The most negative primary campaign in history… or “How to Buy a Nomination”, by Mitt Romney

@GaffaUK: Apparently someone who served as the Speaker of the House, has a 20 year record in Congress plus time spent as a Washington consultant is an ‘outsider’. He wants to parade his experience, his endorsements from notable Republicans from previous administrations and the deals he has cut (fine) but he then tries to make out he’s an outsider – drawing on that hoary old cliché.

Gaffa, an “insider” or “outsider” status is not achieved simply by holding a seat or office in Washington DC. Ron Paul, Sheila Jackson Lee, Dennis Kuchinich are all just a few examples of others considered “outsiders” despite their Congressional status. Meaning their views, or even personalities, are not considered within the general trend and norm of their peers. Washington DC is truly a bastion of elitism and snobbery. A collection of Ivy League types who tend to look down on others that either don’t fit the Ivy League mold, or don’t follow the heinie of the dog in front of them on the trail.

Newt was despised in Congress by most. Some didn’t like his personality. Others didn’t like the idea that he compromised with the “enemy”, the Democrats and Clinton. In fact, if you ever read the Vanity Fair article in 1989, you’d see that the “outsider” status bothered Newt very much. He really wanted to be accepted by these snobs. They ostracized him, then used him as a scape goat to try and bolster their own failing approval numbers.

So he was found guilty of a charge which he admitted to and he got let off another one. But that’s okay because apparently it’s more important the number of charges which don’t stick that the ones that do. Lol. So he was guilty of that charge and it wasn’t fake.

Seems you suffer from the same affliction as Greg, Gaffa… the inability to retain facts, or to outright block them. The “charge” of $300K isn’t a “charge”. It was a vote by the House membership as a “reprimand” which carried a penalty. Newt could have fought it, but since the Party was already being viewed negatively by the media and public during the election year, and their quest to impeach Clinton … as well as the perception by those (like you) who pronounced the Speaker “guilty” without investigations and authorities, Newt just paid it so that it would not be a campaign issue that hurt the Party.

What he was reprimanded for, and paid a lot of cash for, was the very charge that he was exonerated for a year later by the IRS. You might liken this fake reprimand as similar to this: I accuse you of violating an equal opportunity employer federal law. You don’t’ want to fight it out in court because it’s expensive and can damage your reputation, so you just settle out of court. But a federal investigation ensues anyway, and finds later on that you weren’t guilty of the accusation I made.

But you still paid the settlement. Are you now guilty because you paid the settlement?

Newt was innocent of all charges. Period. You can do the backstroke all day long, and you’ll still be wrong.

He led a witchhunt against Clinton and he got impaled upon a witchhunt aimed at him.

My heavens, revealing your Wiki history dependence, aren’t you? Let’s see if we can help you learn the real story instead.

Following Vince Foster’s death in 1993, political pressure mounted in Washington for an independent investigation into Whitewater-Madison. The Clinton administration then turned over documents to the Justice Department including the files found in Foster’s office. In January 1994, in order to stave off ever-mounting criticism from his political foes, President Clinton reluctantly asked Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint a special counsel. Reno chose former U.S. Attorney Robert B. Fiske of New York, a moderate Republican.

Two months later, further controversy arose with the sudden resignation of Associate Attorney General Webster L. Hubbell, after allegations were raised concerning his conduct while he was a member of the Rose Law Firm. Following his resignation, friends of President Clinton arranged about $700,000 in income for Hubbell just as he was coming under scrutiny by Whitewater investigators. The President’s close friend, Vernon Jordan, an influential Washington lawyer, was among those aiding Hubbell.

By the summer of 1994, the House and Senate Banking committees both began hearings concerning Whitewater and eventually called 29 Clinton administration officials to testify.

In August, Robert Fiske’s tenure as special Whitewater counsel came to an abrupt end amid charges from conservatives that he simply was not aggressive enough in investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton. On August 5, 1994, following the renewal of the independent counsel law, the three-judge panel responsible for appointing independent counsels replaced Fiske with staunch Republican Kenneth W. Starr, a former Justice Department official in the Reagan administration, and federal appeals court judge and solicitor general in the Bush administration.

Thus began the four-year-long Starr investigation of the Clintons. Through an extraordinary set of circumstances, Starr’s investigation would eventually veer away from Whitewater and delve deeply into the personal conduct of President Clinton, ultimately leading to his impeachment for events totally unrelated to Whitewater.

If you bother to read real history of the step by step uncovering of Clinton’s questionable alliances and behavior during his terms (transparent.. .not) – you’d learn two things…

1: That the charge was for perjury – lying under oath, not having an affair. (duh…) and
2: That the genuine “leader” of the charge was GA’s Bob Barr, and the Speaker, along with a few others who constructed the Contract With America, were trying to hold Barr back.

In 1995, as a House freshman from Georgia’s conservative 7th Congressional District outside Atlanta, he championed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act – notwithstanding that Barr himself was on his third marriage while his two divorces and a dispute over medical expenses with his second wife were issues used by opponents in the 1994 campaign.

Now Barr, 49, is leading the charge to impeach a popular president – and making the Republican leadership just a tad nervous.

“My constituents didn’t send me up here to glad-hand and have a good time. They sent me up here to get something done,” Barr said recently in his Longworth Building office, as a spate of allegations about Clinton and a White House intern garnered publicity, if not support, for HR 304. That’s Barr’s resolution directing the House Judiciary Committee “to undertake an inquiry into whether grounds exist to impeach William Jefferson Clinton, the President of the United States.” Barr introduced it last fall – way before the current headlines – claiming White House abuses of power in earlier scandals.

…snip…

But the Republican powers that be so far have shown no stomach for Barr’s crusade, never mind that last week House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and several committee chairmen discussed contingency plans in case an impeachment inquiry becomes inevitable.

“I’m very glad if [the discussion] does reflect an effort on the part of the leadership to lay the groundwork for that contingency in the near future,” Barr said yesterday of the meeting, first reported by Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper. “I expect it will make it more comfortable for members to take a more active role in support of what we’re doing.”

For now, though, Gingrich has been keeping the resolution bottled up in the Rules Committee, while Gingrich’s lieutenants have been exhorting Republicans to keep their lips zipped on the latest White House scandal.

“We are using responsible self-restraint that is uncharacteristic in this Congress,” says House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.). “I don’t think we have the kind of evidentiary basis to be talking about impeachment at this time. I don’t really think you should, when it’s such an important matter and it’s frankly still in the abstract.”

…snip…

Top leadership staffers, meanwhile, have been urging discipline among the membership, and Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, chairman of the Republican Conference, recently instructed a group of House press secretaries to steer clear of the perilous “I-word.” When Barr introduced his resolution Nov. 5, he was joined by 17 co-sponsors; in the past three months he’s picked up only three more.

“For months I urged the leaders of my party to take action. To finally say enough is enough. But my cries fell on deaf ears,” Barr said in a speech two weeks ago to the Conservative Political Action Conference. In private, according to a witness, he was more pointed: “If Newt wasn’t sitting so hard on this, we’d have 200 co-sponsors – not 20!”

My my… does that sound like a Speaker “leading the charge”, when they were sitting on the resolution, and the fellow penners of the Contract with America were urging others to restrain from using the word impeachment?

Not a single hearing was held before Henry Hyde’s House Judiciary Committee prior to the midterms. They impeached Clinton Dec 19, 1998… 12 days before Newt formally resigned.

A bit hard for Newt to “lead the witchhunt” when he wasn’t on the House Judiciary Committee, was resisting the impeachment resolution, nor was even a member of Congress during the proceedings, don’t you think?

As far as you demonstrating Newt’s negative advertising… the original post I wrote has the amount of cash in negative ads by each candidate. Therefore no one suggested that Newt hasn’t engaged in negative advertising. Newt, however, was the receipient of a tsunami first, and then only responded with a bucket of water in Romney’s face. Hardly comparable, and all campaigns have negative ads. That’s not the point. The point here is the absolute volume run thru, and out of the candidate’s personal control.

Romney and his PACs swamped Newt in negative advertising first in Iowa, and Newt did not respond until SC. Even at that, the volume and percentages of the Gingrich advertising is minimal compared to Romney’s, so was not a quid pro quo.

Now Santorum, with his three state sweep – putting Romney on alert that the coronation has been postponed – will be facing Romney’s negative war chest. He’s the new threat… today, at least.

Consider yourself debunked, and rebuked for your deplorable knowledge of American History. But then, you’re a foreigner. Even many of our own citizens are as ill-informed as you.