Newt Gingrich’s Ethical Advice

Newt Gingrich is getting himself worked up about Nancy Pelosi’s fitness to be Speaker of the House.  How does Gingrich — Newt Gingrich! — of all people have any standing to call for anyone’s resignation or give anyone ethical advice?  He gave up all moral authority about fifteen years ago, as I recall.

From Ruth Marcus’s Post Partisan post:

“She really disqualified herself to be the speaker,” Gingrich told ABC’s “Good Morning America,” referring to Pelosi’s allegation that the CIA “routinely” misleads Congress. For Pelosi to remain two heartbeats from the presidency, he said, is “very dangerous for the country.”

Spare us.  The only reason Gingrich has any standing at all in the Republican Party is because, simply. there is no one else.  There’s no one with enough clout to stand up to Gingrich (and Cheney, for that matter) and tell him to go away and go away now.  People are leaving the GOP in droves — except weekly churchgoers — and they’re trotting out Gingrich to be the new face of the Republican Party.

Lest anyone forget Gingrich’s résumé, here’s a little more from Marcus (linked above):

Let’s review. Gingrich was reprimanded by the House and had to pay a $300,000 penalty for improperly using tax-deductible money for partisan political gain and for submitting false information to the ethics subcommittee investigating his conduct. An investigation by the House Ethics Committee concluded that Gingrich’s conduct represented “intentional or…reckless” disregard of House rules and that there was “reason to believe” that Gingrich knew he was providing false information.

“The violation does not represent only a single instance of reckless conduct,” a report by an investigative subcommittee concluded. “Rather, 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.”

To be clear, the ethics case against Gingrich was no partisan witch hunt. The investigative subcommittee that determined he had violated ethics rules was headed by Florida Republican Porter Goss. The vote to reprimand him and impose the penalty was 395 to 28.

And Gingrich himself admitted to the violations with which he was charged. “In my name and over my signature, inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable statements were given to the committee, but I did not intend to mislead the committee,” Gingrich acknowledged. “I did not seek personal gain, but my actions did not reflect creditably on the House of Representatives.”

All this, by the way, was before the married speaker was having an affair with a congressional aide during the Clinton impeachment proceedings.

Somehow I don’t think he’s in any position to be dispensing ethics advice.

Lovely man.

He certainly is not in any position to dispense ethical advice to anyone.  This isn’t about Pelosi or what she may or may not have known and what she may or may not have done regarding torture.  It’s about Gingrich and his appalling gall in thinking that he has any standing whatever to say anything as some kind of leader. 

This ought to give you an idea about how far in the wilderness the Republicans are.  Gingrich is rumored to be gearing up for a presidential run in 2012.  They really are in their “Lord of the Flies” time, as Steve Schmidt so aptly observed.  Really.  Allowing Newt Gingrich to try to take the moral high road after giving it up so many years ago?  Rehabilitation only goes so far.