lang memo gingrich bak
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gopacmemo
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NEWSWEEK 9 25
ABC has pulled Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show off the air after comments the comedian made about the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, and following pressure from the network's affiliates as well as the nation's TV regulator.
"Jimmy Kimmel Live will be preempted indefinitely," a spokesperson for the Disney-owned broadcaster said in a statement shared with various news outlets on Wednesday.
The move has drawn praise from allies and supporters of President Donald Trump, but sparked condemnation from Democratic lawmakers and free expression advocates.
The context of Kimmel's cancellation has led to allegations that business interests—particularly those concerning a delicate merger approval process involving the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and ABC affiliate Nexstar—may have played a role.
Taken together, some have interpreted this as a form of indirect censorship of the political Left by the Trump administration. Similar concerns were raised following the recent cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
"First Colbert, now Kimmel. Last-minute settlements, secret side deals, multi-billion dollar mergers pending Donald Trump's approval," said Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren. "Trump silencing free speech stifles our democracy."
Newsweek has contacted ABC, Nexstar and the FCC via email for comment.
Why It Matters
In the wake of Kirk's killing, the Trump administration has taken a series of actions critics believe undermine longstanding commitments to free speech in the U.S.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned foreign nationals celebrating his death online to "prepare to be deported," Vice President JD Vance has encouraged people to report those who do so to their employers, and Attorney General Pam Bondi has come under fire for urging a crackdown on "hate speech"—a move many believe clashes with First Amendment protections.
Read moreJimmy Kimmel
Russian State TV Floats Theory Trump Planned Charlie Kirk's Killing
The administration of President Joe Biden faced similar criticism and accusations of censorship over the pressure it placed on social media companies to remove accounts and posts relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election that were considered misinformation. In June 2024, the Supreme Court rejected cases claiming that these amounted to an unconstitutional violation of free speech.
Why Was Jimmy Kimmel Taken Off the Air?
During his Monday night monologue, Kimmel made remarks about Kirk's death and its aftermath, suggesting that Trump supporters were attempting to capitalize on the murder and distance themselves from the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson.
"We hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it," Kimmel said.
Kimmel also mocked President Trump's seemingly uninvolved response to a reporter's question on Kirk's death.
In an interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson on Wednesday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump ally and appointee, called Kimmel's comments "some of the sickest conduct possible," and said that there could be "a path forward for suspension over this."
"This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney," he added. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."
Carr also urged other media companies and local broadcasters to "push back" and stop airing the show.
:{FCC Chairman Brendan Carr testifies before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government at the Rayburn House Office Building on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Following Carr's interview, Nexstar Media Group, the owner of several ABC affiliate stations, announced that it would stop airing the show "for the foreseeable future" over Kimmel's remarks.
"Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets," the statement read.
This sequence of events has raised questions about the extent to which this decision was guided by financial motivations rather than genuine outrage over Kimmel's comments.
Nexstar, one of the biggest station owners in the U.S, is currently attempting to complete a merger with fellow TV giant Tegna. The nature of the merger—valued at $6.2 billion—requires the approval of the FCC, and for it to loosen longstanding ownership regulations. These include federal laws barring a single entity from owning TV stations that together reach over 39 percent of American households, and guidelines on the total number of stations that can be owned in a single market.
Sinclair, ABC's largest affiliate group, similarly objected to Kimmel's remarks, and said it would be pulling the late-night show from its stations "indefinitely." Sinclair praised FCC Chairman Carr's comments, and asked Kimmel to issue an apology to Kirk's family, and to make a "meaningful personal donation" to both them and Turning Point USA, the conservative outreach group founded by Kirk.
"Regardless of ABC's plans for the future of the program, Sinclair intends not to return Jimmy Kimmel Live! to our air until we are confident that appropriate steps have been taken to uphold the standards expected of a national broadcast platform," Sinclair said.
According to CNN, Sinclair—like Nexstar—has matters awaiting approval from the Trump administration.
Newsweekhas contacted Sinclair via email for comment.
After ABC followed suit, Johnson boasted that it was his podcast with Carr that led to Kimmel's show being taken off the air.
"It's called soft power. The Left uses it all the time," he wrote on X. "Thanks to President Trump, the Right has learned how to wield power as well."
FCC Chairman Carr, meanwhile, responded to CNN's request for a reaction with a GIF taken from The Office,in which the characters Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute are pumping their hands in the air in celebration.
What People Are Saying
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, in an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday evening, said that broadcast licenses carry "a unique obligation to operate in the public interest."
Commenting on the decisions by Nexstar and Sinclair to pull the show, Carr added: "I'm very glad to see that American broadcasters are standing up to serve the interests of our community."
President Donald Trump reacted to the news on Truth Social, writing:"Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that's possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT."
Andrew Alford, President of Nexstar's broadcasting division, said: "Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue."
Anna Gomez, the only Democratic commissioner at the FCC, posted to X: "An inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship and control. This Administration is increasingly using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression."
The Writers Guild of America (WGA), a Hollywood labor union, said in a statement:"Shame on those in government who forget this founding truth. As for our employers, our words have made you rich. Silencing us impoverishes the whole world. The WGA stands with Jimmy Kimmel and his writers."
California Governor Gavin Newsom posted to X: "Corrupt, despicable, & spineless behavior. A coordinated effort to control the media is happening before our eyes & it needs to be called out."
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren posted to X:"First Colbert, now Kimmel. Last-minute settlements, secret side deals, multi-billion dollar mergers pending Donald Trump's approval. Trump silencing free speech stifles our democracy. It sure looks like giant media companies are enabling his authoritarianism."
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reacted: "The government pressured ABC—and ABC caved. The timing of ABC's decision, on the heels of the FCC chairman's pledge to the network to "do this the easy way or the hard way," tells the whole story. Another media outlet withered under government pressure, ensuring that the administration will continue to extort and exact retribution on broadcasters and publishers who criticize it."
What Happens Next?
Sinclair said that its ABC stations will air a tribute to this Friday, during Jimmy Kimmel Live's usual time slot.
---
see RACISM, MISOGYNY, COASTAL ELITE
see plantation, NOTE GINGRICH DEVIL TERMS POLAR
https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-says-democratic-party-coalition-includes-resentful-government-addicted
KIRK (HOST): And so that gives me hope. The ordinary man. The muscular class. Our movement long term is stronger than the Democrats. The Democrats, they are atemporary coalition between permanent, resentful, government addicted minorities and WHITE? people that want government benefits, Xanax and chardonnay wine moms, and resentful college educated white, liberal women who complain about everything withsingle women, and oligarchs. WORD SALAD? That's the Democrat Party.
Republicans are a multi-racial, small business, parents party, entrepreneurs, Hispanics, Blacks, all across the board. The Republican Party is a healthier party. Not left versus right, but top versus bottom. And that might not, that might not manifest itself this election. I'm just going to be honest. No guarantee. But if the Republican Party keeps this pace up as artificial intelligence starts to displace millions of jobs, as the technocrats try to redesign society, the Democrat coalition is going to shrink and shrink. All they have left is fringe social issues of trans zealots and as we say frequently the Aspen ski lift women who care so much about abortion that's all they vote on. I think it's a Potemkin village. I think it's a house of cards. I think it's an unsustainable political coalition.
10 24 enemy within sick puppies evil
format broke, see bak
it would be fun to have widget that flagged and assigned % to using lang memo
==
(( note gingrich gop memo, parrot bannon
:{
}:
term was sorta fading for WHILE? 3 23 common w/o"cultural " prefix , dropped when/why?
cpac once has legit policy presented?
https://www.alternet.org/**2022/08**/cpac-speakers/
According to a report from Rolling Stone, the speeches thus far at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas have been larded with "dark" threats of coming violence as the speakers brushed aside any discussion about the Jan 6 Capitol riot.
With Donald Trump --who instigated the Capitol insurrection -- taking the stage on Saturday, Tim Dickinson wrote that in many cases the speeches, "...menaced America with what seemed to be thinly veiled calls for violence."
Case in point, he notes, was a speech given by recently convicted former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon who proclaimed to the crowd, "We are at war."
"Repeating the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump,Bannoninsisted that Joe Biden is an 'illegitimate imposter.' Calling on Republicans to send 'shock troops' to Washington, Bannon promised the crowd they had an opportunity to 'shatter the Democratic party as a national political institution'." he wrote. "He alleged that the party has been overrun by 'radical, cultural Marxists' and 'groomers' who 'want to destroy the Republic.' Bannon insisted the GOP must pursue absolute victory over 'power-mad and lawless' Democrats, asserting: 'There can be no half measures anymore'."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) doubled down on Bannon's heated rhetoric, exhorting the crowd with the claim, "It’s like the old Roman Colosseum where you slam on a breastplate and you grab a battle axe and you go fight the barbarians. As they say in the military world, it is a target-rich environment.”
"The rhetoric of revolution and frontline confrontation went hand-in-hand with other speakers and presenters who cast the American left as demonic, evil, and destructive — in other words the kind of enemies who deserve to be dealt with harshly," the report states before adding, "CPAC has long been a political circus, a relatively harmless sideshow. But its latest incarnation has become manifestly dangerous — more fascist than farce. It is holding up alleged perpetrators of political violence as martyrs. It is demonizing its domestic political opponents as diabolical 'enemies within.' And it is giving MAGA supporters a militaristic frame for their charge to the 'front lines' of America’s culture wars."
"In short it is playing with fire. But it’s the rest of us who may get burned." Rolling Stones' Dickinson concluded.
==
note gingrich gop memo, parrot bannon
an 7 23
from June 29-July 2, the far-right MAGA group Moms for Liberty held its annual summit in a city so Democratic that it hasn't had a Republican mayor since Bernard Samuel left office in January 1952: Philadelphia. The four-day event, held at the Philadelphia Marriott near Reading Terminal Market and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, was greeted by angry protesters who slammed the group for its campaign to exclude books by gay, lesbian and African-American authors from public schools.
Moms for Liberty (M4L) touts itself a "parental rights" group, but to critics, their real mission is to purge schools of as many Black and gay authors as possible.
In an article published by the Daily Beast on July 5, journalist Kate Briquelet offers an in-depth account of what she observed at the M4L gathering in Philly — where the speakers included Republican presidential hopefuls such as former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Far-right radio host Dennis Prager was also there.
READ MORE:'Shocking': Scholars condemn Philadelphia Museum for hosting Moms for Liberty event
Briquelet notes that while attending the summit, she didn't go out of her way to broadcast the fact that she was a Daily Beast reporter.
"My mission was to blend in and get the full experience of this ideological sisterhood, one that came with a swag bag holding a Trump air freshener, comic book on the Pilgrims' journey aboard the Mayflower, and 'awake not woke' sticker with a passage of scripture," Briquelet explains. "Throughout the summit, once people asked where I was from and whether I was with a M4L chapter, they didn't dig much further. Only one person, a fellow infiltrator, asked about my profession."
Briquelet reports that DeSantis railed against "wokeness" during his speech, while Trump promised to "liberate our children from the Marxist lunatics and pervertswho have infested our educational system" if elected president in 2024.
Trump told the crowd, "On Day 1, I will sign a new executive order tocut federal fundingfor any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children…. For any public schools that are engaged in these militant and country-destroying practices, I will instruct the DOJ to pursue them as violators of the establishment clause, of the free exercise clause, of our constitution.:...
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clearly she got the memo
convention commie apocalypse
https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/kimberly-guilfoyles-rnc-speech-was-6-minutes-of-sheer-hell-ill-never-get-back-gop-strategist/
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/kimberly-guilfoyle-2020-rnc-speech-transcript
Kimberly Guilfoyle: (00:05)
Good evening, America. I’m Kimberly Guilfoyle. I speak to you tonight as a mother, a former prosecutor, a Latina, and a proud American, and yes, a proud supporter of President Donald J. Trump. Why? He is the President who delivers for America. He built the greatest economy the world has ever known, for the strivers, the working class, and middle class. As Commander in Chief, he always puts America first. President Trump is the law and order President.
Kimberly Guilfoyle: (00:41)
Now, Presidential leadership is not guaranteed. It is a choice. Biden, Harris, and the rest of the Socialists will fundamentally change this nation. They want open borders, closed schools, dangerous amnesty, and will selfishly send your jobs back to China while they get rich. They will defund, dismantle, and destroy America’s law enforcement. When you are in trouble and need police, don’t count on the Democrats.
Kimberly Guilfoyle: (01:14)
As a first-generation American, I know how dangerous their Socialist agenda is. My mother, Mercedes, was a special education teacher from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. My father, also an immigrant, came to this nation in pursuit of the American Dream. Now, I consider it my duty to fight to protect that dream. Rioters must not be allowed to destroy our cities. Human sex drug traffickers should not be allowed to cross our border. The same Socialist policies which destroyed places like Cuba and Venezuela must not take root in our cities and our schools.
Kimberly Guilfoyle: (01:58)
If you want to see the Socialist Biden/Harris future for our country, just take a look at California. It is a place of immense wealth, immeasurable innovation, and immaculate environment, and the Democrats turned it into a land of discarded heroin needles in parks, riots in streets, and blackouts in homes. In President Trump’s America, we light things up. We don’t dim them down. We build things up, we don’t burn them down. We kneel in prayer and we stand for our flag.
Kimberly Guilfoyle: (02:42)
This election is a battle for the soul of America. Your choice is clear. Do you support the cancel culture? The cosmopolitan elites of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden, who blame America first? Do you think America is to blame? Or, do you believe in American greatness? Believe in yourself? In President Trump? In individual and personal responsibility? They want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear. They want to steal your liberty, your freedom. They want to control what you see and think and believe so that they can control how you live. They want to enslave you to the weak, dependent, liberal victim ideology to the point that you will not recognize this country or yourself.
Kimberly Guilfoyle: (03:44)
From the beginning, when President Trump spoke about making American Great Again, he was speaking about that shining city on a hill and restoring the beacon of light that once shined so bright. His promise was to put America first and he has. When President Trump cut middle class taxes, putting tens of thousands of dollars back in the pockets of working class Americans, that beacon began to flicker once again. When President Trump commanded the defeat of ISIS,took out al-Baghdadi and Soleimani and paved the way for peace in the Middle East, that beacon started to glow. When he negotiated historic trade deals with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and China, bringing back thousands of manufacturing jobs to America, that beacon shined bright once again for the world to see.
Kimberly Guilfoyle: (04:45)
America, it’s all on the line. President Trump believes in you. He emancipates and lifts you up to live your American Dream. You are capable. You are qualified. You are powerful and you have the ability to choose your life and determine your destiny. Don’t let the Democrats take you for granted. Don’t let them step on you. Don’t let them destroy your families, your lives, and your future. Don’t let them kill future generations because they told you and brainwashed you and fed you lies that you weren’t good enough.
Kimberly Guilfoyle: (05:25)
Like my parents, you can achieve your American Dream. You can be that shining example to the world. Manifest and be the change in this country that you dream, that you hope, that you believe in. Stand for an American President who is fearless, who believes in you, and who loves this country and will fight for her. President Trump is the leader who will rebuild the promise of America and ensure that every citizen can realize their American Dream. Ladies and gentlemen, leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American Dream, the best is yet to come!
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https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/gingrich-language-set-new-course/O5bgK6lY2wQ3KwEZsYTBlO/
By James Salzer jsalzer@ajc.com
Newt Gingrich described his first congressional opponent as corrupt and incompetent. His next one, according to Gingrich, supported welfare cheaters.
After being elected to Congress from Georgia in 1978, his target became the liberal welfare state. He called the Democratic leadership destructive and thugs, dubbed his opponents’ positions radical and said some Democrats were willing to kill jobs to help win an election.
Most of the italicized words appear in a 1990 training memo teaching Republican candidates how to “speak like Newt.” Newtspeak lives today — it issues regularly from Gingrich’s lectern at the GOP presidential debates — and if it’s effective now, it was downright revolutionary when Gingrich and others pioneered it in the 1980s. Many credit Gingrich — or blame him — for transforming American politics with words.
“The things that came out of Gingrich’s mouth ... we had never heard that before from either side,” said Steve Anthony, a Georgia State University lecturer who once headed the state Democratic Party. “Gingrich went so far over the top that the shock factor rendered the opposition frozen for a few years.”
Hardball rhetoric
Newtspeak has become part of the contrasting — some would say hyperbolic — language commonly heard in today’s political discourse.
Joseph Crespino, an Emory University historian, said Gingrich “has the ability to channel a certain disenchantment and to frame certain issues in a way that has a real visceral reaction to people.”
Gingrich’s debate performances in Florida last week got less-than-enthusiastic reviews. But his style was clear during the final South Carolina primary debate, which he started by getting a rousing ovation when he blamed the “destructive, vicious, negative nature” of the media for making it so hard to govern. He ended the debate calling President Obama “the most dangerous president of our lifetime” who, if re-elected, would bring a “level of radicalism” that would be “truly frightening.”
Some of those who both used and were on the receiving end of Gingrich’s language lessons say it made compromise more difficult and produced a political scene in which the center has largely disappeared.
“I am not sure we did the political system a favor,” said Rusty Paul, a former Georgia Republican Party chairman and onetime aide to U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp, who worked closely with Gingrich. “The language we have used over the past 20 years has so polarized Congress. ... The society is as divided as the political rhetoric.”
Former Georgia Democratic U.S. Rep. Buddy Darden, who served with Gingrich, said the Republican’s incendiary language has now become the norm in American politics.
“That probably has been his major contribution to the political discourse,” Darden said.
Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank a longtime liberal critic of Gingrich’s, recently told the New York Times, “He transformed American politics from one in which people presume the good will of their opponents, even as they disagreed, into one in which people treated the people with whom they disagreed as bad and immoral. He was a kind of McCarthy-ite who succeeded.”
As Crespino noted, American politics has long been a bare-knuckled affair. In 1800, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson went after each other with a viciousness that remains the standard for presidential elections. Candidates were described as criminals, tyrants, cowards and, in the case of Jefferson, an atheist and “the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”
Crespino said Gingrich’s brand of hardball rhetoric came out of an era when Republicans were a distinct minority in both Congress and the South.
“Gingrich was a Republican in a state and a region in which Republicans were trying to gain a foothold,” he said.
His first congressional opponent was longtime U.S. Rep. Jack Flynt, whom Gingrich considered part of the Democratic machine that had run Congress for decades.
Gingrich told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that year, “Congressmen are not bribed anymore. They simply have a lot of friends who are willing to help them out whenever they find it necessary.”
Gingrich went after both parties, but he narrowly lost to Flynt twice. When Flynt decided to retire, Gingrich called for a “tax revolt” and put out campaign literature accusing his Democratic opponent of joining civil rights activist and Georgia lawmaker Julian Bond to protect “welfare cheaters.”
Once elected in 1978, Gingrich spent more than a decade as a provocative back-bench bomb-thrower, assailing taxes and government bureaucracy, denouncing what he saw as “radicalism” and portraying Democrats as “counterculture” backers of the “liberal welfare state. He compared some congressmen to Hitler appeasers and accused Democratic leaders of having “Mussolini-like” egos as well as being sick, muggers and thugs trying to “destroy our country.”
At one point Gingrich called the attacks by him and his colleagues “pin pricks” against the Democratic majority. The plan was to bleed the enemy. He promoted a partisan view that Republicans could stand to gain politically from portraying the majority as a corrupt party, which he repeatedly referred to as the “Democratic machine.”
Tactics for revolution
In the early years, he used the C-SPAN network as a televised bully pulpit to sell a Conservative Opportunity Society and hammer the Democratic majority. Gingrich drew a rebuke from House Speaker Tip O’Neill when he said the Republican questioned the patriotism of some Democrats. He criticized the “value system” of opponents and called 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis “nuts.”
He took over leadership of GOPAC, which trained Republican candidates in the tactics and language of what Gingrich hoped would be a Republican revolution.
In 1990, he worked with pollster Frank Luntz to put out a memo of focus-group-tested words for GOP candidates to use.
The cover letter, signed by Gingrich, was titled “Language, a Key Mechanism of Control” and encouraged candidates to “speak like Newt.”
“This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media,” the memo said. “The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible.”
The “optimistic positive governing words” included change, moral, courage, reform, freedom, common sense. Negative, contrasting words to be used on opponents included destructive, liberal, welfare, traitors, radical, corruption.
Paul said using such language is meant to evoke an “emotional response in your political base.”
“The carefully chosen words and phrases are important because they don’t appeal as much to the intellect as to the emotion,” he said.
The Georgia congressman used the language in his own campaigns. On one randomly chosen page of a fundraising letter in 1990, he used “liberal” to describe his opponent seven times. He also used suffer, recession, record levels, negative, vicious cycle (twice), special interest, federal handouts, ever-expanding federal programs, massive tax increases, more government programs and tax-and-spend.
Change of status
The Republicans’ Contract With America, coupled with disenchantment with the Clinton administration, brought a GOP victory in the 1994 elections, and Gingrich became speaker. Many of those elected in the early ’90s became leading purveyors of Newtspeak.
State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, said he has had his differences with Gingrich over the years. But when Democrats ran the statehouse, Ehrhart was known for his biting, straight-to-the-heart critiques of Democrats that were reminiscent of Gingrich.
“Newt has always been good at the politics of the clear statement,” Ehrhart said. “Here’s where I stand, here’s where you stand.”
Gingrich and his colleagues used wedge issues — like flag burning and school prayer — to drive that contrasting message home, Ehrhart added. Georgia Republicans did the same during the 1990s and early 2000s.
“The practical reality was that in the clubish world of politics, you were coopted,” he said. “Some might consider it pugnacious or odious — but it worked. You don’t gain anything by holding hands and dancing around the maypole.”
On the other hand, once Republicans took power in Congress, Gingrich’s statements and actions sometimes proved troublesome for his own party.
Rick Santorum, who served with Gingrich and is today one of his presidential rivals, referred to that during a recent debate.
“I don’t want a nominee that I have to worry about going out and looking at the paper the next day and worrying what he is going say next,” Santorum said.
And at Thursday’s debate, during a sharp exchange on immigration, Mitt Romney accused Gingrich of using “the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has characterized American politics too long.”
But that same sort of rhetoric helped the Republicans win a congressional majority after decades in the minority, said Paul, the former state GOP chairman. In fact, he said, the victory would have been impossible without the inflammatory language and conservative message Gingrich and other “mavericks” spread to contrast their positions with those of the Democrats.
“There is no way the Republicans could have broken out of their perpetual second-class status” without it, he said.
Consistent messages
In his presidential bid, Gingrich’s strategy remains consistent: promote conservative values and private-sector job growth, criticize federal spending and programs, promise lower taxes and maintain a robust national defense. Those have been a part of his speeches since he was a candidate in Georgia in the 1970s.
Gingrich tried an “experiment” in Iowa, staying positive, and lost badly after being hammered in his opponents’ ads. So he went back on the attack.
He called the work of GOP opponent Romney’s former private equity firm “exploitive” and compared it to “rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company.” He dubbed Obama the “food-stamp president” and warned that the president (and Romney) are peddling “European socialism.”
In maybe the best example of how he has not lost his touch for the dramatic over the years, he spoke to a church crowd last March about his two grandchildren.
“I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”
Susan Meyers, Southeast communications director for the Gingrich campaign and a former AJC reporter, called him “one of the great communicators of our lifetime.
“What Newt says on the campaign trail right now is what every frustrated American feels,” Meyers said. “It’s as if he can peer into each of our souls and articulate what many of us can’t — that we all deserve better and he wants to make our lives better, almost like a father.”
Crespino, the Emory historian called Gingrich, “One of the most successful leaders on the right in framing issues around a certain set of ideals and using language in a very strategic way.
“He has, as all successful politicians have, a sense of the theatrical and the ability to use language and frame words in contexts that appeal to lots of people.
“It was a key to the Reagan coalition, it was a key to the Contract with America in 1994, and it is key to his being able to hang on in this primary campaign at a time when no one thought he would do anything.”
--------------------
Positive phrases for candidates to define themselves
flag
reform
freedom
challenge
truth
moral
courage
prosperity
family
children
principled
change
precious
success
liberty
tough
vision
hard work
fair
common sense
candidly
pristine
workfare
protect
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Negative terms to define their opponents
welfare
taxes
liberal
traitors
failure
collapse
decay
crisis
destructive
sick
pathetic
lie
they/them
unionized
bureaucracy
shallow
hypocrisy
threaten
waste
corruption
incompetent
excuses
corrupt
disgrace
steal
bosses
patronage
--------------------
The ever-quotable Gingrich
Some of Newt Gingrich’s quotes during his Georgia years:
- On his 1974 and 1976 congressional opponent, Democratic Congressman Jack Flynt: “Jack Flynt has disgraced every citizen he is supposed to represent with a record of inaction that ignores the principles on which this country was founded.”
-On Congress in 1974: “Congressman are not bribed anymore. They simply have a lot of friends who are willing to help them out whenever they find it necessary.”
--On Democrats in 1984: “The liberal Democrats propose a return to the welfare state with higher taxes for all working Americans.”
- When some congressmen opposed the US invasion of Grenada: “Not since Chamberlain appeased Hitler have we heard such talk from elected officials in a free society.”
--Mid-1980, during debate on funding the Contras in Nicaragua: “Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire’s challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing, and without a dramatic change in strategy will continue to fail.”
- On 1988 Democratic Presidential nominee Michael Dukakis: “It’s not that he isn’t a patriot. It is that Dukakis is nuts ... his value system has no relation to reality.”
- On Georgia’s Democratic leadership in 1989: “They are not good old boys. They are pleasant people who behind the scenes are thugs.”
- On Democrats in the late 1980s: “The left-wing Democrats will represent the party of total hedonism, total exhibitionism, total bizarreness, total weirdness.”
- On then-House Speaker Jim Wright and the Democratic leadership in the late 1980s: “These people are sick. They are destructive of the values we believe in. They are so consumed by their own Mussolini-like ego that their willingness to run over normal human beings and to destroy honest institutions is unending.”
Source: Gingrich press releases, Gingrich campaign speeches, the AJC, St. Petersburg Times, Associated Press, Washington Post, Mother Jones, the National Review
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tipped me to luntz on memo
https://www.c-span.org/video/?473928-1/burning-house
JULY 8, 2020
Burning Down the House
Princeton University History Professor Julian Zelizer explored the political ascendancy of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and argued that his congressional leadership was the beginning of America’s hyper-partisan divide. This was a virtual author event hosted by the Strand Bookstore in New York City.
JULY 8, 2020
Burning Down the House
Princeton University History Professor Julian Zelizer explored the political ascendancy of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and argued that his congressional leadership was the beginning of America’s hyper-partisan divide. This was a virtual author event hosted by the Strand Bookstore in New York City. close
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HELLO ONCE AGAIN EVERYONE AND WELCOME TO OUR EVENT TONIGHT. I JUST SAW IN THE COMMENTS ALL THE DIFFERENT PLACES PEOPLE ARE WATCHING FROM P THANK YOU SO...
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EVERYBODY. SO WE'LL HAVE A LOCAL CHAT HERE AND PRETEND HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE ARE NOT LURKING IN THE BACKGROUND. IT'S GOOD TO SEE YOU. I JUST HEARD WE WORK...
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WOMAN WHO DOES THAT OF HORSES THROUGH THIS GROUP THAT HE IS THE RINGLEADER OF THE UPPER JUSTIN A STICK SOCIETY. TELLS ABOUT THAT. SO HE ORGANIZES PRETTY HE'S NOT REALLY AN ORGANIZER AND HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT LEGISLATION PRETTY DOESN'T WANT TO BE ON COMMITTEES, I JUST WANT TO GET HIS MESSAGE OUT. BUT HE IS STRATEGIC ENOUGH TO ORGANIZE BASICALLY A CAUCUS OF LIKE-MINDED CONSERVATIVES WHO WERE THOUGHT TO BE A VISIONARY WILLING TO DO IT HEATED. LIKE SOMEONE NAMED BEN WEBER WAS ANOTHER FELLOW REPUBLICAN STOP LISTENING TO ALL THESE CARTS WERE CIVILITY AND BIPARTISANSHIP. WE HAVE A SMALL COHORT NUMBERS CHANGE OVER TIME IT STARTS WITH 12 PEOPLE AND IT WILL GROW. AND GINGRICH HAS THIS IDEA THAT HE'S GOING TO INTRODUCE THE PART OF THAT TEAM. AND IN SOME WAYS THEIR FOOT SOLDIERS BEFORE THE REAGAN REVOLUTION THEIR MOST AGGRESSIVE BUNCH AND THEY'RE TRYING TO SHAKE UP THEIR OWN PARTY AND SAY WE HAVE TO DO THINGS IN WAYS THAT ARE OUT OF THE WASHINGTON BOX IF WE ARE GOING TO WIN. SMITH AND HE SAID AS I TOO THINK STANDING IN, DEMOCRATS AND THE REPUBLICANS? Show Less Text
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THAT'S RIGHT. MUCH OF THIS PERIOD THAT I WRITE ABOUT THE HOUSE MINORITY LEADER, THIS GUY NAMED BOB MICHAEL FROM ILLINOIS USING GET ALONG REPUBLICAN AND HAD BEEN THERE FOR A WHILE. JUST LIKE TO SHAKE THE VOTE BELIEVES IN WORKING WITH DEMOCRATS. IT STILL BELIEVES IN BIPARTISANSHIP AND GINGRICH HATES HIM AS MUCH IS TIP O'NEILL AND THEN SPEAKER JIM RIGHT. SO WHEN HE GETS AROUND THAT LEADERSHIP WENT TO THAT NEW MESSAGE OUT. THAT'S A BIG PART OF THE BOOK. THIS IS RAW BEFORE THE CONSERVATIVE MEDIA WORLD WE NOW EXIST FOR THERE IS CONSERVATIVE TALK RADIO AND IT'S EXPANDING DURING MY STORY, FOX NEWS DOES NOT EXIST YET. THERE IS NO INTERNET WEBSITE FELT HE USES THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA AS IT'S CALLED TODAY FOR NEWSPAPERS, CABLE TELEVISION AS ITS TOOL. WHEN THE STORIES HE TELLS IN THE BOOK WHICH I USED TO TELL FOR EVERYONE LISTENING EVERYBODY TAUGHT THIS CLASS AND WE WOULD TELL THE STORY LET'S ACTUALLY WANT TO TELL THE STORY IT'S PROBABLY A GOOD BOOK HERE.
I WAS IN 1984. HIS GROUP WAS A CONSERVATIVE OPPORTUNITY SOCIETY AVENUE ONES ALLOWED TO GO TO THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE THE CHAMBER AND MAKE A SPEECH THEY'RE CALLED ONE MINUTE SPEECHES, SPECIAL ORDER SPEECHES THEY'RE NOT RESERVED FOR PEOPLE WITH JUST POWER AND ANYONE CAN DO IT. SO HE STARTED GOING TO THE FLOOR HE MADE THE SPEECHES. STARTED TO SAY DEMOCRATS ARE WEAK ON DEFENSE DEMOCRATS DON'T SUPPORT REAGAN'S WAR AGAINST COMMUNISM AND WITH BOOKTV CAMERAS ROLLING WITH THIS NEWS STATION, C-SPAN COVERING THE PROCEEDINGS THE EVEN NAYS SPECIFIC DEMOCRATS LIKE EDDIE BOLIN OF MASSACHUSETTS AND SAID HOW TO RESPOND TO THIS? WHAT IS YOUR ANSWER?
THE CHAMBER WAS SILENCE IF YOU ARE WATCHING YOU SAW ON C-SPAN LOOK LIKE THE DEMOCRATS HAD NO RESPONSE. WHAT THE PEOPLE COULD SEE HIS NO ONE WAS IN THE CHAMBER BECAUSE THE RULES ONLY LET YOU PUT THE CAMERA ON THE SPEAKER. TIP O'NEILL GET SO MAD, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE BURST IN, ORDERS THE CAMERAS TO PAN THE CHAMBER INTO SHOW THERE IS NO ONE THERE. AND IT DIDN'T AND IT'S AT TIMES AGAINST MRS. TIP O'NEILL THE RULES IS AN AUTOCRATIC PART OF THE CORRUPT DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT AND O'NEILL GETS EVEN ANGRIER. SINCE THE CLOSING SCENE IN HIS CAREER LIKE GINGRICH WAS DOING TO THE DEMOCRATS. I SAID THE SPEAKER SPOKE IMPROPERLY AND THAT'S AN EMBARRASSMENT. IN THIS STORY CULMINATES WITH THE MEDIA ANGLE MEETING ALL THREE NETWORKS COVERED IT. NBC, CBS, ABC ON THE NIGHTLY NEWS ALL HAD STORIES ABOUT GINGRICH, BUT THESE YOUNG MAVERICKS WERE DOING AND THAT WAS WHAT GINGRICH ULTIMATELY WANTED AND COULD NOT BE MORE PLEASED. MANY STORIES WERE USES THE INSTITUTION OF THE MEDIA WAS HIS OWN PARTY LEADER AND KIND OF SMEAR WITH THE DEMOCRATS ARE ABOUT. Show Less Text
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SO YOU MENTIONED TIP O'NEILL WHICH IS OF COURSE LOOMS LARGE AS REAGAN SPARRING PARTNER IN THE 80s.I GUESS SOMEONE OF A MESS TO POLITICIANS WHO KIND OF GOT ALONG AFTER HOURS. GINGRICH -- HOW DISTINGUISHING PEOPLE AROUND THEM HAS A RELATIONSHIP THAT REAGAN AND O'NEILL HAD? Show Less Text
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DIDN'T LIKE WHAT REAGAN WAS DOING TO THE COUNTRY'S MUCH TOO FAR TO THE RIGHT IN TERMS OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICY. IT WAS TRUE THAT LEADERS IN BOTH PARTIES, THE BOB MICHAELS, TIP O'NEILL, DID BALANCE THE WITH THE NEEDS OF GOVERNANCE. THEY WERE ALWAYS MAKING THIS TRADE-OFF. THAT HELP THEM UNDERSTAND WHEN YOU GOING TOO FAR? THEY DIDN'T WANT TO GO SO FAR THAT WERE SIMPLY NECESSARY TO GOVERN GINGRICH SAID THROW THAT OUT THE WINDOW HE WOULD WRITE MEMOS TO OTHER ENOUGH WITH BIPARTISANSHIP ENOUGH WITH CIVILITY. ALL THAT MEANS IS GOING TO KEEP LOSING AND THE DEMOCRATS AGAIN KEEP HAVING THEIR POWER. YOU HAVE TO TEACH REPUBLICANS TO BE MORE AGGRESSIVE TO BE MORE CONFRONTATIONAL. STOP NEGOTIATING WITH THE REPUBLICAN. IT STARTS, AND THAT'S HOW PEOPLE TALK ABOUT HIM BUT WHAT HAPPENS IN THE 80s,GRADUALLY MORE AND MORE REPUBLICANS START LISTENING TO HIM.
AND THE MORE SUCCESS HE HAS WITH THESE TACTICS THE MORE INTRIGUED THEY ARE BY HIM BECAUSE THEY WANT TO HAVE POWER. ON THEY STARTED TO THINK ABOUT THAT TRADE-OFF THAT CAN BE COSTLY IN AMERICAN POLITICS DO I WANT POWER SO MUCH I ENTER INTO ALLIANCES OF PEOPLE I KNOW CAN MEET DANGERS TO THE INSTITUTION. WITH THE RISE OF LEE ATWATER THE POLITICAL STRATEGIST AND 88? WHAT'S THEIR RELATIONSHIP LIKE CUSTOMER EXPECT A VERY IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP. THEY DIRECTLY COME IN CONTEXT OF THE HEART OF THE BOOK BUT HOPE EVERYONE BUYS AND ENJOYS FROM THE STRAND, THE HEART OF THE BOOK REVOLVES AROUND GINGRICH AFTER THIS CAM SCAN INCIDENT AND THEIR OTHER CONFLICTS WITH THE DEMOCRATS IN 1987 TIP O'NEILL HAS RETIRED AND THERE IS A NEW SPEAKER IN TOWN. HE'S BEEN THE MAJORITY LEADER'S BEEN FROM TAXES PARTY WAS AN OLD-SCHOOL DEMOCRAT. AND YOU KNOW HE WAS A LIBERAL HE BELIEVES HE WAS DEFENDING AGAINST THE REAGAN REVOLUTION BUT RIGHT WAS A GOOD TARGET FOR GINGRICH. HE WANTED TO FOCUS ON THE SCENE THAT DEMOCRATS WERE CORRUPT ESTABLISHMENT.
THAT WAS THE THEME. THEIR STORIES ABOUT QUESTIONABLE RELATIONS AMONG PEOPLE IN THE DISTRICT, SOLD THIS BOOK THAT HE PUBLISHED WAS SPEECHES IN BULK TO GROUPS HE SPOKE TO. THERE ARE BIG ON STORIES THAT DID NOT SIT QUITE RIGHT. SO USES ALL OF THESE ANY WEBSITE WASHINGTON UP INTO A FRENZY. SAYING JIM RIGHT IS THE MOST CORRUPT SPEAKER EVER IN AMERICAN HISTORY. IT'S REALLY A SMALL STORY ABOUT MISBEHAVIOR, QUESTIONABLE BEHAVIOR. SO THAT'S THE HEART OF THE STORY. THEN IN 1988, THIS IS ANOTHER TIME THE PARTY ESTABLISHMENT SEES THE VALUE OF GINGRICH, WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, REAGAN'S VICE PRESIDENT. AND IN MAY, HIS APPOINTMENTS, MIKE DUKAKIS THE GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS IS ATTACKING BUSH AND SAYING PART OF THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION, HAD SCANDAL AFTER SCANDAL AND BUSH WAS PART OF IT HE TOLD WITH THE SQUEEZE FACTOR.
HIS CAMPAIGN PERSON WITH LEE ATWATER. HE WAS PUTTING TOGETHER A PRETTY VICIOUS CAMPAIGN THAT PLAYED ON RACIAL BACKLASH WAS VERY MUCH A CHARACTER ASSASSINATION KIND OF CAMPAIGN. AND IN MAY WHEN BUSH IS STRUGGLING ANY COMMENCES BUSH TO TALK ABOUT JIM RIGHT ALL THE TIME. TO TAKE THIS STORY THAT IS REALLY BEEN ON THE FRINGES AND MAINSTREAM AND INTO THE CAMPAIGN. SO ATWATER CELL POLITICS JUST LIKE GINGRICH. AS A BLOODSPORT, CHARACTER IS ABOUT STORYTELLING. GINGRICH WAS A HISTORIAN AND WHAT HISTORIAN WAS ABOUT I THOUGHT POLITICS SHOULD BE RUN ACCORDINGLY BACK UP A LITTLE BIT BIT. I THINK FOR PEOPLE WHO DO NOT FOLLOW THE STORY, THE THOUGHT OF THE LATE '80s AS A HOUSE LEADER WHO IS A LIBERAL TEXAN DEMOCRAT'S GOING TO SEEMED LIKE AN ANACHRONISM. TALK A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT JIM RIGHT AND HOW HE CAME IN TO THIS. HE'S OLDER REPORTED 19202, ENGLISH BOARDING 1943 STUDIES OLDER.
HE WOULD SUBSCRIBE TO WITH THE NEW DEAL REPRESENTED. PRETTY MUCH ON BOARD WITH THE GREAT SOCIETY. HE DID HAVE SPOTTY MOMENTS ON CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES. VOTED AGAINST THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 BUT LATER APOLOGETIC ABOUT THIS. THOUGHT IT WAS ONE OF THE GREAT MISTAKES OF HIS CAREER. BUT BY 70s OR 80s HE'S PRETTY LIBERAL. BUT HE ACCEPTS MOST OF WHAT FDR AND LYNDON JOHNSON PUT TOGETHER. IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE A TEXAS DEMOCRAT LIKE THAT. THAT'S WHO HE WAS. HE VERY MUCH SAW RONALD REAGAN AS A DANGER. THIS IS A COUNTERPOINT TO SOME OF THE MYTHOLOGY. HE THOUGHT REAGAN WAS PRETTY RIGHT WING PRETTY AND REALLY TAKING STEPS THAT WERE DANGERS TO THE FABRIC OF THE COUNTRY. AN OVERSEAS HE THOUGHT REAGAN SUPPORTED THE NICARAGUAN CONFLICT FOR EXAMPLE IS MISGUIDED. AND THERE WAS OPPORTUNITIES TO NEGOTIATE PEACE THAT HE ACTUALLY PURSUED ON HIS OWN THAT REAGAN DIDN'T CARE ABOUT HER HE WAS NOT SOMEONE WELL-LIKED, PERSONALLY. EVEN DEMOCRATS DID NOT LIKE HIM. HE WAS COLD. HE WAS REMOVED. THAT HURT HIM.
HE WAS OLD-SCHOOL, PRE-WATERGATE POLITICS. ANY HE DIDN'T THINK ABOUT SOME OF THE THINGS HE DID MIGHT WORK IN THE EYES OF THE MEDIA AND IN THE EYES OF WASHINGTON. HE WAS NOT CORRUPT. BUT HE OPERATED IN THAT AREA OF GRAY THAT MANY POLITICIANS DID WHICH COULD BE USED AGAINST THEM AND ACTUALLY WON. Show Less Text
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OF COURSE THE IRONING OF NEWT GINGRICH OF ALL PEOPLE LOBBYING ETHICS CHARGES AGAINST SOMEONE IS NEWT GINGRICH OWN LIFE WAS SHOT WE SAY RIDDLED WITH SOME OF ITS OWN PROBLEMS. TALK ABOUT THAT. HOW DID GINGRICH'S OWN CHARACTERS SERVE HERE? SO HE HAD A LOT OF ISSUES AND THEY WERE PUBLIC THEY WERE WRITTEN ABOUT IN THE MEDIA. THERE ARE TWO STREAMS OF PROBLEMS AND BY THE TIMING IS AFTER JIM RIGHT, ARE KNOWN PROBLEMS ARE ONE HIS RELATIONSHIPS. HE HAD FOR EXAMPLE A PRETTY DIFFICULT DIVORCE WITH HIS HIGH SCHOOL MATH TEACHER THERE IS A STORY ABOUT AN MOTHER JOAN THE 1984 WHICH WAS TRYING TO CAPTURE WHAT GINGRICH WAS LIKE PERSONALLY IN ONE OF THE STORIES THAT REALLY CAUGHT PEOPLE'S I WAS WHILE HIS WIFE WAS IN THE HOSPITAL FOR CANCER SURGERY HE CAME TO DISCUSS DIVORCE WITH HER. AND IN THE ARTICLE IT LEFT OUT THE PAPERS WHICH WAS NOT EXACTLY TRUE. HE ALSO WAS KNOWN TO BE SOMEONE WITH A ROVING EYE AND WHO HAD AN AFFAIR.
THIS WAS KNOWN IN WASHINGTON AND IT MATTERED AS PART OF THE NEW CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT WITH A MAJORITY AS A STATE HE ALSO HAD ETHICS PROBLEMS. HALF THE TIME HE'S GOING AFTER SPEAKER RIGHT FOR THE CHARGE OF UNETHICALLY SELLING HIS BOOKS TO MAKE MONEY. HE HIMSELF WAS BEING CHARGED WITH HAVING A RAISE MONEY FROM INTEREST GROUPS TO PROMOTE A BOOK THAT HE WROTE. DURING THE PAPERS AT THE CLIMACTIC MOMENTS OF THE STORIES WERE SPRINGING JIM RIGHT DOWN. BUT HE DOESN'T CARE. IT IS A REMARKABLE PART OF HIS PSYCHOLOGY. WHEN THESE EMERGENT BULLDOZED RIGHT THROUGH THEM AND JUST SAYS IT'S DIFFERENT. AND HE WANTS TO KEEP MOVING FORWARD. WITH THE DEMOCRATS IT'S MUCH MORE DAMAGING. Show Less Text
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BACK TO DEMOCRATIC CHARACTER ISSUES BY THINK ONE OF THE GREATEST GIFTS GINGRICH EVER GOT WAS FINALLY NOT HAVING A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT IN OFFICE AND BEING ABLE TO RUN AGAINST BASICALLY A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT AND BILL CLINTON. SO HOW DID GINGRICH MAKE HAY OUT OF THE EARLY EAR YEARS OF THE CLOUDS AND PRESIDENT? Show Less Text
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THAT'S A GOOD CONNECTION TO THE TWO DECADES. IN SOME WAYS JIM WRIGHT COMES FIRST AND BILL CLINTON COME SECOND PERIOD AND AGAIN, ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE PARTS AND TO REALIZE HOW CONSISTENT AND STRATEGIC GINGRICH WAS AND HOW HE WAS GOING TO ATTACK THE DEMOCRATS. HE REALLY DOESN'T FOCUS THAT MUCH ON LIBERAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE ALL OF THE TIME. LEFT VERSUS RIGHT POST- WATERGATE AMERICAN OTHERS LOVE DISTRUSTING GOVERNMENT. A LOT OF ANGER IN THE ELECTORATE ELECTORATE. HE TURNS THE WATERGATE STORY AGAINST DEMOCRATS. HE MAKES THEM THE ESTABLISHMENT COMES BACK TO THE THEME BECAUSE HE THINK THAT WILL RESONATE HURT IT BE AS POPULOUS MESSAGE. AND WRIGHT THE FIRST TAKEDOWN.
WRIGHT IS THE EMBODIMENT OF EVERYTHING THAT HE'S BEEN SAYING HE DRAWS A PICTURE, CREATES A CHARACTER IN THEM BRINGS THEM DOWN. AND I THINK AFTER BILL CLINTON IS ELECTED HE VERY MUCH OR ATTEMPTS TO DO THE SAME WITH BILL CLINTON. HE MADE BILL CLINTON, THE EMBODIMENT NOT SO MUCH A CORRUPT DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT KIND OF A MORALLY CORRUPT ESTABLISHMENT OR A CULTURALLY TOO FAR LEFT ESTABLISHMENT. WHATEVER HE WANTED TO FOCUS ON A THINK HE THEN TRIED TO DID THE SAME. I AM SURE HIS EXPERIENCE WITH RIGHTS EMBOLDENED HIM TO SAY WE CAN MOVE FORWARD WITH AN IMPEACHMENT IT MIGHT VERY WELL WORK. Show Less Text
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THE BIG MOVE FOR GINGRICH OF COURSE IS 1994. TALK ABOUT HOW THAT CAMPAIGN TAKE SHAPE. WAS IT REALLY A NATIONAL ELECTION? HOW BIG OF A ROLE DOES [contract for?) AMERICA PLAY? HOW IS GINGRICH GOING TO CHANGE? SO PLATE IS AN IMPORTANT ELECTION. ONE OF THE THINGS THAT GINGRICH DOES IS HE NATIONALIZES THE MIDTERM CAMPAIGNS VERY EFFECTIVELY. AND HE USES THE THINGS HE LEARNS IN THE 80s ABOUT WHY THE MEDIA IS USEFUL TO HIS ADVANTAGE. THE MOST FAMOUS ELEMENTS OF THAT CAMPAIGN FOR EVERYONE HE REMEMBERS THAT OR STUDIED IT WITH THE CONTRACT IN AMERICA, WHICH IS REALLY SOMETHING OF A MEDIA GIMMICK. IT WAS A SET OF PROMISES THAT REPUBLICANS WERE MAKING. AND IF THEY WON THEN IT WOULD ENACT THEM, THAT WAS THE FIRST 100 DAYS SO TO SPEAK AS A LEGISLATIVE BODY. IT'S PUBLISHED AS A TEAR OUT SHEET AND RATERS ENCHANT READERS GUIDE MEANT TO BE PUT ON PEOPLE'S REFRIGERATORS BUT HE HAS A ON THE STEPS OF THE CAPITAL OF THE REPUBLICANS TALK ABOUT THE CONTRACT WITH AMERICA. SO STYLISTICALLY YOU SEE HIM CONTINUING TO PUT TOGETHER THIS CONSERVATIVE POLITICS WITH THE VERY MEDIA CENTERED FORM OF POLITICS WITH THE POLITICS THAT PLACED GREAT WEIGHT ON THE STORIES REPUBLICANS WERE GOING TO TELL ABOUT THEIR OPPONENTS. THE LANGUAGE THEY WERE GOING TO USE. AND IT IS SUCCESSFUL.
AND WHEN REPUBLICANS TAKE OVER AND 94 IT'S A BIG DEAL IN WASHINGTON. IT IS THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1954 WHEN EISENHOWER WAS IN OFFICE AT DEMOCRATS CONTROLLED BOTH CHAMBERS OF REPUBLICANS CONTROLLED BOTH CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE. IT'S ALMOST THE SECOND STEP OF THE REAGAN REVOLUTION. AND SO CONSERVATIVES THAT'S A BIG MOMENT. AND FINALLY, BACK WHEN GINGRICH COULD BRING ALL THE LITTLE TOOLS, ALL THE STRATEGIES COME ALL THE RHETORICAL WEAPONS HE HAD BEEN WORKING ON SINCE THE 80sINTO THE VERY TOP PLACES OF POLITICAL POWER, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. AND RELIGION LANGUAGE IN 1994 CAMPAIGN, AND OF COURSE THAT WHEN THE REALLY IMPORTANT THINGS THAT WE TALK ABOUT. TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE MEMO MEMO. WAS LANGUAGE A KEY MECHANISM OF CONTROL. HOW DOES THAT INFLUENCE NOT JUST 1994 BUT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY GOING FORWARD? SO IS REALLY FASCINATING MEMO TO SEE YOU CAN GOOGLE IT IF YOU AND LOOK AT YOURSELF.
GINGRICH'S LANGUISH IN THE 80s HAS BEEN PRETTY REMARKABLE BASICALLY ACCUSE THEM OF UNPATRIOTIC BEHAVIOR. HE MADE ME A CRIMINAL. DID NOT SAID THEN SHADY THINGS HE BASICALLY PRESENTED ME AS SOMEONE WHO SHOULD GO TO JAIL. HE REALLY BELIEVED IN USING BLISTERING LANGUAGE. ONE THING IS HOW TO SHAPE BY USING LANGUAGE LIKE THAT, THE MEDIA COULD NOT RESIST COVERING WHAT HE USED TO SAY. THE MEDIA LIKES MORE INDIANA JONES AND PHILHARMONIC. HE GAVE IN THE ADVENTURE AND THE THRILL. THIS CAME OUT IN 1990 GINGRICH CONTROLLED GOPAC'S WHICH HE TOOK OVER 1984. IT WAS A DEFUNCT POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE AND HE REBUILT IT TO AUDIO CASSETTES TO REPUBLICAN TEACH THEM WHAT TO DO AND MEMOS. THIS MEmo 1990 WAS WRITTEN AND IS SAID TO BE A REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE SAID IF YOU WANT TO SPEAK LIKE NEWT, THESE ARE THE KIND OF WORDS YOU NEED TO USE WHEN YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT DEMOCRATS. SICK, TRADER, SLIME RADICAL, REALLY WORDS THAT EVEN TODAY YOU CAN KIND OF STEP BACK. BUT IT IS VERY IMPORTANT. NOT AS A BOMB THOR POLITICALLY. BUT AS TO TALK ABOUT YOUR OPPONENT AND LOOKING AT CERTAIN TWITTER FEED AND THE STYLE STILL RESONATES.
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ALSO LEGITIMIZES GEORGE H.W. BUSH AS WELL. GIVEN BETWEEN GINGRICH MANIPULATIONS WITH THE MEDIA IN THE '90s WHEN LIMBAUGH IS AT HIS PEAK. FOX NEWS IS FORMED AND 96. WHAT IS GINGRICH'S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CONSERVATIVE MEDIA? SO VERY CLOSE. WHEN IT'S FLOURISHING AND 87, 88, 89 AND GINGRICH RELIES ON WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT RICE FOR THE VERY TOUGH ON RICE. AND THEY AMPLIFY HIS MESSAGE WITH HIS PARTNERS TO EFFORT TO RAISE CONGRESSIONAL SALARIES. SO JIM WRIGHT IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS AND ALL OVER THE COUNTRY FOLKS ARE LASHING OUT AND IT HELPS GINGRICH IN THIS CAUSE. AND GINGRICH IN THOSE YEARS IS VERY TIED INTO CONSERVATIVE TOPPER. IN THE 80s HE GUEST HOSTED ON A RADIO SHOW CALLED CONFRONTATION BUT IT WAS THE ORIGIN OF CROSSFIRE ON CNN. BUT THEN AS THE SPEAKER HE IS VERY CLOSE TO PEOPLE LIKE RUSH, LITERALLY THE COORDINATE MESSAGES FOR THE DAY. HE DEPENDS ON CONSERVATIVE TALK RADIO.
AND THEN FOX OF THE SPEAKERSHIP ESPECIALLY IN 1998 DURING HIS BATTLE AGAINST BILL CLINTON. BUT WHAT IS INTERESTING IS HE COMES FIRST. I THINK WE OFTEN THINK AS A CONSERVATIVE MEDIA AS THE ORIGINS OF THIS VERY SMASH MOUTH FORM OF A RHETORIC. BUT IN FACT I THINK ROGER AND SOME OF THE FOUNDERS WERE ALREADY LOOKING AT WHAT REPUBLICANS HAD DONE BEFORE THEY CAME ON THE SCENE AND MIMIC SOME OF THEM. THEY MIMICKED THAT MEMO AND HOW THEY BROADCAST THE NEWS.
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https://users.wfu.edu/zulick/454/gopac.html
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Published: January 27, 2012
Words Gingrich Governed By
During his years in Congress, Newt Gingrich emerged as one of Washington’s most aggressive practitioners of slash-and-burn politics. He believed, and preached, that harsh language could win elections.
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https://fair.org/home/language-a-key-mechanism-of-control/
Since winning control of Congress, Rep. Newt Gingrich (R.-Ga.) has constantly complained about “destructive” and “negative” coverage from the “liberal elite media.”
For example, when asked on Nightline (11/29/94) about his reference to the Clintons as “counter-culture McGoverniks,” he first insisted that he had been misquoted—”I used the term McGovernite, not McGovernik—it was one of those things that the Times picked up and therefore it’s now history” (actually, at least four different newspapers—including the New York Times—quoted Gingrich in their November 10 editions as calling the Clintons “counter-culture McGoverniks”)—and then blamed the media for selective reporting:
I didn’t say that to attack the president, I was asked an analytic question. But because I am now the next speaker, I am learning that everything I say has to be worded carefully and thought through at a level that I’ve never experienced before in my life.
In fact, the new speaker of the House—who once described his goal as “reshaping the entire nation through the news media” (New York Times, 12/14/94)—has given a great deal of thought to the media and how to manipulate them. One Newtonian axiom is “fights make news” (Boston Globe, 11/20/94). Another skill he has taught to Republican candidates through his political organization, GOPAC, is how to create a “shield issue” to deflect criticism:
“A shield issue is just, you know, your opponent is going to attack you as lacking compassion,” a GOPAC training tape advises. “You better find a good compassion issue where, you know, you show up in the local paper holding a baby in the neonatal center, and all you’re trying to do is shield yourself from the inevitable attack.”
But the clearest expression of Gingrich’s philosophy of media came in a GOPAC memo entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.” Distributed to GOP candidates across the country, the memo’s list of words for Democrats and words for Republicans was endorsed by Gingrich in a cover letter: “The words in that paper are tested language from a recent series of focus groups where we actually tested ideas and language.” Next time you hear Gingrich complain about media focusing on the negative, refer back to these lists.
As you know, one of the key points in the GOPAC tapes is that “language matters.” In the video “We Are a Majority,”Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning. As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates, we have heard a plaintive plea: “I wish I could speak like Newt.” That takes years of practice. But we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases.
This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media. The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that, like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used….
Contrasting Words
Often we search hard for words to help us define our opponents. Sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast. Remember that creating a difference helps you. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party.
decay… failure (fail)… collapse(ing)… deeper… crisis… urgent(cy)… destructive… destroy… sick… pathetic… lie… liberal… they/them… unionized bureaucracy… “compassion” is not enough… betray… consequences… limit(s)… shallow… traitors… sensationalists…
endanger… coercion… hypocrisy… radical… threaten… devour… waste… corruption… incompetent… permissive attitudes… destructive… impose… self-serving… greed…ideological… insecure… anti-(issue): flag, family, child, jobs… pessimistic… excuses… intolerant…
stagnation… welfare… corrupt… selfish… insensitive… status quo… mandate(s)… taxes… spend(ing)… shame… disgrace… punish (poor…)… bizarre… cynicism… cheat… steal… abuse of power… machine… bosses…obsolete… criminal rights… red tape… patronage
Optimistic Positive Governing Words
Use the list below to help define your campaign and your vision of public service. These words can help give extra power to your message. In addition, these words help develop the positive side of the contrast you should create with your opponent, giving your community something to vote for!
share… change… opportunity… legacy… challenge…control… truth… moral… courage… reform… prosperity… crusade… movement… children… family… debate… compete… active(ly)[BUT NOT -IST]…we/us/our… candid(ly)… humane… pristine… provide…
liberty… commitment… principle(d)… unique… duty… precious… premise… care(ing)… tough… listen… learn… help… lead… vision… success… empower(ment)…citizen… activist… mobilize… conflict… light… dream…freedom…
peace… rights… pioneer… proud/pride… building… preserve… pro-(issue): flag, children, environment…reform… workfare… eliminate good-time in prison…strength… choice/choose… fair… protect… confident… incentive… hard work… initiative… common sense…passionate
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This has been available online for a while, but I just recently found it: Language: A Key Mechanism of Control: Newt Gingrich’s 1996 GOPAC memo. In retrospect it is clear how the GOP’s rhetorical strategy and their discipline in using it was a major part of their surge of power and control through the last ten years or so.
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https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/27/us/politics/27gingrich-text.html?ref=politics
N — Newt Gingrich had an urgent warning for conservatives: Jim Wright, the Democratic speaker of the House, was out to destroy America.
It was April 1988, a month before Mr. Gingrich, an up-and-coming Republican congressman, shocked colleagues by pressing ethics charges against the powerful Mr. Wright. Now, he was singling out the speaker as a major obstacle in a coming “civil war” with liberals.
“This war has to be fought with a scale and a duration and a savagery that is only true of civil wars,” Mr. Gingrich said, in a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation. He branded Mr. Wright as part of “the hard left,” whose members, he warned, “will try by chameleon-like actions to destroy our country.”
The brutal civil war Mr. Gingrich predicted did indeed come to pass, during a nearly decadelong conflict in which ethics charges were the primary weapon. Mr. Gingrich lodged a complaint against Mr. Wright, which cost the Democratic speaker his job. Democrats, in turn, bombarded Mr. Gingrich with accusations of ethical impropriety, which led to a $300,000 fine and a reprimand for bringing discredit to the House.
Mr. Gingrich, Democrats and Republicans here agree, emerged as one of Washington’s most aggressive practitioners of slash-and-burn politics; many fault him for erasing whatever civility once existed in the capital. He believed, and preached, that harsh language could win elections; in 1990, the political action committee he ran, Gopac, instructed Republican candidates to learn to “speak like Newt,” and offered a list of words to describe Democrats — like decay, traitors, radical, sick, destroy, pathetic, corrupt and shame.
Those same qualities are now on display as Mr. Gingrich, a Republican candidate for president, turns his caustic tongue against Republicans and Democrats alike. He has tried to cut down Mitt Romney as promoting “pious baloney,” branded President Obama “the food stamp president” and mocked him for living on “Planet Obama.” He has gone after the “elite media” as well, denouncing the “destructive, vicious, negative nature” of those whose questions he does not like.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Gingrich, whose spokesman did not return calls or e-mails seeking comment for this article, promotes himself as an elder Republican statesman, often reminding voters that as House speaker, he worked with a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, to balance the budget and overhaul the welfare system.
But he neglects to mention that he also presided over Mr. Clinton’s impeachment (which later provoked charges of hypocrisy, because the case concerned Mr. Clinton’s adulterous behavior while Mr. Gingrich himself was having an extramarital affair) or that his bombastic style helped cost him his speakership; he stepped down in 1999.
Mr. Gingrich’s recent surge in the polls makes leading Republicans nervous; one, Bob Dole of Kansas, the former Senate majority leader, endorsed Mr. Romney on Thursday, saying Mr. Gingrich “loved picking a fight.” And his history of combat with Democrats — “the enemy of normal Americans,” Mr. Gingrich once called them — leads people in both parties to wonder if he could work in a bipartisan way.
“Government is dysfunctional because the presidency and Congress no longer have the ability to compromise, and I put Newt at the heart of that,” said Mickey Edwards, a Republican former congressman from Oklahomawho served in leadership alongside Mr. Gingrich, and who is neutral in the Republican primary.
“When he was in the House,” Mr. Edwards added, “he had some temptation to work across party lines because he wanted to be considered an equal with Bill Clinton. But I think if you were in a position where Newt had the upper hand as president, his style would not be to find a way to compromise, but to turn up the heat on Democrats.”
Ethics as a Weapon
Mr. Gingrich arrived on Capitol Hill in January 1979, as a freshman Republican from Georgia, having already made ethics an issue in his first political campaigns.
Once in Washington, Mr. Gingrich found an obvious target: Representative Charles C. Diggs, a Michigan Democrat and founder of the Congressional Black Caucus who had been convicted of taking kickbacks from staff members but re-elected while awaiting sentencing. Most newcomers to Congress would have remained silent on a delicate matter involving a senior member. But Mr. Gingrich led the charge to expel Mr. Diggs, confiding to one close colleague that it was a “gutsy thing to do,” because he risked accusations of racism. The House eventually censured Mr. Diggs, and he quit in disgrace.
Over time, Mr. Gingrich sought to make ethics his signature issue, an effort aimed mostly at Democrats.
He pushed for, and won, harsher punishment for two lawmakers, one a Republican and one a Democrat, who were accused of sexual misconduct. He railed against Democrats over a disputed election in Indiana, accusing them of stealing the seat, and maneuvered quietly behind the scenes to orchestrate the work of the so-called Gang of Seven, which in the early 1990s created a ruckus over lawmakers’ overdrafts at the private House bank and other Congressional perks. He called for the censure of Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, over ethical breaches involving the use of his office to help a male prostitute. Mr. Frank received a lesser reprimand instead.
“Newt,” Mr. Frank says today, “is the single most influential factor in replacing the politics in which you accepted the bona fides of your opponents and disagreed with them civilly with the politics of insisting that your opponents are bad people.”
Mr. Gingrich has said he was on a mission to “repair the integrity of the House,” but critics are skeptical. Fred Wertheimer, then the head of Common Cause, says Mr. Gingrich saw ethics charges as “a vehicle for destroying the House as an institution and taking over what was left.”
But Steven M. Gillon, a University of Oklahoma historian who has written a book about Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Clinton, offers another explanation. Southern Republicans in the post-civil rights era often used race as a wedge issue, Mr. Gillon said. But Mr. Gingrich, a one-time Rockefeller Republican who embraced integration, needed a different line of attack. “He needed to find a wedge that would undermine the moral credibility of the Democratic Party,” Mr. Gillon said, adding, “He could use ethics as sort of a bludgeon, and that’s what he did.”
Empty House, Big Microphone
Mr. Gingrich’s arrival in Congress coincided with the rise of C-Span, the cable channel that televised House proceedings, and he figured out early on how to combine his gift for oratory with the power of the camera. Night after night, he would lambaste Democrats, speaking in an empty House chamber after the day’s legislative business was done. Mr. Gingrich would needle Democrats, challenging them to come forward and defend themselves. No one did, because no one was there.
Things came to a head in May 1984, on a day when the chamber was full. Mr. Gingrich had been pounding a group of Democrats over a letter they had written to Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan leader, accusing them of spreading “communist propaganda.” Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., the House speaker, let loose.
“You deliberately stood in that well before an empty House, and challenged these people, and challenged their Americanism,” he roared, wagging his forefinger at Mr. Gingrich, “and it’s the lowest thing I’ve ever seen in my 32 years in Congress.”
It was a rare breach of decorum; Mr. Gingrich had gotten the better of Mr. O’Neill. House rules forbid personal insults, so Mr. O’Neill’s words were “taken down”— stricken from the record, a rare rebuke and a turning point, many here say, in relations between Republicans and Democrats.
“That was the moment he became a real star,” said John J. Pitney Jr., a professor at Claremont McKenna College, who has written extensively about Mr. Gingrich and polarization in Congress. “It was David taking on Goliath.”
Some Republicans were uneasy. Among them was Trent Lott of Mississippi, then the Republican whip. Mr. Lott had called for Mr. O’Neill’s remarks to be stricken. Even so, he says he was uncomfortable with Mr. Gingrich’s take-no-prisoners rhetorical style.
“Newt was willing to tear up the system to get the majority,” Mr. Lott, who supports Mitt Romney, said in an interview last year, before Mr. Gingrich’s recent surge in the polls. “It got to be a really negative pit over there, but that was probably the beginnings of the Republicans being able to take control.”
A Fight Becomes a War
August 1987 was a “decisive moment” for Mr. Gingrich, he wrote in his 1998 mea culpa book, “Lessons Learned the Hard Way.” It was when he began to view his fight with Democrats as a civil war. “One culture or the other,” he wrote, “would have to go.”
By this time, Mr. Gingrich had already taken charge of Gopac, a once-sleepy political action committee dedicated to electing Republicans. Mr. Gingrich pumped it up into a fund-raising machine and a training organization in which Republican candidates were given step-by-step information on how to run for office. He produced seminars and a series of cassette tapes; today hundreds, if not thousands, of Republican officeholders in states around the country can recall riding around in their cars listening to Mr. Gingrich’s formula for winning.
Mr. Edwards, the former Republican congressman, described the tapes as “all about how to demonize the opposition, how to use invective and scary language,” adding: “It wasn’t that he trained them to have a better understanding of foreign policy, or economic policy. They were techniques in how to wage a nasty partisan war against your opponent.”
By August 1987, that opponent, for Mr. Gingrich at least, was Mr. Wright, the House speaker, whom he viewed as covering for the corrupt Democratic Party.
Mr. Gingrich spent more than a year making speeches against Mr. Wright, branding him “the least ethical speaker of the 20th century.” The charge that finally stuck involved a vanity book, “Reflections of a Public Man,” that Mr. Wright sold in bulk to lobbyists and supporters, under an unusual agreement for him to receive 55% of the royalties. (Years later, Mr. Gingrich would come under attack for his own book deal.)
The House Ethics Committee found “reason to believe” that Mr. Wright had violated House rules in 69 instances; seeking to avoid a drawn out disciplinary hearing, he resigned in June 1989, giving Mr. Gingrich his biggest Democratic scalp.
“He was as partisan as Newt was partisan,” Wilma Goldstein, a former Republican National Committee official who worked closely with Mr. Gingrich, said of Mr. Wright. “So Newt just decided, ‘By God, if we’re going to take them down, let’s start at the top.’ ”
But again, some Republicans were uncomfortable. Mr. Gingrich, by then the Republican whip, was clearly angling to replace the House Republican leader, Robert H. Michel, viewed by many in his party as too accommodating to Democrats. Mr. Michel, now 88, recalls warning Mr. Gingrich that what goes around comes around.
“I would say, ‘Newt, these fellows over there are not our enemy, they’re our political adversaries,’ ” Mr. Michel said. He reminded him that Democrats and Republicans often traded places in leadership. “That could happen to you,” Mr. Michel recalled saying. “If you don’t treat them with respect, boy, the next time around, they have a chance to really put the shivs to you.”
Time for Payback
Mr. Michel, it turned out, was right.
Mr. Gingrich climbed his way to the speakership in January 1995, and once he got there vowed to take the high road. He had spent years labeling Democrats as “counterculture” proponents of the “liberal welfare state,” and in 1994 went so far as to suggest the case of Susan Smith, a South Carolinamother who murdered her two sons, was evidence of “how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things” by electing Republicans.
But once in power, he pledged to work cooperatively with Mr. Clinton, explaining that being in the majority freed him to be more conciliatory. “In the minority,” he said then, “it’s like the defense in football. You’re in a different position. You have to be more combative.”
It was too late. Democrats were already bombarding him with ethics charges. During his bid for re-election, Mr. Gingrich’s opponent filed a complaint accusing him of using a college course, “Renewing American Civilization,” to promote a partisan agenda, improperly mixing Gopac money with public funds.
And once he won, Mr. Gingrich came under withering criticism for a $4.5 million book advance from HarperCollins, whose owner, Rupert Murdoch, had business pending before the Congress. Under pressure, Mr. Gingrich turned down the advance. (His defense was that unlike Mr. Wright, he was writing “a real book.”)
Over the course of two years, more than 80 charges — ranging from alleged tax violations to complaints that he used Gopac money to finance one of his own campaigns — were filed against Mr. Gingrich with the House Ethics Committee. The convoluted inquiry consumed official Washington, with Democrats saying he was getting what he deserved and Republicans calling it a political vendetta.
“Yes, he filed ethics charges against Speaker Wright, and I would concede that it wasn’t just because Newt was out to clean up Congress,” said Dan Meyer, a former Gingrich aide. “I think he used it as a partisan tactic, but the scale of the response was way out of proportion.”
In the end, nearly all of the charges were dismissed. But the ethics committee did find that Mr. Gingrich had used tax-exempt money to promote Republican goals, and given the panel inaccurate information for its inquiry.
... gingr apologize]...brought discredit on the House. He had always regarded himself as a “transformative figure” who would change the course of history, but on Jan. 21, 1997, he made history in another way.
The House voted 395-28 to reprimand him and fine him $300,000, making him the first speaker ever disciplined for unethical conduct.
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