Newt Gingrich banks on the belief that American voters have suffered a collective memory loss about his previous political career and failed marriages. Ham on Wry believes otherwise. The House of Representatives investigated eighty-four ethics charges filed against him during his tenure as Speaker of the House and disciplined him for ethics violations in 1997. His twenty-year career ended when Republican colleagues forced his resignation from the House in November 1998.
Gingrich has flip-flopped on political issues more that a caught fish in its final death throes. In 1986, he backed amnesty for illegal immigrants, and he has now toughened that stance in light of the current anti-immigrant mood of many Republicans. He takes credit for the budget surpluses that occurred when he was Speaker of the House and cites that as evidence that he can bring profound change to Washington. Evidently, he forgot about Congress using in excess of $371 billion dollars from social security funds to balance the books and create the surplus. That should grab the attention of current and future recipients of social security payments. His current position on borrowing Social Security funds to balance the budget states that he will stop Congress from using Social Security to do so because it will hurt Americans who count on that income to live. Ham on Wry suggests that readers research other examples of his 180-degree switches in his platform.
Equally as troubling as the drastic changes in political stance, his personal life reveals a man with serious character flaws. At 19, Gingrich married the first of his three wives, Jackie Battley, 26. Battley taught him high school geometry. Hmmm--I wonder when the romance began. Gingrich married his second wife Marianne Ginther in 1981, six months after his divorce from Battley was final. Various accounts of how Gingrich delivered the news that he wanted a divorce exist, but one fact holds true. Gingrich had an affair with Ginther before the divorce. If that isn't enough to question his personal integrity, the details of his third marriage should. In the mid-90's, Gingrich started an affair with Callista Bisek, a House of Representatives staffer twenty-three years his junior. They carried on the affair during the period when Gingrich became a leader of the investigation of President Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with his alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky. He certainly had the credentials to recognize that kind of deception. Gingrich married Bisek in 2000, not long after his divorce from Ginther. This is the stuff of reality TV, not the kind of actions one expects from someone running for President of the United States.
Ham on Wry implores Republicans to face the fact that this country needs a leader who will represent us effectively in global as well as domestic affairs (no pun intended). Gingrich now leads the pack, which leads me to believe that some citizens are not handling the due diligence aspect of intelligent voting seriously. The Republican Party has serious problems in current and proposed leadership for the future. It holds a majority in the House of Representatives during the most lackluster year for the passage of important legislation I can recall. Can't the Republican Party find someone better than Newt Gingrich? If not, it seems the values of our Founding Fathers don't count in choosing the slate of candidates.
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