A man who has been totally disgraced for his past behavior, including ethics violations, as Speaker of the House now is constantly being given a platform to slime and smear any victim of his choosing freely. Nancy Pelosi is his newest target and he's been vicious in his attacks on her.
Newt, a man divorced many times over, just became a Catholic (a faith that frowns upon divorce) and got booted out of his Speaker's job because the American people hated his tactics. Yet he has the nerve to say Pelosi committed some unforgivable sin by saying the CIA lied, and that she should lose her leadership position. Being a Catholic now (I still consider myself one, but not very strict), who is he to point fingers at others when he himself has sinned so much?
He called her a liar among other smears yesterday on ABC radio, and then appeared on Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer and went one step further.
ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich today flatly declared that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be replaced in the wake of her allegation that the CIA lied to her about harsh interrogation techniques.
“She really disqualified herself to be speaker,” Gingrich, R-Ga., told Diane Sawyer on ABC’s “Good Morning America. “I think the Democrats should get a new speaker.”
When Sawyer brought up the fact that in 2008, Republican Sen. Peter Hoekstra similarly declared that the CIA lies to Congress, why didn't Newt demand that he be repudiated also? Newt practices the kind of hypocrisy he knows all too well.
Sawyer: Hoekstra: "We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it has been doing and then lies to Congress." That's a Republican saying it. And they're saying, where were you then, you didn't call for him to resign?
Gingrich: Well, I think in that particular argument he's fighting with them over a report he wants about a year and a half ago, but I've had a similar standard of toughness with Republicans on other issues...
Sawyer: So should he be repudiated for those words too?
Gingrich: Well, in that case he was writing a specific letter asking them to change something that they were doing, ahh...
Sawyer: Lies, he said.
Gingrich: He did not say the CIA routinely lies to the Congress.
Sawyer: Well, he says lies, he says "what it does and then lies to Congress."
Gingrich: And I think that they actually had to come back and testify, I think it's important for Congress to keep the CIA under observation...
Like a good talker that he is, he avoided answering her question. Oh, that's right, Hoekstra was fighting over something 18 months ago, so all is forgiven. Sawyer caught him like a rat in a trap.
And just to correct the record: Pelosi didn't say they lied to her routinely -- she said they had lied to her on that occasion, and a few others.
But why isn't Gingrich called on the carpet for his previous revolting behavior? What do the media let him escape his past travesties just because he sat out a while?
