David Sirota: Is Newt Gingrich REALLY outraged about corruption?

[seafan]

This is an important piece.

As we are seeing, Newt Gingrich is suddenly very visible, trying to elevate himself above this Republican Party corruption implosion, offering sanctimonious advice about *what the party should do to redeem itself*. As if he did not engineer this whole debacle in 1994.

These facts need to be hammered home to the sycophantic, corporate-worshiping media.



snips from the Sirotablog:

Is Newt Gingrich really outraged about corruption?

Really, I must say, the media never ceases to set the bar ever lower these days. Case in point is the pooh-poohing of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R), as he feigns outrage at the GOP for its corruption scandals. How anyone at all could view this as anything other than the most rank and shameless form of revisionist history by a guy desperate to clean his record for a run for president is absolutely beyond comprehension.

As just one of the many examples of the coverage of Gingrich these days, take the Washington Post breathlessly reporting on a speech the former House Speaker gave yesterday. "The dire alarm the former speaker sounded, calling the scandal 'central to the survival of the United States' and 'a serious, profound challenge"'to our system of government." The Post continued, noting Gingrich said, "The Abramoff scandal has to be seen as part of a much larger and deeper problem... a system of corruption." The article ends with Gingrich claiming that Republicans under his tutelage "arrived here as a reform party" and that he is lamenting the GOP's corrupt ways - as if he had nothing to do with them. This is all, mind you, being swallowed whole throughout the media without one ounce of context.

So let's just take a little walk down memory lane - a walk that would take reporters all of 5 seconds on Yahoo to find when they report on people like Gingrich who are supposedly outraged about the corruption. Is Newt Gingrich really outraged? Or was Newt Gingrich the very man who actually created this culture of corruption to begin with? Let's take a look:

GINGRICH STARTED THE K STREET PROJECT: (snip)

GINGRICH RAKED IN CASH FROM THE K STREET PROJECT'S SHAKEDOWN OPERATION:
(snip)

GINGRICH OVERTLY USES LEGISLATIVE FAVORS TO GET LOBBYIST CONTRIBUTIONS:
(snip)

ABRAMOFF KNOWN TO BE CLOSEST TO GINGRICH: (snip)

ABRAMOFF REGULARLY TOUTED HIS PROXIMITY TO GINGRICH & USED IT TO WIELD POWER: (snip)

ABRAMOFF & GINGRICH WORKED CLOSELY ON THE K STREET PROJECT: (snip)

K STREET SAW ABRAMOFF AS THEIR BRIDGE TO GINGRICH: (snip)


snip

The truth is, Gingrich is a smarmy, dishonest and corrupt politician. That means we shouldn't expect any less than for him to disgustingly pretend that he's Mr. Clean, when in fact he was the guy who took the GOP's corruption into high gear. But we should expect more from the media. We should expect some context. We should expect 5 seconds worth of research to give readers a little history about how this supposed saint was the guy who got us to this point in the first place.

http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=9B481AED-9467-BC2F-0DC96BA842A66FAD

[leftofthedial]

1. of course not

he's the one who lowered the bar and set this new corruption-based system in place.

Gingrich is a liar, a crook and a hypocrite.

[spanone]

2. Gingrich = corruption.

Google Gingrich and ehtics and you get over 240,000 unfavorable options.

[tenshi816]

3. Newt Gingrich is outraged about corrupt Republicans

being caught, not about the fact that the corruption exists. I'm so embarrassed that he's from my home state.

[peekaloo]

4. He who smelt it, dealt it!

I despise seeing this fatheaded toad given air time to bleat his sanctimonious prattle.

His "child" grew up to be a felon.

Suck on it.

[salin]

5. Retribution for DeLays attempt to overthrow Newt

while he was Speaker.

[Straight Shooter]

6. His partners in crime have cancer and he's trying to serve papers.

He did it to his partner in marriage. If he can sink that low, you know he'll distance himself from the ones who enabled his intiation of this sorry spectacle.

Newt can take his famous list of "words to associate with liberals" and put it where the sun don't shine. Payback is coming and it won't be pretty.

[Me.]

7. Furthermore

as part of the Iraq Group Newt was up to his neck in the planning that sent us into a fake war and was there when Cheney's office planned it's work-up on Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. This guy needs to be outed as she was.

[EST]

8. In the early '90s, at the place where I worked,

we kept KMOX-St. Louis talk radio on, as a holdover from the days when it was a real radio station, as opposed to being a r/w crook propaganda shill, all day long. They had installed Gush Lumpbowell as a regular feature and I was unfamiliar, just learning, with him and his variety of imaginary politics.
He, Lumpbowell, that is, had set up an interview with Gingrich, who was driving back to D.C., on his cell phone.
As I listened to him, referring to the grinch as "Mr. Newt," with his obsequious air and "insider" references, I found myself sickened by the obvious one-sided and less than truthful scorn for Clinton and other democrats.
I was not a political animal and had no use for such critters, regarding them all as crooks and liars, better to be dealt with, if at all, in the most remote manner possible.
My point is, even as politically naive as I was, I could spot a phony a mile away and Gingrich was such a total phony that I was in astonished disbelief!
Mr. "Newt" is/was such a total phony, crook and absolute uncompassionate jerk that for anybody to let him speak, let alone pay him for it can only be ascribed to rock stupidity or deliberate malfeasance.
He should be in prison, along with a major portion of the treasonous bastards who fly the republican, neofascist flag. Whyinhell is this rotten to the core piece of offal still hanging around the seat of government, sucking up public money?

[Oilwellian]

9. Well, well....speak of the devil

Gnewt is voicing his outrage on CSpan as we speak. :eyes:

[Oilwellian]

10. Also......

If Gnewt is the best face the republican party has to try and quell this scandal and show repubs are still full of honor, integrity and morality, then they are in REALLY big trouble. :D