Except for the former GOP House Speaker. He’s not small …
Found the Gingrich quote I was looking for — from NPR’s Morning Edition this morning:
CORLEY: Before addressing a fundraiser, Newt Gingrich quickly came to the support of Dennis Hastert. He said the speaker had taken the right steps in calling for the FBI to investigate the Mark Foley scandal. But Gingrich also suggested that Democrats, and the media, had a hand in the controversy, since Foley’s text messages to an underage page, were made public just weeks before the November election. Gingrich said he’s not sure what impact the scandal will have to retain a majority in Congress:
GINGRICH: What if it does turn out that, in fact, this entire thing was rigged by liberals and Democrats, that this entire thing was done deliberately and methodically, and in fact, it is the equivalent of a large dirty trick.
CORLEY: Gingrich says if Mark Foley had not resigned, he’s certain Speaker Hastert would have worked to expel him.
Except that there’s plenty of reports about Republicans having reported this, past and present, and Hastert has already accepted “responsibility” for the whole mess. Couching the whole scandal in terms of it being an “October Surprise / Dirty Trick” — i.e., that it’s not true — is … well … just damned goofy.
This article — which has the above quote, and others — talks at length about this particular (and particularly reprehensible) talking point among the GOP.
- All indications are that the story was broken by GOP House folks. There’s no credible evidence that the Democrats (or ABC) knew about this before the story broke, and every indication that the Republican House leadership did. Trying to claim the former to take away from the latter is ludicrous.
- But even if it were so — so what. If the Dems knew that the GOP was trying to sweep this under the rug, and held onto it for an October surprise, it would be a rather reprehensible trick on their part — but it wouldn’t in the least exonerate the GOP House leadership, let alone Foley.
Rrg.
There is no sign that the Dems did know and timed it for the election. But if they had, good for them.
The GoP has established and maintained for years the fact that they consider the Democrats to be the Enemy. The main enemy. Not Al Qaida and not “Terrorism” — the Democratic Party of the United States is their primary enemy. They always play hardball, always go negative and have sufficient party discipline that reaching across the aisle is rare and punished.
Rather like Westerners dealing with jihadis, the Dems need to always keep that reality in mind. They don’t necessarily need to reciprocate but they will rarely encounter a Republican pol willing to act like a uniter. And if they do find one, that man or woman will probably be replaced by a neocon goon next election cycle.
If I remember right, this GoP attitude and strategy were largely the work of Newt, embraced wholesale by the party.
Ah, Newt, such a fine point man for the GoP:
“Gingrich obtained his first divorce in 1981, after forcing his wife, who had helped put him through graduate school, to haggle over the terms while in the hospital, as she recovered from uterine cancer surgery. In 1999, he was disgraced again, having been caught in an affair with a 33-year-old congressional aide while spearheading the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.” — Steve Benen, Washington Monthly