Marcus Tullius Cicero

OUTRAGE!

I, myself, however, when a young man[32], was at first led by inclination, like most others, to engage in political affairs[33]; but in that pursuit many circumstances were unfavorable to me; for, instead of modesty, temperance, and integrity[34], there prevailed shamelessness, corruption, and rapacity. And although my mind, inexperienced in dishonest practices, detested these vices, yet, in the midst of so great corruption, my tender age was insnared and infected[35] by ambition; and, though I shrunk from the vicious principles of those around me, yet the same eagerness for honors, the same obloquy and jealousy[36], which disquieted others, disquieted myself

CICERO

Newt is outraged.

I cannot help but wonder about how outrage can work at the right time, at the right place and in front of the right audience. (Note the word 'right' in this sentence.)

Here is Newt at his best. I know everyone in the world has already heard this, but the context is of importance here.

I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that.

John, it was repeated by your network,You chose to start the debate with it. Don't try to blame somebody else. You and your staff chose to start this debate with it.

Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things.

I'm tired of the media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.

Newt claimed that Marianne is lying in hopes of hurting his chances in the South Carolina primary on Saturday.

To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary, a significant question in a presidential campaign, is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine he said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR6qvkDDBCg

Okay, so Cicero takes on Catiline!

What wonders of oratory.

What a monumental library is catalogued in this monster's cranium?

What purity of purpose.

What talent in trajectory.

I mean here is a man who stands up to his beliefs.

AS CLOSE TO DESPICABLE AS ANYTHING I CAN IMAGINE!

My goodness. Avert your eyes and your memories from the Concentration Camps of Eastern Europe in the middle of the last century, avert your eyes and your memories from Nagasaki and Hiroshima, avert your eyes and your memories from one hundred million dead and most probably two hundred million dead during the first half of the 20^th century, and avert your eyes and your memories from the deeds of Idi Amin or the Khamer Rouge or the South African Apartheid or the American Apartheid spanning the 17^th, 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries or the....

No! John King (the taller of the Smith Brothers) has to be as despicable as anything one could ever imagine.

Except of course for THE NEWT!

Gingrich has always been just too damn mean.

HISTORY

Tip O'Neill had heard enough. Incensed by an attack on Democratic legislators by Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich of Georgia during a debate last week, the House Speaker dropped his gavel and strode angrily onto the floor, leaving his Massachusetts colleague Democrat Joseph Moakley to take the chair. O'Neill shook a finger at Gingrich and roared, "You challenged their patriotism, and it is the lowest thing that I have ever seen in my 32 years in Congress!

CSPAN had just been invented.

It was the first half of the 80's and this c*&^%sucker would stand on the floor of the House pretending to present a speech in front of his colleagues.

Oh, if you would contradict these truths, make your contradictions known now

Except there was no one in the House Chamber except the Newt.

And the Newt knew damn well there was no one there and that this new CSPAN set up included one camera so that the viewing audience knew not that the Newt was speaking to no one except the cameramen. Hahahaha

Last May, US Representative Newt Gingrich stood in the well of the House to rebut charges made by Speaker Tip O'Neill. For months, Gingrich had been harassing the Democrats in evening speeches broadcast over C-Span, the cable channel that carries House sessions. He called them "blind to communism"; he threatened to "file charges" against ten Democrats for a letter they wrote to Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega; he accused one Democrat of placing "communist propaganda" in the Speaker's lobby. In retaliation, O'Neill ordered the C-Span cameras to sweep the floor every few minutes to show the world that Gingrich and friends were declaiming before empty seats. And on May 14, he attacked Gingrich for questioning the patriotism of members of Congress.

Now the showdown was at hand. The chamber was full, the hubbub audible. Cocksure and articulate, Gingrich repeated his attack on Democratic foreign policy. O'Neill's words, he said, came "all too close to resembling a McCarthyism of the Left." He had accused no one of being un-American, he insisted: "It is perfectly American to be wrong." When Democrats rose to challenge him, he deflected their criticisms, ignored the tough questions, pounced on the easy ones, and demonstrated all the techniques of a master debater.

Finally O'Neill took the floor, repeatedly interrupting Gingrich. Back and forth they went, the brash young Republican from Georgia and the indignant white-maned Democrat from Massachusetts. "My personal opinion is this," O'Neill roared at last, shaking his finger at Gingrich. "You deliberately stood in that well before an empty House, and challenged these people, and challenged their patriotism, and it is the lowest thing that I've ever seen in my 32 years in Congress."

Jim Wright, 1989

As for the older investigation of former House speaker Jim Wright, Gingrich filed ethics charges against the one-time Democratic leader in 1988, alleging he had benefited improperly from speaking engagements related to his book “Reflections of a Public Man.” Wright resigned before the committee made a determination in the case. (and here.)

Gingrich's battle against Jim Wright began in 1987; a one-man crusade which few in Washington took seriously. Before Gingrich was through, however, more than 70 House Republicans signed his letter asking the House's ethics committee to investigate Wright. The accusations were related to Wright's links to a Texas developer, to his favors to savings and loan operators, and the way in which he published and sold a book of his speeches and writings Reflections of a Public Man. Wright received unusually large royalties and sold the book to political contributors— an arrangement seemingly designed to circumvent ceilings on donations.

Gingrich was ruthless on the offensive. His dramatic contentions won him necessary Congressional allies and his rhetorical skills made him eminently quotable, thus a media darling. "I'm so deeply frightened by the nature of the corrupt left-wing machine in the House that it would have been worse to do nothing," he was quoted as saying in the New York Times. "Jim Wright has reached a point psychologically, in his ego, where there are no boundaries left." Following the investigation, the ethics committee said it had reason to believe Wright had violated House rules 69 times. Less than two months later, on June 6, 1989, Wright resigned as Speaker.

In March 1989, in the midst of his war with Wright, Gingrich's Republican colleagues elected him to the post of Minority Whip by a narrow 87-85 margin. The vote signaled "a wake-up call to incumbent GOP leaders from younger members who want a more aggressive, active party," said the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report. "Gingrich's promotion from backbench bomb thrower to Minority Whip was an expression of seething impatience among House Republicans with their seemingly minority status."

http://www.browsebiography.com/bio-newt_gingrich.html

This was THE NEWT'S attack upon Jim Wright, Speaker of the House in 1989.

Jim Wright has reached a point psychologically, in his ego, where there are no boundaries left.

AAAAAAAAAAh Cicero finds his Cataline!

THE NEWT'S COMEUPPANCE

However, Democrats did raise the issue first in 1994. The initial complaint came from former Democratic congressman Ben Jones, who had challenged Gingrich for his House seat that same year. (He also played auto mechanic Cooter Davenport in the hit TV series “The Dukes of Hazzard.”)

Jones prompted the investigation by alleging that Gingrich had used tax-deductible donations to finance the Renewing American Civilization project, a college course that promoted conservative ideals.

Congressional Democrats cried for an investigation, initiating a long list of charges against the speaker. Republicans pushed back, and the House ethics committee dismissed most of the charges.

But Gingrich couldn’t buck two of the allegations: one suggesting he had violated federal tax law and the other saying he attempted to mislead the congressional panel during its investigation.

None of the tax-based allegations should have caught the former speaker off-guard. His attorneys had warned him in 1990 that he should not finance his college courses with tax-exempt funds, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that year.  

The bipartisan ethics committee ultimately agreed that GOPAC, a Gingrich-led political training organization, had joined with a nonprofit group to raise funds for the speaker’s college course, which essentially served as a conservative promotional machine.  

The program’s fundraising literature suggested prominent thinkers from various backgrounds would help shape the course’s content. But the thinking wasn’t so varied.

Rhetoric is rhetoric is rhetoric to be sure.

I mean Cicero tried the same tactics against Caesar who eventually destroyed a Republic that represented ten percent or less of all Roman residents.

THE NEWT believes in nothing but THE NEWT.

He cannot help himself.

He will lie and steal and cheat and minimize and maximize and do whatever he can do in order to achieve his ends. His ends being to aggrandize and enrich himself.

So this bothers me?

So I can find evidence of hypocrisy?

Name me one repub who is not guilty of hypocrisy?

Even Paul will minimize his own hatred of the minorities for chrissakes.

But my problem is that THE NEWT has been caught so very many times in his own contradictions and lies.

Just recently he has attacked gays for destroying the American Family.

And that American Family prick was just on Scarborough this morning defending this adulterous bastard and screaming about tax breaks for the rich?

And yet the American Family bastards are telling us that the ten percenters who are gay are destroying the family model?

This is a rant of sorts for sure.

But NEWT is here. He is no joke. He cares nothing of Truth, Justice or The American Way.

He cares only for the Gingrich way!