Quotes of the Morning: Eye of Newt, Wing of Nut

“You know that things are bad in Washington when the old hard-core Republicans are saying that there is a scandal.”
-Skippy

“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested a New Year's resolution of sorts for members of Congress yesterday: Stop holding fund-raisers in Washington, D.C., with big-money lobbyists.
Gingrich, appearing on CBS's ‘Face the Nation,’ said members should start by banning all political action committee fundraisers while Congress was in session.
‘This whole system has grown frankly a little sick,’ he said.”
-New York Post, January 2, 2006

“The Abramoff scandal has to be seen as part of a much larger and deeper problem. It's not about lobbyist corruption. You can't have a corrupt lobbyist without a corrupt member or corrupt staff. This was a team effort.''
-Newt Gingrich, January 4, 2006

“One of the biggest issues is the growing power of incumbents and their dependence on contributions from lobbyists, Gingrich said. He proposed changes including a ban on fund raising in Washington and allowing citizens to make unlimited donations to politicians in their own districts. Gingrich also would make lobbyists and U.S. officials disclose their meetings each week.
‘There are a series of behaviors, a series of attitudes, a series of crony-like activities that are not defensible, and no Republican should try to defend them,’ he said. ‘The danger for Republicans is to pretend this isn't fundamental or to pretend that they can get by passively without undertaking real reform.’''
-Bloomberg News, January 4, 2006

“Yes, reform is important. And we should probably look seriously at allowing rich citizens (aka: those who benefit the most from the Republican tax breaks) to donate as much money into the election process as they want, because that’s only fair and won’t unbalance things at all. Mr. Gingrich is just looking out for the integrity of the House, because no one knows the damage that an ethics charge can cause more than the good Mr. Gingrich.”
-Skippy

“The House ethics committee recommended last night that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) face an unprecedented reprimand from his colleagues and pay $300,000 in additional sanctions after concluding that his use of tax-deductible money for political purposes and inaccurate information supplied to investigators represented ‘intentional or . . . reckless’ disregard of House rules.
The committee's 7 to 1 vote came after 5 1/2 hours of televised hearings and the release of a toughly worded report on the investigation by special counsel James M. Cole. The recommendation, which followed a week of partisan conflict that has split the House into warring camps, sets the stage for a resolution of this investigation into Gingrich's actions.
Gingrich earlier admitted he had violated House rules and was prepared to accept the committee's recommendation for punishment. If the full House votes as expected on Tuesday, Gingrich would become the first speaker to be reprimanded for his conduct and would begin his second term politically weakened and personally diminished.
[…]
Cole said he had concluded that Gingrich had violated federal tax law and had lied to the ethics panel in an effort to force the committee to dismiss the complaint against him. He said the committee members were reluctant to go that far in their conclusions, but said they agreed Gingrich was either ‘reckless’ or ‘intentional’ in the way he conducted himself. [...] Cole made clear he had concluded that Gingrich's activities were not random acts but part of a pattern of questionable behavior. ‘Over a number of years and in a number of situations, Mr. Gingrich showed a disregard and lack of respect for the standards of conduct that applied to his activities,’ he said.”
-Washington Post, January 18, 1997

“You see, ethics charges are something that the Republican party has been fighting for years. Mainly due to the mis-use of funds and lying to ethics panels and investigators. Thankfully, none of their scandals revolved around anything truly important to the nation like extramarital sex with an intern.”
-Skippy

“In August 1999, Gingrich revealed that he had been carrying on an extramarital affair for the past six years with a House clerk twenty-three years his junior, Callista Bisek. Critics noted that Gingrich's adultery had taken place while he was leading moral attacks against Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. Because of the similarity of the situations, critics charged Gingrich's attacks on Clinton had been grossly hypocritical.”
-Wikipedia, Newt Gingrich

“Well, except for that. Many thanks to Digby at Hullabaloo for the older Quotes today.”
-Skippy