Tag: Newt Gingrich
If Callista Becomes First Lady, What Will You Tell Your Kids?
During the impeachment-driven midterm elections in 1998, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich commissioned a series of ads designed to try to reverse growing public support for his nemesis, Pres. Bill Clinton, whom Gingrich and congressional Republicans were trying to hound out of office because he had been caught lying during a lawsuit deposition about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
One of the ads, titled “What Did you Tell Your Kids,” specifically targeted suburban women who might be wavering in their support for the GOP by referencing the ickier parts of the scandal — the “not sex” sex, stained blue dress, etc. — without mentioning them outright. The ads don’t appear to be available online today — 1998 was well before the YouTube era — but writing for Slate.com in October 1998, William Saletan, supplied this review:
It features one young suburban mother talking to another. “What did you tell your kids?” asks the first woman. “I didn’t know what to say,” answers the second. The first woman replies: “It’s wrong. For seven months he lied to us.” Like the finger-wagging scene in One Person, this ad reminds viewers not of what Clinton did to [Paula] Jones or [Ken] Starr but of what he did to us. It doesn’t say his lies were criminal; it merely says they were wrong. This isn’t an abstract matter of law, the ad suggests. It’s about your kids.
This ad, and the theme of explaining a politician’s sexual misdeeds to children, has renewed salience now, in light of Gingrich’s surprise victory in the South Carolina primary over the weekend. As a caller into C-SPAN’s phone-in show, “Washington Journal”, put it in a rhetorical question to women Republican voters last week: Have you considered the fact that if you elect Newt Gingrich president, his first lady will be this homewrecker who broke up his marriage?
What will you tell your kids, indeed.
Carville: ‘Republicans Are in the Midst of a World Class Disaster’
James Carville, or as I think of him, Mr. Mary Matalin, penned an open letter to Republicans and it’s a doozy. Carville looks back at the lowest high points of the race so far and concludes it’s a “world-class disaster.” Since right now that particular description brings to mind captain-less ships unable to float, it’s not a bad analogy.
But Carville is just getting warmed up.
Carville on Newt: ‘You guys have to deal with a $1.6 million Freddie Mac consultant who has been married three times’
…most people thought it was kind of a watermark when your Tea Party gang booed the golden rule. You know, I’ve spent some time in Philly and they have always thought they were pretty radical because they actually booed Santa Claus and Willie Mays. Philly, I’ve got news for you — you ain’t got nothing on South Carolina Republicans. They just aren’t buying any of that do-unto-others garbage.
It’s hard to tell from the clip if the audience was booing Jesus or Ron Paul or peace. No matter, they were clearly not interested in anything but kicking Iranian butt.
But Paul, as we know, is not a front-runner. For the two of them, Carville saves his best shots, starting with Mitt Romney.
In New Interview Set to Air before S.C. Primary, Newt Gingrich’s Second Wife Says Newt Wanted an ‘Open Relationship’
Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife revealed for the first time today that the GOP presidential hopeful had asked for an open marriage so that he could have a wife and a mistress.
Marianne Gingrich, his second wife, said she wanted American voters to know his true moral character. There have been fears that her explosive television interview could end her former partner’s campaign for the White House.
Regarding the claims, Marianne told ABC: “And I just stared at him and he said, ‘Callista doesn’t care what I do.’ He wanted an open marriage and I refused.”
As of early Thursday morning, ABC News had not announced when it will air the interview, but it will presumably be Thursday or Friday night, on the eve of the South Carolina primary on Saturday.
Marianne Gingrich’s last interview was with Esquire, for an article published in August 2010. What was apparent then was that she has neither forgiven nor forgotten. She has obviously timed this interview so that it will air just before a potentially make or break primary in a state that is hotbed of Republican “values voters.”
In the 2010 interview, Marianne Gingrich confirmed one of the more paradoxical rumors about Newt’s marital history.
Gingrich Goes Negative on Mitt – And Reveals His Own Shortcomings
Yes, this video put together by the Newt Gingrich team does show a greatest hits list of Romney bloopers (although there are more that didn’t make this cut, such as when he pretended to be goosed by waitresses in a diner, or when he claimed in front of unemployed people to understand their plight because he is unemployed too, or more, more, more). But the most revealing line in it, to me, is the premise underlying it: that Romney will never win in a debate with the presumably much smarter and better spoken Obama — and that this is what matters most.
I think Gingrich honestly believes that governing is all about what words you choose and the mental abstractions you amuse yourself and those listening in awe with. There is no sound more lovely to Gingrich than that of his own voice, but a president needs traits other than pontification and bloviation. He, or one day, she, needs judgment and sanity and a willingness to be, as we so often think of Obama when the subject of Congress comes up, the adult in the room. Million dollar credit lines at Tiffany and trophy wives and egos that don’t fit through the door equip someone to be president no better than does constantly saying stupid things in public.
So yeah, Mitt’s an idiot. But Gingrich doesn’t even get why he’s no upgrade.
Gingrich Farewell Speech to Iowa: I Will Destroy Mitt Romney
Newt Gingrich may be the nastiest politician to hold office in the modern era. Assuming he can muster the discipline and focus (and money) to follow through on the threats against Mitt Romney he made after losing the Iowa caucuses last night, the Republican presidential race is about to go to a very dark place.
In part, he said:
