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The Return of Newt
Gingrich
By
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
Wednesday before
last (May 11, 2011),
Newt Gingrich, the 58th Speaker of the United States
Congress (1995-1999), but who is better known for
championing a historic opposition against
President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, and, perhaps,
also, for leading a team of conservatives to win back
the control of the House for his Republican Party in
1994, formally joined the already crowded 2012
Republican presidential primary run. He announced his
candidacy
via a video message released Wednesday evening.
“I believe we can
return America to hope and opportunity, to full
employment, to real security, to an American energy
programme, to a balanced budget. . . . We owe it to our
children, our grandchildren, our country, and frankly to
ourselves. So let’s get together, look reality in the
face, tell the truth, make the tough choices and get the
job done,” Gingrich said in the video.
Almost twelve years
after he resigned as Speaker and his membership of
Congress that Friday afternoon early in November 1999
following the dismal performance of his party in midterm
elections which was largely blamed on him, Mr. Gingrich
has kept himself away from electoral contests. He has,
however, maintained an appreciable visibility by writing
books, making speeches, producing films, launching
vicious (but often uncoordinated) attacks on Democrats
through his numerous television appearances and
influencing policy formulations for the conservatives.
In the spring of
2008, for instance, he deployed the combined resources
of the internet, cheerleaders and a petition to Congress
backed with over a million signatures to push forward
his advocacy for increased domestic oil production. His
slogan: “Drill here. Drill now. Pay less!” helped
popularize his campaign for increased domestic drilling,
although, this has now come to haunt his presidential
run given a 2008 pro-environment ad he did with
Nancy Pelosi for
Al Gore’s NGO, Alliance for Climate Protection,
calling for clean energy solutions and appearing to urge
the lawmakers (by shooting the ad outside the Capitol)
to deploy serious efforts to contain global warming, a
theme that received further mention in the 2007 book he
co-authored,
A Contract with the Earth.
But last Wednesday,
Gingrich returned with a lot of flourish, media
excitement and overwhelming public scrutiny. There is no
doubt that among the Republican presidential hopefuls,
he, perhaps, enjoys the widest name-recognition in both
the party and across the United States. A prolific
author, historian and accomplished professor, Gingrich
received his PhD in Modern European History from Tulane
University, New Orleans, in 1971, and has taught history
at both the University of West Georgia and Kennesaw
State University. His book,
Real Change, spent
quite a number of weeks on the New York Times
Best Seller Series.
Although the high
point of Gingrich’s presidential run is his new-found
belief in family values evidenced by the stability,
love, and faithfulness he claims have distinguished his
third marriage to Callista Bisek these past eleven
years, (also, his 2007 book,
Rediscovering God in
America, was hailed by Liberty University as a
sign of his resolve to call “America back to our
Christian heritage”), Gingrich will need more than
suspicious claims and books to convince voters that he
is still believable and that the very serious moral
problems which sank him very low in the estimation of
several Americans over a decade ago should now be
confined to the dustbin of history. And his attempts so
far to address these yawning concerns have been, sadly,
less than impressive. An outright contrition and sincere
apology would have been the best way to start, but for
his unduly bloated ego.
The huge irony of
what Gingrich’s critics refer to as his life of
hypocrisy is that while he led one of the most
aggressive political battles in America to bring
President Bill Clinton down for engaging in an
extra-marital affair and lying about it, he was himself,
during that same period, deeply involved in a serious
adulterous relationship!
Mr. Gingrich is now
in his third marriage. But while married to Wife No1, he
cheated on her with would-be Wife No2, and while Wife
No1 was still in hospital after a very excruciating
surgery for uterine cancer, he reportedly went to her
sick bed to present her with divorce papers. After
successfully dumping Wife No1, he married Wife No 2, and
for six years while still married to Wife No2 (and
fighting Bill Clinton for marital infidelity and unduly
overheating America in the process), he was having
affairs with Miss.
Callista Bisek, a Congressional aide, who is now
Wife No3. In 1999, Wife No2 was diagnosed with Multiple
Sclerosis (MS), and soon after, he divorced her and
married Ms. Bisek with whom he is now out there
emphasizing family values and prefixing all his comments
with “Callista and I” to prove the love and loyalty
flourishing between them.
Last March, Chris
Wallace pointedly asked Gingrich during an appearance on
“Fox News On Sunday”: “Did you ever think to yourself
[when he was championing Clinton’s impeachment because
of marital unfaithfulness]: ‘I’m living in a really
glass house. Maybe I shouldn’t be throwing stones?’ ”
To this Gingrich
answered: “No, I thought to myself if I cannot do what I
have to do as a public leader, I would have resigned.
Now, look, I think you have to look at whether or not
people have to be perfect in order to be leaders. I
don’t think I’m perfect. I admitted I had problems. I
admitted that I sought forgiveness.”
I am sure you are
still trying to grasp what exactly he intended to convey
by that answer, although he also added that he fought
Clinton for lying under oath, and not necessarily the
act of infidelity he had committed. Questioned again on
the same matter on Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN)
that same March, Gingrich made his now famous claim that
he cheated on his wives because of his exceptional
passion for America!
Hear him: “There’s
no question at times of my life, partially driven by how
passionately I felt about this country, that I worked
far too hard and things happened in my life that were
not appropriate.” This response, which attracted
countless screaming headlines across America and
derisory comments from multitudes of readers, makes one
wonder whether it was indeed Gingrich, the media-crowned
great thinker that actually uttered it.
This, no doubt,
will continue to haunt him throughout this race, and may
even crash his presidential ambition, because it speaks
volumes about the capacity of Gingrich to be truthful
and plain, not just on these unflattering personal
issues. Now, as US president, Mr. Gingrich would be
expected to be more passionate about America and work
even harder to improve her lot; so, does it then mean
that Americans will yet witness more confessions and
half-hearted apologies?
If Gingrich wins
the GOP primaries,
President Barack Obama would find him a very
formidable opponent on debates about policies and
dynamics of government business. There is no doubt about
that. Great emphasis is often made in the American media
about Gingrich’s intellectual capacity and vast
knowledge, and he, too, appears to have allowed such
undue stress on his abilities to exaggerate his own
rating of himself. And so, his critics tend to identify
a tinge of arrogance in him and an impression that his
audience, sometimes, is merely some secondary school
kids he is taking some pains to educate, even when he is
not saying anything particularly profound or unfamiliar.
Yet, his life is
riddled with memorable history of great gaffes and
contradictions. But he is probably always too blinded by
his exaggerated view of himself to realize when he has
made a really embarrassing mistake, and to find the
right words to make amends. Till now, he is yet to see
clearly the enormity of the contradictions betrayed by
his popular ad for Al Gore’s climate change group and
his equally popular advocacy for aggressive domestic
drilling of oil (which is widely and regularly blamed
for climate change), which won him the acclaim of fellow
conservatives.
Marc Morano, former
aide to Sen. James Inhofe (R.Okla.), for instance, is
demanding an apology from Mr. Gingrich for the ad he did
with Pelosi. “It's almost like he can't admit he made a
mistake. He needs to say it was a brain fart, at the
very least,” he told FoxNews.com recently. Predicting
that this would certainly hurt Gingrich in the
primaries, Morano regretted that "Newt Gingrich is
arrogant enough to believe that he doesn't have to play
by the same rules as everyone else. I can't think of
any Republican who hasn't addressed this in a way that
is satisfactory to the Republican base."
But Gingrich’s
aides are saying their principal is yet to see any
contradictions in his stance. "Newt does not apologize
for trying to persuade his ideological opponents that
his conservative solutions are the best solutions," his
spokesman, Rick Tyler, said recently. "His attempt to
work with Speaker Pelosi is another testament to
Gingrich's willingness to debate his conservative
solutions with liberals, in this case Pelosi. As it
turned out, Pelosi . . . and Gingrich still disagree
about how to best protect the environment. But Gingrich
will never shy away from debating those on the left on
issues like the environment, education, and healthcare
that they think they own."
How this answer
resolves the big question about Gingrich’s ideological
inconsistency is, perhaps, clear to only him and his
aides. In the
2008 ad Gingrich was shown sitting very close to
Pelosi outside the U.S. Capitol. Then their dialogue
went this way:
"We don't always see eye to eye, do
we Newt?" said Pelosi.
"No, but we do agree our country
must take action to address climate change," replied
Gingrich.
And yet during an
appearance on Fox News after his formal declaration of
interest in the presidential race, Gingrich restated
emphatically: “I would reverse Obama's entire pattern of
being anti-American energy. I would start by saying
drill here. Drill now. Pay less."
That’s vintage
Newt! Never afraid to change his positions suddenly
while insisting that he is still where he was. Only
recently, he publicly opposed President Obama’s decision
to intervene in Libya, but before Americans could fully
swallow that, Gingrich was out there again fully
supporting it. Is he very impulsive, always eager to
intervene before fully grasping the issues involved? How
this casts him as a dependable commander-in-chief
American’s would like to elect is what would certainly
engage many Republicans in the days ahead.
Over the years,
Gingrich’s intolerance of opposing views has become
legendary, and this has made him a highly divisive
character. There is also a strong feeling that he unduly
personalized his opposition to Clinton, and anyone that
reads
Hillary Clinton’s book, Living History, will
wonder whether Gingrich is capable of the slightest hint
of the mercy he said recently he had sought from God for
his ugly personal history.
A popular incident
in the Clinton-Gingrich saga comes to mind. After the
American delegation returned from the November 6, 1995,
burial of
Yitzhak Rabin, Newt Gingrich complained that Clinton
had snubbed him on Air Force One during the long flight
back from Jerusalem. He also did not like the fact that
he had to “get off the plane by the back ramp,” with
some other guests at Andrews Air Force Base. “You wonder
where is their sense of manners? Where is their sense of
courtesy?” he queried during a breakfast meeting with
reporters on November 15, 1995. This was the time a
showdown over issues on the budget between the
presidency and the Gingrich-led House had led to a
government shutdown. Now Gingrich was probably showing
that his grievances went beyond the issues of
disagreement over the budget, prompting the New York
Daily News to publish the next day a cartoon of him
in diapers as “Cry-Cry-Baby.” But the White House,
however, put a lie to Gingrich’s claims by releasing a
picture of himself, Clinton and
Bob Dole sitting in a conference room on Air Force
One and seriously engaged in a deliberation. Newt had
misfired again.
As Gingrich seeks
to become America’s president, he should expect his
views to be defeated by superior ones, and discourage
his personal character traits from always interfering in
his handling of public issues. His ability to convince
the Republicans that he is able to do this will largely
determine the outcome of his run. He needs to work hard
to improve his acceptability, even though, there seems
to be a growing impression that with his entry into the
race, the GOP seems to have been faced with a fait
accompli. Their choices are limited. Some
commentators are already saying: Gingrich may not be the
best the Republicans can offer for now, but if not him,
then who?
Again, given his
decision to give his wife a central role in his campaign
as a character witness to his new image as a good family
man and one who has lately “found” God, it must occur to
him that Americans are also eager to hear his wife’s
side of the story of his moral problems in which she
played a prominent role, if she hopes to be a credible
witness and eventually the First Lady. Indeed, her
continued refusal to speak on those issues might
severely discredit her testimonies, hurt her husband’s
ambition and inspire serious doubts about the
genuineness of the “New Gingrich” they are seeking to
sell to Americans.
And given the image
he came away with after his epic political battle with
Clinton, Gingrich must hasten to demonstrate
convincingly that he is not merely some dry-as-dust,
take-no-prisoner politician, ready to devour and
swallow. He should not forget in a hurry that it was the
disenchantment of Americans over the vicious nature of
his very bitter opposition against Clinton that led to
his downfall a decade ago, and severely polarized the
conservatives. And given that he has not won any
election outside his district in Georgia (not even a
state-wide vote), he should not underestimate the
current challenge but hasten to realize that his bid for
the presidency would surely require a more mature
approach, greater respect and accommodation of others
and their views, extra humility and plainness.
19 May 2011
Links to
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
www.Ugowrite.Blogspot.Com /
scruples2006@yahoo.com
posted 22 May 2011
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