. Yet her high school yearbook suggests a yearning to stand out.
“Some people strive to be one of the many,” she wrote. “I strive to be one of the few.”
She worked for Representative Gunderson, a Republican, in Washington after college, eventually landing a job with the House Agriculture Committee, where she stayed until Democrats took over in 2007. Today, she runs Gingrich Productions [ http://www.gingrichproductions.com/ ], making documentaries in conjunction with Citizens United, the nonprofit group that drew national attention in a Supreme Court case last year. While Citizens United does technical production, Mrs. Gingrich, a former music major, is especially hands-on with the musical scores.
She and her husband work from adjoining offices in a building on K Street, Washington’s lobbying corridor, home to the sprawling enterprise that Gingrich aides call “Newt Inc.,” which produces books and films at a dizzying pace. Their efforts are planned around what Ms. Olson calls their “thematic — the message of what they stand for.”
Their new focus is American exceptionalism, the notion that the United States is unique and stands above other nations. Mrs. Gingrich’s children’s book is devoted to the topic; so is one by Mr. Gingrich, due out next month. It is also the theme of their newest documentary — no surprise given that many Republicans, including Mr. Gingrich, claim that President Obama rejects exceptionalism.
Mr. Gingrich will have to dismantle his busy operation for a presidential run, though aides say Gingrich Productions will survive, with his wife in charge. Looking ahead to the campaign, Gingrich intimates are already envisioning how Mrs. Gingrich, with her college ties to Iowa, might help her husband there.
The same friends who tried to talk her out of out of dating him more than a decade ago have concluded that she knew what she was doing, and are banking that voters will forgive and forget. Ms. Olson summed up their history in what might just become a campaign catchphrase.
“They’re a great couple,” she said, “that had a nontraditional start.”
Barclay Walsh contributed research.
© 2011 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/politics/10gingrich.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/politics/10gingrich.html?pagewanted=all ] [comments at http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/politics/10gingrich.html ]
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Newt Gingrich: 'I bring some scars with my life'
By Jim Gaines
Macon Telegraph
Posted on Friday, 05.13.11
MACON, Ga. — Two days after announcing his campaign for president, Newt Gingrich paused Friday afternoon at Fincher's Barbecue on Macon's Houston Avenue, on his way to the Georgia Republican Convention across town.
Now 67, he represented Atlanta's northern suburbs in Congress for 20 years and served as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1998, resigning his seat after big midterm election losses.
Friday, he greeted several dozen staffers, convention delegates and supporters at the barbecue restaurant's original location, posing for pictures outside and talking to counter workers before sitting down for an interview.
Gingrich's presidential campaign announcement included talk of giving federal powers back to the states. While saying segregation was "horrible" and had to be ended, that's now "40 or 50 years behind us ... and I think that these states can take care of themselves," he said.
"In the modern era since desegregation and the federal voting rights act, the citizens of each state are empowered by going to vote to protect themselves," Gingrich said.
Gingrich is on his third marriage, this one to a former House staffer he had an affair with during his second; and in 1997 the House took the unprecedented move of reprimanding him, a sitting Speaker, in an ethics case. He avoided a full hearing with a negotiated settlement but agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty. That's now all behind him, he said.
"There's no question I've said to people that I made mistakes in my life, that I had to go to God for forgiveness and that I had to seek reconciliation," Gingrich said. "People have to decide whether at this stage in my life I have learned enough and matured enough, and I'm somebody they can trust.
"There's no question I bring some scars with my life, but most people who get to be my age have some scars at something."
Several of Gingrich's high-profile associates, including pastors Jim Garlow and Lou Engle and historical revisionist David Barton, espouse "Seven Mountains" theology (—) a belief that government, business, media, education and other "spheres of influence" are dominated by Satan's minions, and that Christians are obligated to seize control of all areas to herald the second coming of Jesus.
Gingrich says he doesn't have any knowledge of the idea.
"I have no idea what you're talking about it, and I can't comment on it because I've never heard of it before," he said. "Neither Garlow nor Barton nor anybody else has ever mentioned it to me."
On the federal government's current financial woes, the sluggish economic recovery and controversial health care legislation, Gingrich takes a harsher line even than current Republican officeholders.
Congressional Republicans are currently calling for cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, but Gingrich wants it cut even further. He said the United States has the world's highest corporate tax rate, though a recent Pricewaterhouse Coopers study said the U.S. corporate tax rate is the sixth-highest in the world.
Referring to the recent announcement that General Electric managed to pay no corporate income tax last year despite posting multibillion-dollar profits, Gingrich said cutting taxes further would bring in more because companies will then "fire the lawyers and pay the government."
"(President Barack) Obama believes 'I can make life so painful for you that I'll make you stay here and suffer,' " he said. "I believe that we ought to make life so pleasant for you that you voluntarily want to be here. So you're going to have a 'party of pain' led by Obama, and a 'party of happiness and pleasure' led by Gingrich, and I think you can lure more companies with lower taxes."
Regarding his take on the federal government's looming need to raise its legal debt limit, he said, "I would only raise the debt ceiling if I got a dollar of spending cut for every dollar of debt ceiling increase. So if the president wants $2 trillion in increase, he needs to cut $2 trillion out of the debt."
Cutting more than half of the $3.8 trillion federal budget would eliminate all discretionary spending, including defense, and still leave more than $400 billion to be taken from mandatory spending such as Social Security and Medicare.
And on medical matters, Gingrich said, much of the problem of health care costs is due to freeloaders.
"A very substantial number of people who are uninsured earn over $75,000 a year, and they're making a calculated gamble that they'd rather buy a second home or buy a better car or go on a nicer vacation, and then if they really get in trouble, you're going to take care of them," he said.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, four-fifths of the 46.3 million Americans who didn't have health insurance in 2008 came from households with less than $75,000 annual income.
Nonpayment for service is unacceptable at restaurants and car dealers, so patients should be held to the same standard, perhaps through posting a bond or pledging property for medical care, Gingrich said.
Regarding global warming, Gingrich acknowledged the reality of it, but said he didn't know if it's being driven by human greenhouse gas emission.
"The planet used to be dramatically warmer when we had dinosaurs and no people. To the best of my knowledge the dinosaurs weren't driving cars," he said.
Scientists' contention is not that Earth is now warmer than ever, but that the current rate of temperature increase is unique.
But Gingrich dismissed the vast majority of scientific opinion, on the grounds that so many scientists support it.
"I distinguish 'science' from 'political science.' and when I see 6,000 scientists sign something, that's called political science. That's not science," he said.
Gingrich referred to a petition from the Union of Concerned Scientists which actually urged the Bush administration to keep politics out of science policy.
Regardless, he said, "it is inconceivable that any threat from global warming is big enough to justify destroying the American economy."
Copyright 2011 Miami Herald Media Co.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/13/2216312/newt-gingrich-i-bring-some-scars.html [ http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/13/v-fullstory/2216312/newt-gingrich-i-bring-some-scars.html ] [with comments]
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Gingrich promises to slash taxes, calls Obama ‘food stamp president’
By Philip Rucker, Published: May 13[, 2011]
MACON, Ga. — Newt Gingrich opened his presidential campaign here Friday night by introducing a jobs plan [ http://www.newt.org/news/gingrich-outline-bold-job-creation-plan-georgia-republican-convention ] that would slash taxes and repeal an array of bureaucratic regulations.
Returning to the state where he launched his political career more than three decades ago, the Republican former House speaker presented himself in sharp contrast to President Obama, whom he derided as a “food stamp president.” Gingrich sounded a hopeful tone as he pledged that a Gingrich administration would reaffirm American exceptionalism.
“My theme is going to be: Together we can win the future. The right policies lead to the right results. And I’m going to argue that President Obama will lose the future because the wrong policies lead to the wrong results,” Gingrich said in a dinner speech before hundreds of activists at the Georgia Republican Party’s annual convention. He also signed his official statement of candidacy at the event.
Gingrich, who has written more than a dozen non-fiction books — he plugged his latest, “To Save America [ http://www.amazon.com/Save-America-Stopping-Secular-Socialist-Machine/dp/1596985968 ],” on bookshelves now — opened his 30-minute address with a long rumination on American history. He predicted that the 2012 presidential election will be the most consequential since Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860.
“We’re at the crossroads,” Gingrich said, repeatedly sniffling from allergies. “Down one road is a European centralized bureaucratic socialist welfare system in which politicians and bureaucrats define the future. Down the other road is a proud, solid, reaffirmation of American exceptionalism.”
Central to that promise, he said, would be eliminating the capital gains and estate taxes and reducing the corporate income tax from 35 percent to 12.5 percent. Those tax cuts, as well as freezing the personal income tax rates at their current Bush-era levels, is critical to creating jobs and spurring innovation, he said.
“The most important social welfare program in America is a job,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich sought to lay blame for the recession, as well as the economic and social upheaval in Detroit, on Obama and his policies. “President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history,” Gingrich said. “I would like to be the most successful paycheck president in American history.”
Less than two weeks after Obama led a successful raid on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Gingrich said Obama “does not have a clue” about foreign affairs.
Gingrich said the United States should reevaluate its diplomatic ties with Pakistan since bin Laden was found to have been living there for several years.
“I was trying to figure out what the word ally meant,” he said. “I know what the word sucker meant. How stupid do you think we are?”
Earlier Friday, Gingrich visited supporters at Fincher’s Barbecue here before riding a tour bus to the convention hall for his speech. Gingrich was greeted in Macon by scores of activists wearing “Newt 2012” stickers.
But when Gingrich’s name was mentioned in the convention hall earlier in the day, activists gave him only lukewarm applause compared with the loud cheers for fellow Georgian Herman Cain, a businessman and likely presidential hopeful.
Tom Perdue, a veteran GOP operative in the state, predicted Georgians would support Gingrich “mostly because it’s a poor cow who doesn’t kick her own calf. It’s an old farm saying. Even if the calf has a deformity, the mama cow keeps care of her calf.”
Next week, Gingrich will campaign across Iowa as he tries to build support in the state home to the first-in-the-nation caucuses.
© 2011 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gingrich-promises-to-slash-taxes-calls-obama-food-stamp-president/2011/05/13/AF9Q602G_story.html [with comments]
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Because There Are No Racists...
Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 14 2011, 12:01 PM ET
The GOP's house intellectual opens up [ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43031884/ns/politics-decision_2012/ ]:
Republican Newt Gingrich told a Georgia audience on Friday evening that the 2012 presidential election is the most consequential since the 1860 race that elected Abraham Lincoln to the White House and was soon followed by the Civil War.
Addressing the Georgia Republican Party's convention, Gingrich said the nation is at a crossroads and that the re-election of Democratic President Barack Obama would lead to four more years of "radical left-wing values" that would drive the nation to ruin.
Gingrich also blasted Obama as "the most successful food stamp president in modern American history."
Clearly an attempt to tag Obama as an effete, latte-sipping liberal. Or foreign. Or Clintonesque. Or something. Anything but race.
Move along...
More: Some context for the Gingrich quote, from The Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gingrich-promises-to-slash-taxes-calls-obama-food-stamp-president/2011/05/13/AF9Q602G_story.html (above)]:
Gingrich sought to lay blame for the recession, as well as the economic and social upheaval in Detroit, on Obama and his policies. "President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history," Gingrich said. "I would like to be the most successful paycheck president in American history."
This changes nothing for me. But I want to make sure everyone sees the quote in context. I don't want you to think I'm twisting Gingrich's words.
Copyright © 2011 by The Atlantic Monthly Group (emphasis in original)
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/because-there-are-no-racists/238890/ [with comments]
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Newt Gingrich takes aim at the tea-party crowd
By Jim Galloway
8:38 pm May 13, 2011
Macon — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, speaking to an audience filled with those who helped propel him to power decades ago, on Friday struck a tea-party pose aimed at a new generation of Georgia Republicans.
In a 35-minute speech largely devoted to Declaration of Independence, Gingrich promised a campaign that emphasized a smaller federal government, an emphasis on 10th amendment empowerment of state governments and a society that can go about its business “without being dictated to by politicians, bureaucrats and judges.”
“This will be the most consequential election since 1860,” Gingrich said – an interesting statement when made anywhere in the South. A Gingrich aide later said no ideological parallel was intended – that he was only addressing the enormity of the result.
The sold-out crowd was enthusiastic but never raucous. Neither of Gingrich’s two primary allies in Georgia – Gov. Nathan Deal and former Gov. Sonny Perdue – were in attendance.
Many in the crowd knew Gingrich first as a congressional back-bencher, then as the architect of the 1994 takeover and his election as leader of the U.S. House. But Gingrich advised them to get past that, too.
“I’m not sure we can elect Speaker Gingrich. But I know we can elect Newt,” he said.
In a nod to the awkward back story of his political career, which includes three marriages and two divorces, Gingrich called for a campaign conducted on a “principal, policy basis – not personality.”
He gave no mention to his GOP rivals, but focused on a September 2012 confrontation with an incumbent Barack Obama. “President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in history. I want to be the most successful paycheck president in history,” Gingrich said.
The GOP presidential candidate said his economic platform would be built around four points:
– “The correct capital gains tax rate is zero.”
– “The correct corporate tax rate is the Irish tax rate of 12.5 percent.”
– “We need to go to 100 percent expensing for all new equipment.” A move that he said would please farmers. Some of whom may live in Iowa.
– Elimination of the “death,” or estate tax.
Gingrich was critical of Obama’s handling of Libya, but made only one point about a world without Osama bin Laden.
Gingrich called for a “real exploration of our relationship with Pakistan,” where bin Laden hid himself for at least six years.
The former U.S. House speaker pointed to the billions of dollars received by Pakistan in U.S. aid. After the slaying of bin Laden, Gingrich said, “I was trying to figure out what the word ‘ally’ meant. I knew what the word ‘sucker’ meant.”
© 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2011/05/13/newt-gingrich-takes-aim-at-the-tea-party-crowd/ [with comments]
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Newt Gingrich’s Pinocchio-laden debut
(Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
By Glenn Kessler
Posted at 10:00 AM ET, 05/13/2011
“The reason that I came here tonight to announce that I am a candidate for president of the United States is because I think if you apply the right principles to achieve the right results, that we can win the future together.”
--Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), May 11, 2011
Newton Leroy “Newt” Gingrich is back!
The former House speaker threw his hat in the presidential ring Wednesday with an appearance on Fox’s “Sean Hannity Show.” It promises to be an interesting trip.
The Fact Checker covered Gingrich during his speakership, which lasted a tumultuous four years in the late 1990s, and by turns found him to be fascinating and frustrating. Gingrich speaks with such conviction and certainty, but every assertion he made needed to be checked and rechecked. Sometimes you couldn’t quite be sure if he was just making it up on the spot.
Take his appearance on Hannity’s show, for instance. In speaking about how the “elite media” never give conservative politicians a break, Gingrich related the following anecdote about Ronald Reagan’s acting career: “Ronald Reagan didn't get up every morning and say, gee, I wish they like me. Ronald Reagan had been a movie actor. Only had one movie, ‘King's Row,’ get a good review from the New York Times. Only one. But he had a pretty good career because it turned out that middle class, Middle America liked his movies.”
That’s a great story, based on such a specific fact. But, as you will see below, it turns out to be completely untrue. The New York Times panned [ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9903E2DE143BE33BBC4B53DFB4668389659EDE ] “King’s Row”—but liked other Ronald Reagan movies.
There were so many such gems in Gingrich’s appearance that we will pick out the choice comments that cry out for fact-checking. We reached out to two of his spokesmen with questions and requests for documentation, but did not get a response. (A failure to respond to fact-checking queries is a sign of a presidential campaign still getting its act together.)
“To balance the budget as we did for four years when I was speaker, to reform entitlements, as we did with welfare, when I was speaker, and that's a great future…. It took us three years [to balance the budget]. We then balanced it for four consecutive years. We paid off $405 billion in debt. Nobody thought we could do it when it started. We did it.”
Listening to Gingrich, you would be forgiven for forgetting there was a president (Bill Clinton) in office at the time the nation starting running a budget surplus.
Gingrich is right to assert that he and the Republican Congress prodded Clinton to move to the right and embrace such conservative notions as a balanced budget and welfare reform. (Clinton vetoed two versions of welfare reform before signing the bill, prompting some key staff members to resign in protest.)
But the budget was balanced in part because of a gusher of tax revenues from Clinton’s 1993 deficit reduction package, which raised taxes on the wealthy and which Gingrich vehemently opposed. The budget was also balanced because the Democratic White House and Republican Congress were in absolute legislative stalemate, so neither side could implement grand plans to increase spending or cut taxes. (Look what happened with tax cuts—and the surplus—when a Republican president followed Clinton.)
Gingrich is wrong to claim there were four years of balanced budgets when he was speaker. He left in January 1999; the budget ran a surplus in the fiscal years of 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. So he can at best claim two years.
As for reducing the debt by $405 billion, our math from looking at the White House historical tables [ http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/pdf/hist.pdf ] shows that the publicly-held debt fell $450 billion during the surplus years. (Look on page 134) But much of this was when Gingrich was no longer speaker. Even during the surplus years, however, the gross debt (including bonds issued to Social Security and Medicare) rose by $400 billion. Gross debt is the figure that conservative tend to use.
During Gingrich’s time as speaker, the public debt was essentially flat and the gross debt rose $700 billion.
“The American people by 79 to 16 believe we want American energy. He [Obama] thinks we want Brazilian energy.”
We don’t know what poll Gingrich is citing, but it’s a suspicious number. (Who would be against “American energy”?) There have been some polls [ http://cei.org/op-eds-and-articles/post-spill-its-still-drill-baby-drill ] showing Americans still favor offshore drilling, even in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill, with 79 percent of Louisiana residents remain in favor of drilling.
Meanwhile, Gingrich has advocated dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency, but polls show strong opposition to that idea. A recent poll [ http://www.ases.org/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Dismantle-the-EPA-.html&Itemid=27 ] found that, by a margin of 77 to 18, Americans believe Congress would let the EPA do its job.
The dig at Obama refers to a comment the president made earlier this year while in Brazil: “We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.”
Obama’s remarks drew criticism from Republicans, who have also railed against a proposed $2 billion loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank to Brazilian oil company Petrobras. The issue is too complicated to delve into detail in this column but Forbes has done a good job debunking [ http://blogs.forbes.com/kenrapoza/2011/03/21/how-the-wall-street-journal-set-off-a-firestorm-against-petrobras/ ] a number of claims about this deal.
“Reagan had been a movie actor. Only had one movie, ‘King's Row’, get a good review from the New York Times. Only one.”
Thanks to the fact the New York Times has posted many of the old Bosley Crowther reviews on the Internet, this is easily debunked.
We checked 10 of Reagan’s best-known movies. As mentioned, “King’s Row” (1942) was panned by The Times, as were “Working Her Way Through College” (1952), “Hellcats of the Navy” (1957), “The Killers” (1964) and “Storm Warning” (1951).
“Bedtime for Bonzo [ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9503E2D71E3EEF3BBC4E53DFB266838A649EDE ]” (1951) got a lukewarm review.
But these movies got positive notices, even raves: “Knute Rockne: All American [ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2610227/posts ]” (1940), “Hasty Heart [ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9907E3DC1F30E03BBC4951DFB766838B649EDE ]” (1949), “The Winning Team [ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9400E1DD1F3DE03ABC4951DFB0668389649EDE ]” (1952), and “Brother Rat [ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B06E6D8163BEE3ABC4D53DFB7678383629EDE ]” (1938).
One wonders how and why Gingrich came to believe this fairy tale. Too good to check?
“I've had time to look and see what has happened in the executive branch, which I spent over six years with President Bush and his team.”
This is an example of resume-polishing. The casual listener might think Gingrich had actually been part of the executive branch during the Bush administration. That’s not the case.
He was an informal adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and his name turns up in some [ http://library.rumsfeld.com/doclib/sp/1891/2003-07-29%20to%20Larry%20Di%20Rita%20re%20Gingrich%20Paper-%20Memo%20Attach ] of the papers Rumsfeld has posted on the web. “One other individual who might be helpful is the Honorable Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who has been working with me on transformation,” Rumsfeld wrote [ http://library.rumsfeld.com/doclib/sp/2745/2002-03-19%20to%20Gen%20Kernan%20re%20Millennium%20Challenge.pdf#search=%22gingrich ] to an aide.
Meanwhile, when Gingrich was thinking of running for president in 2008, he turned highly critical [ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,277533,00.html ] of the Bush administration.
“We then did something that has never been studied but was actually amazing. In 1996, we were told that Medicare would go broke in very a short time. I personally chaired the Medicare task force. Brought together the Ways and Means Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee and did it with AARP and not fighting us, with a liberal Democrat in the White House running for reelection. And we passed a major reform of Medicare with the president signing it.”
Gingrich appears to be mixing up two stories here. The Balanced Budget Act in 1997 did indeed include some Medicare savings, though it might be a stretch to call it “major Medicare reform.” In fact, when budget revenues unexpectedly went up, Congress in 1999 actually pared back some of the cuts after complaints from providers.
But Gingrich may be adding in details from another, secret effort to reform Medicare that fell apart after the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted and Clinton was impeached. This is how it is described in Steven Gillon’s “The Pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Rivalry That Defined a Generation [ http://www.amazon.com/Pact-Clinton-Gingrich-Rivalry-Generation/dp/0195322789 ].” (2008):
The plan was for Clinton to make his bold initiative for reforming Social Security and Medicare the centerpiece of his State of the Union address in January 1998. Gingrich would follow the president's speech by making positive comments about the initiative. He would then ask Archer's Ways and Means Committee to make specific recommendations. Both sides would try to keep the issue off the table in the 1998 congressional elections, before pushing it through a lame-duck Congress in December. The president asked the American Association of Retired Persons and the Concord Coalition, an influential lobbying group that advocated fiscal discipline, to organize four regional forums to discuss the issue. The national ''dialogue'' would conclude with a White House conference on Social Security in December 1998—the same time that Congress would be voting on a reform proposal.
Sounds kind of similar, doesn’t it?
Attorney General “Eric Holder should never have been approved by the U.S. Senate. He volunteered to write papers for terrorists. He volunteered to try to help terrorists get out of jail. His record out of office, between the Clinton years and today, was such that it should have disqualified him from serving as attorney general.”
Gingrich has waged a jihad against Holder for some time, repeatedly calling for his firing. We are not quite sure what Gingrich is talking about but in the first instance—“volunteered to write papers”--we think he is referring to a legal argument that Holder supported in the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was accused of plotting a dirty bomb attack.
The Bush administration designated Padilla as an “enemy combatant” and held him in a military prison, but he demanded to be charged in federal court because he was a U.S. citizen. Holder did not write the brief [ http://www.jenner.com/files/tbl_s69NewsDocumentOrder/FileUpload500/240/AmiciCuriae_janetReno.pdf ], which was filed in 2004 by lawyers at Arnold & Porter, but he added his name in support of it, along with former Attorney General Janet Reno and other prominent lawyers.
In Gingrich’s wording, he makes Holder’s actions appear nefarious. But in the end the Bush administration abandoned its argument and charged Padilla in federal court. He was convicted in 2008. On the right, however, the case still rankles [ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/266657/holder-vs-holder-andrew-c-mccarthy ].
We are also puzzling over the assertion that Holder “volunteered to try to help get terrorists out of jail.” Holder’s former law firm, Covington & Burling, represented 17 Yemenis held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and some have speculated [ http://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/18/culture-of-corruption-holder-terrorists-covington-burling/ ] that as a senior partner Holder would have say in the types of pro bono cases the firm handled. But he does not appear to have been personally involved in those cases.
As an attorney, Holder also represented Chiquita Brands in a case in which it admitted paying illegal militias (one of which was designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization) to defend its plantations between 1987 and 1999.
We would welcome clarification from Gingrich about what he is talking about, but based on available evidence, he is grossly twisting the facts about Holder’s actions in private practice.
The Pinocchio Test
This is quite a collection of misstatements, bloopers and exaggerations. Some are admittedly small-fry, but others are serious, such as the claims about Holder. We would say this is an inauspicious debut, worthy of our maximum award.
Welcome back in the game, Mr. Speaker.
Four Pinocchios - Whoppers
[About our rating scale: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/09/about_the_fact_checker.html#pinocchio ]
Newt Gingrich interview with Sean Hannity - Part 1:
[video embedded]
Newt Gingrich interview with Sean Hannity - Part 2:
[video embedded]
© 2011 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/newt-gingrichs-pinnochio-laden-debut/2011/05/12/AFf8qb1G_blog.html [with comments]
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in addition to (items linked in) the post to which this is a reply and preceding and (other) following, see also (items linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=54104761 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=61657365 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=62951569 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63076461 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63099868 (and preceding and following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63135166 and preceding and following
Newt Gingrich and his wife, Callista, at a movie screening last month. The two began dating while Mr. Gingrich was married.
Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
Callista and Newt Gingrich at a screening in Washington last month of "A City Upon a Hill," a movie in which they both appear.
Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: May 9, 2011
WASHINGTON — Callista Bisek’s friends from rural Wisconsin were stunned when, well over a decade ago, she confided that she was secretly dating an older, married man: Newt Gingrich.
Still in her 20s when they met, Ms. Bisek had been raised in a town of 1,500, the only child of a meat packer and a secretary. A churchgoing Roman Catholic, she had attended a Lutheran college where she practiced piano five hours a day. “Is this the wisest course for you to be taking?” Karen Olson, her best friend, recalled asking.
Today, Ms. Bisek is Mrs. Gingrich, married for 11 years, but perhaps best remembered for the six-year affair that contributed to her husband’s political downfall. His critics cast Mr. Gingrich, the former House speaker, as a hypocrite who sought to impeach a president over infidelity while engaging in it himself with Ms. Bisek, who was a Congressional aide.
Yet in a curious tale of Washington reinvention, the onetime congressman from Georgia is counting on the third Mrs. Gingrich for his political redemption.
As he prepares for a Republican presidential primary run — he said Monday that he would formally declare his intentions on Wednesday — Mr. Gingrich is presenting himself as a family man who has embraced Catholicism and found God, with his wife as a kind of character witness. Depending on one’s point of view, she is a reminder of his complicated past, or his secret political weapon.
Barely a sentence goes by without Mr. Gingrich uttering the words “Callista and I.” They are constantly together — at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, at conservative political conferences, at book signings and screenings of their documentary films. She is the voice on his audio books; her face is all over his 2012 Web site [ http://www.newt.org/ ], where visitors can read “A Note from Newt & Callista.”
At Villanova University [ http://www1.villanova.edu/ ] on a recent Thursday night, Mrs. Gingrich warmed up the audience for a showing of the couple’s movie about Pope John Paul II by signing books and DVDs in her left-handed curlicue. But when asked whether she is ready for the scrutiny a campaign would bring, she smiled tightly and grew silent.
Mr. Gingrich answered for her. “Seems to be,” he said, with uncharacteristic tentativeness. “We’ve talked about it for a year. It’s difficult.”
Mr. Gingrich is well aware that social conservatives are skeptical of him because he did not emphasize their issues in Congress, but also because of his two divorces and admission of infidelity. He has been meeting with religious leaders around the country to address their concerns.
Deal Hudson, president of Catholic Advocate [ http://catholicadvocate.com/ ], a conservative group, said that if Mrs. Gingrich “wants to be first lady,” she would probably have to discuss their relationship as well.
So far she has not. Both Gingriches declined to be interviewed for this article.
“They would say they wished they had met in a different time in their lives under different circumstances,” said Jackie Cottrell, a friend who worked with Mrs. Gingrich as a staff member on Capitol Hill. “But it’s important to note that they brought their family together in a loving way.”
Mr. Gingrich took up golf because his wife plays; she has adopted his political agenda. In 2009, after years of attending Mass to hear her sing in her church choir, he converted to Catholicism. And when Mrs. Gingrich, who plays French horn with the city band in Fairfax, Va., appears in concerts, her husband totes her black instrument case. “I’m a band groupie and a choir groupie,” Mr. Gingrich likes to say.
How eager she is for him to run after he has been out of office since 1999 is a matter of discussion among their friends. Vin Weber, the former Republican congressman from Minnesota, said he is “quite convinced” Mrs. Gingrich is happily on board. “They’ve been out of public life,” Mr. Weber said, “and I think she misses the excitement of that.”
Others say she wants her husband to run because he wants to. She has hired Ms. Olson as her chief of staff; she is also writing a children’s book, due out in September — just in time for her to go on a book tour and reintroduce herself to the public as the primary race heats up.
“I think she has stepped out of her comfort zone more to promote the movies and the books and has found that she enjoyed that,” said Ms. Cottrell. “That’s been a little bit of a toe in the water.“
At 45, 22 years her husband’s junior, Mrs. Gingrich always looks perfectly composed. She favors an almost retro look — platinum hair teased and sprayed, bold-colored suits accessorized by a triple strand of pearls or eye-popping diamond jewelry. In college, friends say, she once signed up for an 8 a.m. bowling class and rolled a 200 wearing a pencil skirt.
Still, they worry aloud that her “physical presence,” in the words of Matt Gunderson, a childhood friend, makes her seem distant or stuffy. They see a woman who, caricatured as a “blond bombshell” in the press years ago, guards her public image.
“That’s a role she has had to assume,” said Tim Peter, a classmate of Mrs. Gingrich’s at Luther College [ http://www.luther.edu/ ] in Decorah, Iowa, “because that one morning you go out for the paper without your makeup on, that’s the day you wind up on the front page.”
As a young girl in Whitehall, Wis., Ms. Bisek experienced politics through the prism of community ties, not ideology. Mr. Gunderson’s elder brother, Steve, was a congressman; as high school students, Ms. Bisek and her friends knocked on doors and appeared in parades as a singing campaign troupe.
“We were ‘Glee’ before ‘Glee,’ ” the younger Mr. Gunderson said.
If she had a career dream, it was playing for an orchestra, not making headlines in Washington. Yet her high school yearbook suggests a yearning to stand out.
“Some people strive to be one of the many,” she wrote. “I strive to be one of the few.”
She worked for Representative Gunderson, a Republican, in Washington after college, eventually landing a job with the House Agriculture Committee, where she stayed until Democrats took over in 2007. Today, she runs Gingrich Productions [ http://www.gingrichproductions.com/ ], making documentaries in conjunction with Citizens United, the nonprofit group that drew national attention in a Supreme Court case last year. While Citizens United does technical production, Mrs. Gingrich, a former music major, is especially hands-on with the musical scores.
She and her husband work from adjoining offices in a building on K Street, Washington’s lobbying corridor, home to the sprawling enterprise that Gingrich aides call “Newt Inc.,” which produces books and films at a dizzying pace. Their efforts are planned around what Ms. Olson calls their “thematic — the message of what they stand for.”
Their new focus is American exceptionalism, the notion that the United States is unique and stands above other nations. Mrs. Gingrich’s children’s book is devoted to the topic; so is one by Mr. Gingrich, due out next month. It is also the theme of their newest documentary — no surprise given that many Republicans, including Mr. Gingrich, claim that President Obama rejects exceptionalism.
Mr. Gingrich will have to dismantle his busy operation for a presidential run, though aides say Gingrich Productions will survive, with his wife in charge. Looking ahead to the campaign, Gingrich intimates are already envisioning how Mrs. Gingrich, with her college ties to Iowa, might help her husband there.
The same friends who tried to talk her out of out of dating him more than a decade ago have concluded that she knew what she was doing, and are banking that voters will forgive and forget. Ms. Olson summed up their history in what might just become a campaign catchphrase.
“They’re a great couple,” she said, “that had a nontraditional start.”
Barclay Walsh contributed research.
© 2011 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/politics/10gingrich.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/politics/10gingrich.html?pagewanted=all ] [comments at http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/politics/10gingrich.html ]
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Newt Gingrich: 'I bring some scars with my life'
By Jim Gaines
Macon Telegraph
Posted on Friday, 05.13.11
MACON, Ga. — Two days after announcing his campaign for president, Newt Gingrich paused Friday afternoon at Fincher's Barbecue on Macon's Houston Avenue, on his way to the Georgia Republican Convention across town.
Now 67, he represented Atlanta's northern suburbs in Congress for 20 years and served as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1998, resigning his seat after big midterm election losses.
Friday, he greeted several dozen staffers, convention delegates and supporters at the barbecue restaurant's original location, posing for pictures outside and talking to counter workers before sitting down for an interview.
Gingrich's presidential campaign announcement included talk of giving federal powers back to the states. While saying segregation was "horrible" and had to be ended, that's now "40 or 50 years behind us ... and I think that these states can take care of themselves," he said.
"In the modern era since desegregation and the federal voting rights act, the citizens of each state are empowered by going to vote to protect themselves," Gingrich said.
Gingrich is on his third marriage, this one to a former House staffer he had an affair with during his second; and in 1997 the House took the unprecedented move of reprimanding him, a sitting Speaker, in an ethics case. He avoided a full hearing with a negotiated settlement but agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty. That's now all behind him, he said.
"There's no question I've said to people that I made mistakes in my life, that I had to go to God for forgiveness and that I had to seek reconciliation," Gingrich said. "People have to decide whether at this stage in my life I have learned enough and matured enough, and I'm somebody they can trust.
"There's no question I bring some scars with my life, but most people who get to be my age have some scars at something."
Several of Gingrich's high-profile associates, including pastors Jim Garlow and Lou Engle and historical revisionist David Barton, espouse "Seven Mountains" theology (—) a belief that government, business, media, education and other "spheres of influence" are dominated by Satan's minions, and that Christians are obligated to seize control of all areas to herald the second coming of Jesus.
Gingrich says he doesn't have any knowledge of the idea.
"I have no idea what you're talking about it, and I can't comment on it because I've never heard of it before," he said. "Neither Garlow nor Barton nor anybody else has ever mentioned it to me."
On the federal government's current financial woes, the sluggish economic recovery and controversial health care legislation, Gingrich takes a harsher line even than current Republican officeholders.
Congressional Republicans are currently calling for cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, but Gingrich wants it cut even further. He said the United States has the world's highest corporate tax rate, though a recent Pricewaterhouse Coopers study said the U.S. corporate tax rate is the sixth-highest in the world.
Referring to the recent announcement that General Electric managed to pay no corporate income tax last year despite posting multibillion-dollar profits, Gingrich said cutting taxes further would bring in more because companies will then "fire the lawyers and pay the government."
"(President Barack) Obama believes 'I can make life so painful for you that I'll make you stay here and suffer,' " he said. "I believe that we ought to make life so pleasant for you that you voluntarily want to be here. So you're going to have a 'party of pain' led by Obama, and a 'party of happiness and pleasure' led by Gingrich, and I think you can lure more companies with lower taxes."
Regarding his take on the federal government's looming need to raise its legal debt limit, he said, "I would only raise the debt ceiling if I got a dollar of spending cut for every dollar of debt ceiling increase. So if the president wants $2 trillion in increase, he needs to cut $2 trillion out of the debt."
Cutting more than half of the $3.8 trillion federal budget would eliminate all discretionary spending, including defense, and still leave more than $400 billion to be taken from mandatory spending such as Social Security and Medicare.
And on medical matters, Gingrich said, much of the problem of health care costs is due to freeloaders.
"A very substantial number of people who are uninsured earn over $75,000 a year, and they're making a calculated gamble that they'd rather buy a second home or buy a better car or go on a nicer vacation, and then if they really get in trouble, you're going to take care of them," he said.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, four-fifths of the 46.3 million Americans who didn't have health insurance in 2008 came from households with less than $75,000 annual income.
Nonpayment for service is unacceptable at restaurants and car dealers, so patients should be held to the same standard, perhaps through posting a bond or pledging property for medical care, Gingrich said.
Regarding global warming, Gingrich acknowledged the reality of it, but said he didn't know if it's being driven by human greenhouse gas emission.
"The planet used to be dramatically warmer when we had dinosaurs and no people. To the best of my knowledge the dinosaurs weren't driving cars," he said.
Scientists' contention is not that Earth is now warmer than ever, but that the current rate of temperature increase is unique.
But Gingrich dismissed the vast majority of scientific opinion, on the grounds that so many scientists support it.
"I distinguish 'science' from 'political science.' and when I see 6,000 scientists sign something, that's called political science. That's not science," he said.
Gingrich referred to a petition from the Union of Concerned Scientists which actually urged the Bush administration to keep politics out of science policy.
Regardless, he said, "it is inconceivable that any threat from global warming is big enough to justify destroying the American economy."
Copyright 2011 Miami Herald Media Co.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/13/2216312/newt-gingrich-i-bring-some-scars.html [ http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/13/v-fullstory/2216312/newt-gingrich-i-bring-some-scars.html ] [with comments]
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Gingrich promises to slash taxes, calls Obama ‘food stamp president’
By Philip Rucker, Published: May 13[, 2011]
MACON, Ga. — Newt Gingrich opened his presidential campaign here Friday night by introducing a jobs plan [ http://www.newt.org/news/gingrich-outline-bold-job-creation-plan-georgia-republican-convention ] that would slash taxes and repeal an array of bureaucratic regulations.
Returning to the state where he launched his political career more than three decades ago, the Republican former House speaker presented himself in sharp contrast to President Obama, whom he derided as a “food stamp president.” Gingrich sounded a hopeful tone as he pledged that a Gingrich administration would reaffirm American exceptionalism.
“My theme is going to be: Together we can win the future. The right policies lead to the right results. And I’m going to argue that President Obama will lose the future because the wrong policies lead to the wrong results,” Gingrich said in a dinner speech before hundreds of activists at the Georgia Republican Party’s annual convention. He also signed his official statement of candidacy at the event.
Gingrich, who has written more than a dozen non-fiction books — he plugged his latest, “To Save America [ http://www.amazon.com/Save-America-Stopping-Secular-Socialist-Machine/dp/1596985968 ],” on bookshelves now — opened his 30-minute address with a long rumination on American history. He predicted that the 2012 presidential election will be the most consequential since Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860.
“We’re at the crossroads,” Gingrich said, repeatedly sniffling from allergies. “Down one road is a European centralized bureaucratic socialist welfare system in which politicians and bureaucrats define the future. Down the other road is a proud, solid, reaffirmation of American exceptionalism.”
Central to that promise, he said, would be eliminating the capital gains and estate taxes and reducing the corporate income tax from 35 percent to 12.5 percent. Those tax cuts, as well as freezing the personal income tax rates at their current Bush-era levels, is critical to creating jobs and spurring innovation, he said.
“The most important social welfare program in America is a job,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich sought to lay blame for the recession, as well as the economic and social upheaval in Detroit, on Obama and his policies. “President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history,” Gingrich said. “I would like to be the most successful paycheck president in American history.”
Less than two weeks after Obama led a successful raid on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Gingrich said Obama “does not have a clue” about foreign affairs.
Gingrich said the United States should reevaluate its diplomatic ties with Pakistan since bin Laden was found to have been living there for several years.
“I was trying to figure out what the word ally meant,” he said. “I know what the word sucker meant. How stupid do you think we are?”
Earlier Friday, Gingrich visited supporters at Fincher’s Barbecue here before riding a tour bus to the convention hall for his speech. Gingrich was greeted in Macon by scores of activists wearing “Newt 2012” stickers.
But when Gingrich’s name was mentioned in the convention hall earlier in the day, activists gave him only lukewarm applause compared with the loud cheers for fellow Georgian Herman Cain, a businessman and likely presidential hopeful.
Tom Perdue, a veteran GOP operative in the state, predicted Georgians would support Gingrich “mostly because it’s a poor cow who doesn’t kick her own calf. It’s an old farm saying. Even if the calf has a deformity, the mama cow keeps care of her calf.”
Next week, Gingrich will campaign across Iowa as he tries to build support in the state home to the first-in-the-nation caucuses.
© 2011 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gingrich-promises-to-slash-taxes-calls-obama-food-stamp-president/2011/05/13/AF9Q602G_story.html [with comments]
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Because There Are No Racists...
Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 14 2011, 12:01 PM ET
The GOP's house intellectual opens up [ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43031884/ns/politics-decision_2012/ ]:
Republican Newt Gingrich told a Georgia audience on Friday evening that the 2012 presidential election is the most consequential since the 1860 race that elected Abraham Lincoln to the White House and was soon followed by the Civil War.
Addressing the Georgia Republican Party's convention, Gingrich said the nation is at a crossroads and that the re-election of Democratic President Barack Obama would lead to four more years of "radical left-wing values" that would drive the nation to ruin.
Gingrich also blasted Obama as "the most successful food stamp president in modern American history."
Clearly an attempt to tag Obama as an effete, latte-sipping liberal. Or foreign. Or Clintonesque. Or something. Anything but race.
Move along...
More: Some context for the Gingrich quote, from The Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gingrich-promises-to-slash-taxes-calls-obama-food-stamp-president/2011/05/13/AF9Q602G_story.html (above)]:
Gingrich sought to lay blame for the recession, as well as the economic and social upheaval in Detroit, on Obama and his policies. "President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history," Gingrich said. "I would like to be the most successful paycheck president in American history."
This changes nothing for me. But I want to make sure everyone sees the quote in context. I don't want you to think I'm twisting Gingrich's words.
Copyright © 2011 by The Atlantic Monthly Group (emphasis in original)
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/because-there-are-no-racists/238890/ [with comments]
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Newt Gingrich takes aim at the tea-party crowd
By Jim Galloway
8:38 pm May 13, 2011
Macon — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, speaking to an audience filled with those who helped propel him to power decades ago, on Friday struck a tea-party pose aimed at a new generation of Georgia Republicans.
In a 35-minute speech largely devoted to Declaration of Independence, Gingrich promised a campaign that emphasized a smaller federal government, an emphasis on 10th amendment empowerment of state governments and a society that can go about its business “without being dictated to by politicians, bureaucrats and judges.”
“This will be the most consequential election since 1860,” Gingrich said – an interesting statement when made anywhere in the South. A Gingrich aide later said no ideological parallel was intended – that he was only addressing the enormity of the result.
The sold-out crowd was enthusiastic but never raucous. Neither of Gingrich’s two primary allies in Georgia – Gov. Nathan Deal and former Gov. Sonny Perdue – were in attendance.
Many in the crowd knew Gingrich first as a congressional back-bencher, then as the architect of the 1994 takeover and his election as leader of the U.S. House. But Gingrich advised them to get past that, too.
“I’m not sure we can elect Speaker Gingrich. But I know we can elect Newt,” he said.
In a nod to the awkward back story of his political career, which includes three marriages and two divorces, Gingrich called for a campaign conducted on a “principal, policy basis – not personality.”
He gave no mention to his GOP rivals, but focused on a September 2012 confrontation with an incumbent Barack Obama. “President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in history. I want to be the most successful paycheck president in history,” Gingrich said.
The GOP presidential candidate said his economic platform would be built around four points:
– “The correct capital gains tax rate is zero.”
– “The correct corporate tax rate is the Irish tax rate of 12.5 percent.”
– “We need to go to 100 percent expensing for all new equipment.” A move that he said would please farmers. Some of whom may live in Iowa.
– Elimination of the “death,” or estate tax.
Gingrich was critical of Obama’s handling of Libya, but made only one point about a world without Osama bin Laden.
Gingrich called for a “real exploration of our relationship with Pakistan,” where bin Laden hid himself for at least six years.
The former U.S. House speaker pointed to the billions of dollars received by Pakistan in U.S. aid. After the slaying of bin Laden, Gingrich said, “I was trying to figure out what the word ‘ally’ meant. I knew what the word ‘sucker’ meant.”
© 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2011/05/13/newt-gingrich-takes-aim-at-the-tea-party-crowd/ [with comments]
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Newt Gingrich’s Pinocchio-laden debut
(Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
By Glenn Kessler
Posted at 10:00 AM ET, 05/13/2011
“The reason that I came here tonight to announce that I am a candidate for president of the United States is because I think if you apply the right principles to achieve the right results, that we can win the future together.”
--Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), May 11, 2011
Newton Leroy “Newt” Gingrich is back!
The former House speaker threw his hat in the presidential ring Wednesday with an appearance on Fox’s “Sean Hannity Show.” It promises to be an interesting trip.
The Fact Checker covered Gingrich during his speakership, which lasted a tumultuous four years in the late 1990s, and by turns found him to be fascinating and frustrating. Gingrich speaks with such conviction and certainty, but every assertion he made needed to be checked and rechecked. Sometimes you couldn’t quite be sure if he was just making it up on the spot.
Take his appearance on Hannity’s show, for instance. In speaking about how the “elite media” never give conservative politicians a break, Gingrich related the following anecdote about Ronald Reagan’s acting career: “Ronald Reagan didn't get up every morning and say, gee, I wish they like me. Ronald Reagan had been a movie actor. Only had one movie, ‘King's Row,’ get a good review from the New York Times. Only one. But he had a pretty good career because it turned out that middle class, Middle America liked his movies.”
That’s a great story, based on such a specific fact. But, as you will see below, it turns out to be completely untrue. The New York Times panned [ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9903E2DE143BE33BBC4B53DFB4668389659EDE ] “King’s Row”—but liked other Ronald Reagan movies.
There were so many such gems in Gingrich’s appearance that we will pick out the choice comments that cry out for fact-checking. We reached out to two of his spokesmen with questions and requests for documentation, but did not get a response. (A failure to respond to fact-checking queries is a sign of a presidential campaign still getting its act together.)
“To balance the budget as we did for four years when I was speaker, to reform entitlements, as we did with welfare, when I was speaker, and that's a great future…. It took us three years [to balance the budget]. We then balanced it for four consecutive years. We paid off $405 billion in debt. Nobody thought we could do it when it started. We did it.”
Listening to Gingrich, you would be forgiven for forgetting there was a president (Bill Clinton) in office at the time the nation starting running a budget surplus.
Gingrich is right to assert that he and the Republican Congress prodded Clinton to move to the right and embrace such conservative notions as a balanced budget and welfare reform. (Clinton vetoed two versions of welfare reform before signing the bill, prompting some key staff members to resign in protest.)
But the budget was balanced in part because of a gusher of tax revenues from Clinton’s 1993 deficit reduction package, which raised taxes on the wealthy and which Gingrich vehemently opposed. The budget was also balanced because the Democratic White House and Republican Congress were in absolute legislative stalemate, so neither side could implement grand plans to increase spending or cut taxes. (Look what happened with tax cuts—and the surplus—when a Republican president followed Clinton.)
Gingrich is wrong to claim there were four years of balanced budgets when he was speaker. He left in January 1999; the budget ran a surplus in the fiscal years of 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. So he can at best claim two years.
As for reducing the debt by $405 billion, our math from looking at the White House historical tables [ http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/pdf/hist.pdf ] shows that the publicly-held debt fell $450 billion during the surplus years. (Look on page 134) But much of this was when Gingrich was no longer speaker. Even during the surplus years, however, the gross debt (including bonds issued to Social Security and Medicare) rose by $400 billion. Gross debt is the figure that conservative tend to use.
During Gingrich’s time as speaker, the public debt was essentially flat and the gross debt rose $700 billion.
“The American people by 79 to 16 believe we want American energy. He [Obama] thinks we want Brazilian energy.”
We don’t know what poll Gingrich is citing, but it’s a suspicious number. (Who would be against “American energy”?) There have been some polls [ http://cei.org/op-eds-and-articles/post-spill-its-still-drill-baby-drill ] showing Americans still favor offshore drilling, even in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill, with 79 percent of Louisiana residents remain in favor of drilling.
Meanwhile, Gingrich has advocated dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency, but polls show strong opposition to that idea. A recent poll [ http://www.ases.org/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Dismantle-the-EPA-.html&Itemid=27 ] found that, by a margin of 77 to 18, Americans believe Congress would let the EPA do its job.
The dig at Obama refers to a comment the president made earlier this year while in Brazil: “We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.”
Obama’s remarks drew criticism from Republicans, who have also railed against a proposed $2 billion loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank to Brazilian oil company Petrobras. The issue is too complicated to delve into detail in this column but Forbes has done a good job debunking [ http://blogs.forbes.com/kenrapoza/2011/03/21/how-the-wall-street-journal-set-off-a-firestorm-against-petrobras/ ] a number of claims about this deal.
“Reagan had been a movie actor. Only had one movie, ‘King's Row’, get a good review from the New York Times. Only one.”
Thanks to the fact the New York Times has posted many of the old Bosley Crowther reviews on the Internet, this is easily debunked.
We checked 10 of Reagan’s best-known movies. As mentioned, “King’s Row” (1942) was panned by The Times, as were “Working Her Way Through College” (1952), “Hellcats of the Navy” (1957), “The Killers” (1964) and “Storm Warning” (1951).
“Bedtime for Bonzo [ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9503E2D71E3EEF3BBC4E53DFB266838A649EDE ]” (1951) got a lukewarm review.
But these movies got positive notices, even raves: “Knute Rockne: All American [ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2610227/posts ]” (1940), “Hasty Heart [ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9907E3DC1F30E03BBC4951DFB766838B649EDE ]” (1949), “The Winning Team [ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9400E1DD1F3DE03ABC4951DFB0668389649EDE ]” (1952), and “Brother Rat [ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B06E6D8163BEE3ABC4D53DFB7678383629EDE ]” (1938).
One wonders how and why Gingrich came to believe this fairy tale. Too good to check?
“I've had time to look and see what has happened in the executive branch, which I spent over six years with President Bush and his team.”
This is an example of resume-polishing. The casual listener might think Gingrich had actually been part of the executive branch during the Bush administration. That’s not the case.
He was an informal adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and his name turns up in some [ http://library.rumsfeld.com/doclib/sp/1891/2003-07-29%20to%20Larry%20Di%20Rita%20re%20Gingrich%20Paper-%20Memo%20Attach ] of the papers Rumsfeld has posted on the web. “One other individual who might be helpful is the Honorable Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who has been working with me on transformation,” Rumsfeld wrote [ http://library.rumsfeld.com/doclib/sp/2745/2002-03-19%20to%20Gen%20Kernan%20re%20Millennium%20Challenge.pdf#search=%22gingrich ] to an aide.
Meanwhile, when Gingrich was thinking of running for president in 2008, he turned highly critical [ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,277533,00.html ] of the Bush administration.
“We then did something that has never been studied but was actually amazing. In 1996, we were told that Medicare would go broke in very a short time. I personally chaired the Medicare task force. Brought together the Ways and Means Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee and did it with AARP and not fighting us, with a liberal Democrat in the White House running for reelection. And we passed a major reform of Medicare with the president signing it.”
Gingrich appears to be mixing up two stories here. The Balanced Budget Act in 1997 did indeed include some Medicare savings, though it might be a stretch to call it “major Medicare reform.” In fact, when budget revenues unexpectedly went up, Congress in 1999 actually pared back some of the cuts after complaints from providers.
But Gingrich may be adding in details from another, secret effort to reform Medicare that fell apart after the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted and Clinton was impeached. This is how it is described in Steven Gillon’s “The Pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Rivalry That Defined a Generation [ http://www.amazon.com/Pact-Clinton-Gingrich-Rivalry-Generation/dp/0195322789 ].” (2008):
The plan was for Clinton to make his bold initiative for reforming Social Security and Medicare the centerpiece of his State of the Union address in January 1998. Gingrich would follow the president's speech by making positive comments about the initiative. He would then ask Archer's Ways and Means Committee to make specific recommendations. Both sides would try to keep the issue off the table in the 1998 congressional elections, before pushing it through a lame-duck Congress in December. The president asked the American Association of Retired Persons and the Concord Coalition, an influential lobbying group that advocated fiscal discipline, to organize four regional forums to discuss the issue. The national ''dialogue'' would conclude with a White House conference on Social Security in December 1998—the same time that Congress would be voting on a reform proposal.
Sounds kind of similar, doesn’t it?
Attorney General “Eric Holder should never have been approved by the U.S. Senate. He volunteered to write papers for terrorists. He volunteered to try to help terrorists get out of jail. His record out of office, between the Clinton years and today, was such that it should have disqualified him from serving as attorney general.”
Gingrich has waged a jihad against Holder for some time, repeatedly calling for his firing. We are not quite sure what Gingrich is talking about but in the first instance—“volunteered to write papers”--we think he is referring to a legal argument that Holder supported in the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was accused of plotting a dirty bomb attack.
The Bush administration designated Padilla as an “enemy combatant” and held him in a military prison, but he demanded to be charged in federal court because he was a U.S. citizen. Holder did not write the brief [ http://www.jenner.com/files/tbl_s69NewsDocumentOrder/FileUpload500/240/AmiciCuriae_janetReno.pdf ], which was filed in 2004 by lawyers at Arnold & Porter, but he added his name in support of it, along with former Attorney General Janet Reno and other prominent lawyers.
In Gingrich’s wording, he makes Holder’s actions appear nefarious. But in the end the Bush administration abandoned its argument and charged Padilla in federal court. He was convicted in 2008. On the right, however, the case still rankles [ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/266657/holder-vs-holder-andrew-c-mccarthy ].
We are also puzzling over the assertion that Holder “volunteered to try to help get terrorists out of jail.” Holder’s former law firm, Covington & Burling, represented 17 Yemenis held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and some have speculated [ http://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/18/culture-of-corruption-holder-terrorists-covington-burling/ ] that as a senior partner Holder would have say in the types of pro bono cases the firm handled. But he does not appear to have been personally involved in those cases.
As an attorney, Holder also represented Chiquita Brands in a case in which it admitted paying illegal militias (one of which was designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization) to defend its plantations between 1987 and 1999.
We would welcome clarification from Gingrich about what he is talking about, but based on available evidence, he is grossly twisting the facts about Holder’s actions in private practice.
The Pinocchio Test
This is quite a collection of misstatements, bloopers and exaggerations. Some are admittedly small-fry, but others are serious, such as the claims about Holder. We would say this is an inauspicious debut, worthy of our maximum award.
Welcome back in the game, Mr. Speaker.
Four Pinocchios - Whoppers
[About our rating scale: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/09/about_the_fact_checker.html#pinocchio ]
Newt Gingrich interview with Sean Hannity - Part 1:
[video embedded]
Newt Gingrich interview with Sean Hannity - Part 2:
[video embedded]
© 2011 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/newt-gingrichs-pinnochio-laden-debut/2011/05/12/AFf8qb1G_blog.html [with comments]
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in addition to (items linked in) the post to which this is a reply and preceding and (other) following, see also (items linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=54104761 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=61657365 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=62951569 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63076461 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63099868 (and preceding and following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63135166 and preceding and following
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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