Gingrich Lies Low on Clinton Scandal, at Least in Public nytimes.com
At a news conference on education legislation Thursday morning, the first question put to House Speaker Newt Gingrich involved the White House scandal.
Gingrich snapped at the questioner. "We in the Congress are actually focusing on substance," he asserted. "Yesterday, I spent less than 45 minutes total on the topic that interests you most."
That is the pose the speaker has tried to assume all week: the impartial observer waiting for his lawyers on the Judiciary Committee to sort out the facts and set the policy on how to deal with President Clinton's transgressions, while he deals with the people's business.
But behind the scenes, according to other Republican lawmakers, not a step is taken or a decision made without the approval of Gingrich, possibly the most partisan and certainly the most dominant speaker in the last generation.
"Look, the speaker is the speaker," said the chairman of an important committee who insisted on anonymity. "He calls all the shots. If tapes are going to be released, it's his decision. If hearings are going to be held, he will decide. He consults with us. He listens to us. But he makes the calls."
At a closed meeting of House Republicans on Wednesday, Rep. Nancy Johnson of Connecticut expressed concern about the release of sexually explicit portions of the videotape of the president's grand jury testimony.
Gingrich -- angry, according to some who were there, or merely firm, according to others -- rose to his feet and declared that the House had already voted to make the material public and that Republicans were not going to back down in the face of complaints from the White House and Democrats in Congress. Gingrich called the president a "misogynist," a person who hates women.
So Bill, you write:
What is your problem with Newt? Hasn't he been fair on this issue? (Specifics please, no unsubstantiated bashing.)
Does that constitute substantiation? Of course, the story of Newt's serving his first wife divorce papers in the hospital is fairly well substantiated, and some might consider that a bit misogynistic. Or maybe it was just mean. His hounding of Jim Wright on the $50k book deal too. And there was nothing, nothing! wrong with Newt taking a $6? million from Rupert Murdoch when he got the speakership. Did you note he quietly paid his own $300k fine to clear the decks? So he could be seen as the impartial and judicious judge on these matters?
When reporters persisted in asking questions about impeachment and videotaped testimony, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio pushed the speaker from the microphone so that staff members could usher him away.
"It is very important to us that Newt lie low," said a Republican congressman from the Southeast. This congressman explained that Gingrich often came across to the public as strident and even mean and that if he allowed himself to stand at the forefront of the Clinton inquiry, the president and his allies would benefit by making him a lightning rod for their criticism of Congress.
Gingrich is under conflicting pressures. The firebrands among House Republicans want to go after Clinton with all the artillery in the House's arsenal. But Gingrich's political advisers are telling him, according to a former staff assistant, that if he has any ambition to become president himself, this is his opportunity to dispel his reputation as a hothead and adopt the mien of a statesman.
One Republican congressman suggested half seriously that the most advantageous step Gingrich could take would be to save Clinton's presidency. "It might not be best for the country," the congressman said, "but they would have a cripple as president going into the next election, and Newt would go down as a profile in courage."
Yes, Newt is nonpartisan and fair. Just like you and all the Ken Starr fans around here. Me and the Democrats, we're the only partisan ones.
For instance, speaking extemporaneously at a news conference Wednesday about a proposed constitutional amendment allowing prayer in public schools, he declared, "In this city today, we have the specter of a scandal large enough that it should be driving all of us to prayer."
Enough to drive me to prayer, that's for sure, even as a non-believer. When the alleged believers like the "Christian Nation" crowd are so selective in their Bible reading, I muchly fear them taking over. Remember "Let he who is without sin?" I'm sure you'd be happy to have them dictating the proper hypocritical morality for all of us, though. Nonpartisan and objective as they are. It all looks like politics to me, but unlike Newt and you, I'm a preacher of partisan hatred.
Cheers, Dan.
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