90's GOP House Insider: Romney Lied

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Lay off the pius baloney, BSB. You find it "galling" you say? I find it "galling" the amount of self-righteous pontificating, hypocrisy and dishonest faux outrage, exhibited by Newt Gingrich and his supporters.


Regardless of what happend in November 1998, is anyone seriously going to argue that Speaker "I shut down the government because [ole Bill] put us at the back of the plane" Gingrich wasn't a disgrace period?

What kind of Speaker finds himself in a situation where the only thing that saves his neck from a group of insurgents, composed of the entire subordinate leadership team and a bunch of conservative freshmen Republican Study Committee types, is a last minute squabble over dividing the spoils (who would get Newt's job).

When Gingrich left the position, he didn't have the votes because he was such a disgrace. Think about it! Why else would you dump the guy who gave you power for the first time in 40 years? It takes an awfull lot to destroy that honeymoon in just 4 years (really two, if they had settled on a replacement, Newt would have been ousted in 1997) and make it so that your own party members want you gone. The Lewinsky scandal and the GOP's failure to capitalize on it, were merely the straw that broke the camels back, Newt was already treading on thing ice, long before knowledge of Clinton's extracurricular activities while President became an issue.

The situation Romney faced and the decision he made were entirely different in 2006. He still had the GOP and a lot of the independents of MA behind him. In MA that isn't enough however and he faced an uphil climb in the election. So he decided to retire and focus on his pursue the white house. He didn't disgrace his position so much to the point that he lost even his own Republican's support. At worst he was a mediocre Governor depending on what you consider. He did get a lot done in 4 years for a 87% Dem legislature so that is a little harsh a rating to give. He certainly wasn't an abysmal failure. He ran to balance the budget and he did that. Unlike Gingrich who ran to clean up Washington and ended up failing miserably for a variety of reasons. The equivalent situation for a Governor to what Newt did and faced as a result would be either an impeachment where it is bipartisan in support of removal like in ILL or a potential primary battle that say Rick Scott may face in 2014.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Lay off the pius baloney, BSB. You find it "galling" you say? I find it "galling" the amount of self-righteous pontificating, hypocrisy and dishonest faux outrage, exhibited by Newt Gingrich and his supporters. Regardless of what happend in November 1998, is anyone seriously going to argue that Speaker "I shut down the government because [ole Bill] put us at the back of the plane" Gingrich wasn't a disgrace period?

Please, Clinton vetoed an appropriation bill that he publically stated he supported solely for the purpose of shutting down more of the government. Stating that it was Republicans whom shutdown the government is more than a bit disingenuous.

I never said Republicans were to blame for the shutdown. Read what I said, not what you want me to have said. Strike 1.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

In exactly the same way GHWB didn't win reelection because he was such a "disgrace," and GWB lead the party to humiliating defeats in 2006 and 2008 because of the "disgraceful" nature of his Presidency.

The situation is different. Newt was so counterproductive that he ran to change things and ended up creating a situation far worse then what was there before. He created a stiuation that hadn't existed in 40 years, and thus created a ton of good will and tolerance for his shortcommings. He blew through all of that in only 2 years. And was one step away from being removed in a coup that included everyone of his subordinates and a bunch of low ranking conservative freshmen. Quit dwelling on 1998 and the post election fallout. Newt was already in big trouble long before that.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Please, you just accused Gingrich of being "disgrace" for reasons such as not capitalizing properly on the Lewinski scandal. At worse, that is the sign of being a poor retail politician. Had Romney been a good retail politician himself, he wouldn't be in a situation where he faced certain defeat! That just didn't happened, Romney made it happen.

Jim Wright was forced out because he was exposed for using his office for his personal enrichment. He resigned in disgrace. Gingrich lead the caucus to a lousy result. He was forced out, and chose to resign rather than serve out his term as a back-bencher. That is not to say he "resigned in disgrace." He didn't.

I didn't call Gingrich a disgrace for failing to capitalize on Lewinsky. Once again, you are messaging what I said to fit your response. That is two strikes by the way. Gingrich was and is a disagrace because he is so politically incompetent and self-destructing and that was clear long before 1998. 

Romney didn't face certain defeat in 2006. Going in he was about at parity in the approval ratings. He only collapsed towards the end of his last year in office. His chances weren't good though and he wanted to run for President. He got what he wanted done, as well as some other items and contrary to that nonesense comming out of the McCain/Gingrich spin room these past few years, he didn't damage the MA GOP by any measure (he certainly didn't destroy it, which is as I said, an insult to JFK who actually twisted the knife in 1952). There is a still a strong connection between Romney and the MA GOP and even now, Scott Brown is publically supporting Romney.

Compared to Gingrich who sought the speakership to clean up the Congress and in the end he ended up missing the start of the culture of coruption which made the Congress more corrupt then it was under the Democrats. He could have stopped it had he noticed and cared enough. He was busy though, he was busy trying to save his own hide from his own people. He lost the two major political fights that defined his tenure to Bill Clinton. He made himself the pariah, a poster boy for conservatism gone awry and an anvil around every Republican outside of Dixie costing the GOP many seats around the country it had held for decades, even a century or more. The loss of these seats, the reelection of Bill Clinton, the budget battle, and the spectre of a return to the business as usuall in terms of pork barrel spending (which motivated the conservative freshmen to start the coup), culminated in the 1997 attempted coup. When you drive fire into bed with water in opposition to you, have everyone of your lieutenants plotting against you, and end up getting saved only because they cracked up over a choice of replacement, you are on some level a disgrace. But he gets a second chance, and what does he do with it? He blows it over Lewinsky. Not to mention he is exposed for having an affair also, opening up a charge that fits him nicely, hypocrisy. When you blow that much good will, get a second chance by sheer luck and then blow it too, partly because of something that also involves the word blow, you are a disgrace. There are few Reps from that era supporting him. Though I guess Duke Cunningham counts for something. I hope cell block D helps put him make California less of a disaster.

There is no comparison between Romney and Gingrich as to the reasons they left office. Romney left as a moderately successfull Governor and Gingrich left as a disgrace.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

As to Gingrich resigning as a House member, so did Denny Hastert when he wasn't chosen as Minority Leader in 2007 like Pelosi was in 2011. Having the old leader in the background of the new leader can be a distraction. Whatever the merits, or demerits, of Hastert's decision, noone says he "resigned in disgrace."

Gingrich resigned as a House member the day after his own re-election.

Hastert resigned as a House member eleven months after his own re-election.

But your logic seems to be that since both men left the Speakership in somewhat comparable circumstances, that if Gingrich was considered to have resigned in disgrace, then so must Hastert.  Given that the circumstances were in fact quite different, your logic doesn't really work out.

Unless, of course, the circumstances were in fact remarkably similar. That Denny Hasert took the same decision as Gingrich eleven months later is a distinction that doesn't make much of a difference. The essential fact is neither man was retained as leader, and, both men, subsequently, resigned rather than completing their terms as back-benchers.

Standing for reelection as leader and losing is not "disgraceful." Certainly, it no less "disgraceful" than Romney or Perdue not running for reelection because they knew they would lose. Resigning is not, per se, "disgraceful."  Maybe, a case can be made for saying Gingrich resigned in the face of a humiliating defeat, while Romney abandon reelection in the face of a humiliating defeat, but neither man's actions were "disgraceful."

Romney has been both a hypocrite and a liar on this issue.

You are a trip. You don't even know what you are talking about. And how can you ponitificate about Romney not running again when Newt didn't run either? Rather then run for speaker and let his caucus vote, he dropped out of contention and resigned the position and declined to take his seat. And just for your information, I wan not talking about him having resigned him his House seat in disgrace, I am talking about his leadership position. The decision to leave the House or not was irrelevant to this discussion, which is centered around why he couldn't have won another term as Speaker.

Also, it is hilarious you compare the situation to Hastert. Denny was worse then Newt in that he actively covered for and enabled the culture of corporation, was a puppert for Tom Delay who couldn't get the votes to be Speaker himself, and he destroyed any faith or trust in the GOP House leadership. Newt was a political disgrace, Fat Denny was an ethical and moral disgrace. You are actually trying to compare NEwt to a disgrace like Denny to prove Newt isn't one?

There is a long history of Speakers remaining in the House and remaining leader after losing the majority before Pelosi. A good example would Joe Martin-Sam Rayburn. The only time that doesn't occur is when you are blamed by your own people for the loss (or setbacks since they didn't even really loose in Newt's case which says a lot. That people want to dump you on the expectation that you will eventually cost them the majority, not that you have already done it), or because of corruption. I don't consider a loss to be a disgrace, I do consider the extreme level of incompetence that Newt displayed as politician in the 1990's to the point of being counter-productive and enabling the culture of corruption to begin (the seeds of which were being planted while Newt was still in power and he did nothing to stop it), which was the exact opposite of his intended goals, to be a disgrace. Hell, from the interview he give to CBS, Jack Abramoff said he tried corrupt Newt, but found he was unable to maintain his focus long enough because he would get off on tangents with his crazy ideas, and found it more effective to operate through Delay. He didn't resist out of moral outrage or the righeous indignation over Abramoff trying to buy him, he was just two distracted to be of any use to Jack. If Newt was any kind of outsider, he would have thrown him out of his office and barred him from being in any meetings with top level staff and purged anyone who associated with him, like Delay. Nope, he was too busy postulated about stip mining the moon and thus unable to make sure that his legacy of cleaning up corruption didn't get turned 180 on him. And Newt's exit paved the way for Delay's ascendancy in 1999 through Dennis Hastert.

Romney is not the lying hyprocrit in this, Newt is. Just like that Southern coordinator for Nelson Rockefeller who got his start in conservatism at a Goldwater rally. Or attacking Romney for supporting a state mandate but not a federal one, when Newt supported a federal one up untill Obama decided to embrace it, at which point it was conveniently a bad idea.