I heard at least one pundit say that this more than anything cost Gingrich his job.
To flog my favorite old quote on the subject, that seems to be what Newt came to understand himself.
Taking his share of the blame for his party's losses, the Georgia Republican said he had misjudged how the public would recoil from the Clinton scandal and how the scandal would drown out other Republican themes. "I mean I totally underestimated the degree to which people would just get sick of 24-hour-a-day talk television and talk radio and then the degree to which this whole scandal became just sort of disgusting by sheer repetition," Gingrich said. (from nytimes.com ).
Compare and contrast:
Yes, you are a partisan hater. Gingrich is running a professional non partisan inquiry, standing on the floor of the house shutting up Congressmen who want to rant about Clinton's misdeeds, and you produce an article with a bunch of unsubstantiated Gingrich bashing.
Tee hee, I will diplomatically leave out the attribution and tag line on that one, this time. I can't resist a bit from the "unsubstantiated Gingrich bashing." of the time, though. (dateline 9/18)
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. (http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/091898clinton-gingrich.html)
Alas poor Newt, we knew him well.
Cheers, Dan. |
