MSM Targets Gingrich for … His Ethical Behavior?
The Washington Post and ABC News — among others — have been raking Newt Gingrich over the coals for money his think tank, the Center for Health Transformation, received from various members over the last several years.
Per the Post:
The center attracted a long list of global health-care firms and interest groups, which paid $5,000 to $200,000 a year, based on their size, to be members. Based on archived membership lists going back to 2003, that means the center brought in as much as $6.25 million per year from higher-level members giving $50,000 or more, totaling at least $37 million since 2003.
ABC targeted the $1.8 million in consulting fees Gingrich received from federally backed mortgage company Freddie Mac:
Through Gingrich Group, the former House speaker consulted for reportedly $1.8 million for eight years for Freddie Mac, the federally backed mortgage giant that most conservatives say should be eliminated. While Gingrich has denied lobbying for them, he hasn’t provided a viable explanation of what kind of services he provided to an organization that he himself recently said should be abolished.
Note the content of the attack: the two outlets are saying Gingrich’s private think-tank, which did no lobbying, made money and did nothing illegal. So in two separate hit pieces, ABC and Washington Post have made the startling claim that Gingrich made money as a private citizen and did so legally and ethically.
Moreover, the center disclosed its membership list — which it is not required to do.
ABC even quoted an expert who noted that while Gingrich may have changed his position on a few issues — as Roger Simon recently pointed out, we have all done so — he has not done anything unethical:
The connections with Washington insiders and multi-million dollar corporations makes it hard for Gingrich to cast himself as an outsider and clouds his “new Newt” campaign, experts say.
“Even if there’s no ethical or legal impropriety, the optics are bad,” said John Pitney Jr., politics professor at Claremont McKenna College who worked for Gingrich.
In other words: a man who spent decades in Washington, D.C., should be castigated for — knowing people. Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond told PJMedia:
Newt believes it’s important to be upfront and transparent. Newt has said if you’re running for the highest office in the nation you should expect to answer any questions people have.
Gingrich seems to be upfront about disclosing where his money comes from. Meanwhile, two other groups which do not receive such scrutiny from the MSM have not been as transparent as Gingrich — indeed, his group filed the disclosure form which gave ABC and the Washington Post the data for their articles. John Podesta’s Center for American Progress, which figured prominently in the 2008 transition for current President Barack Obama, is anything but transparent. As Politico noted then:
The think tank, the Center for American Progress, and its president, John Podesta, are uniquely integrated with the transition. Podesta, on leave from the Center for American Progress (CAP), heads the transition operation. The transition’s operations director, general counsel, and co-director all shifted from similar jobs at CAP, and the transition is full of lower-level former CAP staffers or current board members.
CAP does not disclose its donors.
Neither does Media Matters, believed to be funded by George Soros. Radley Balko noted in March:
So I just noticed the Media Matters “Transparency” project today after clicking over from another site. It lists the major donors to all sorts of conservative and libertarian organizations, including my current and previous employers, Reason and Cato.
As I’ve noted before, both Reason and Cato already list their major donors in their annual reports. At Reason, we also publish the names of everyone who has given the Reason Foundation at least $1,000 each year in the magazine.
But here’s what you won’t find on the Media Matters “Transparency” website, or on the main Media Matters site: a list of the names of the major donors to Media Matters. They keep that secret. As do the various “Progress” groups, who also regularly criticize conservative and free market organizations as being secret front groups for major donors and corporations.
Again, these organizations are doing nothing illegal, immoral, or unethical by refusing to release the names of their donors — nor was Gingrich doing anything illegal, immoral, or unethical by using the contacts he made while speaker of the House to earn a living.
See also: Gingrich Beats Obama in Head to Head Matchup
Attention! Hear ye American Political Shoppers!
Before ye pass through ye Election Doors, heed ye this above cited exemplary definition of contemporary “Hypocrisy”.
Hear Ye, Verily.
Newt’s team should go over the list of records Obama has concealed, pull Newt’s counterparts, and begin publishing.
Newt is in for some very tough times. Our ultra-left, captive media will begin investigating Newt’s background. They’ll want key info like who gave what as presents at Newt’s first wedding. And, they’ll want to know why Newt only got a “B” in the undergraduate course. The same media will be able to hypothesize the REAL reason why Newt can’t provide details, today.
Honest observers must be able to contrast Newt’s candor with Hussein’s mendacity!
Ooo, it’s the big bad Boogeyman! Boogey, boogey, boogey!
Look at the list of recipients of F&F political campaign contributions. Sort by total amount. You do not see a Republican name until way down the list. I do not think Gingrich’s name is on the list. Obama’s name was #2 by 2008.
Gingrich has ties to F&F? Really? How about Obama’s ties to F&F?!?
The eventual winner for the Republican side will not only stand up to the press but challenge them at every turn. Challenge every word they utter and call them liars to their face on their own networks. Challenge them on not only the reasons for some of their questions but any facts that are included in the questions. Always answer each and every question with one of your own directed at the moderator as to why they would ask that question of you and not Obama, which when you look back would almost always be the case. Always redirect questions to the treatment of Obama compared to yourself or the Republican Party. Especially throw back in their faces Saul Alinsky and the other Marxist creeps lurking in the halls of the White House. Throw back in their faces the low life behavior of Edwards that the press didn’t covered until the last and the ethics of blow job Billy and the under the desk escapades with a barely out of her teens intern.
Your opponent isn’t Obama, it’s the press. Hammer them and challenge them the likes of which has never been seen before.
– lips to their ears, we can only hope!
And Newt is likely the only person now running that can do it – and do it well at that. Chris Christie is about the only other Republican I can think of that is capable as Newt in this regard.
Mr. “I’m presidential” Romney can’t or won’t do it but that is how Obama will be defeated. Defeat the MSM – then Obama. He’ll be truly naked without them.
“Experts say …” Ah, yes. This is how they do it. Claim whatever the hell you want to say about a candidate, or a policy, or a scientific theory, or WHATtever — the truth, or relative truth, of the claim is irrelevant, so long as EXPERTS SAY. And the great thing for the Obama Media is that they can ascribe “experts say” to any person or group who poses a threat to The One. Amazing, isn’t it?
So, for how long has this been going on? Unfortunately, I don’t know. I’ve only been aware of it for the past decade or so, prior to that I naively believed that our major papers and nightly news outlets were interested in being as objective as possible. Ha! What an idiot I was. Then came the atrocity of 9/11, and I started paying more attention to the communiques of college-trained journalists. I needed to know what was going on out there. I craved news information as never before. And in the process I made a great personal discovery. It began with the European Press — more particularly, the British Press. I began to get the sense that, gosh, these people who I thought were our friends and appreciative allies actually kinda had it out for us. Especially after President Bush, with the full backing of the U.S. Congress and national public opinion, decided to take down the Big Dog, Saddam Hussein. I started to notice that the media had no interest whatsoever in interviewing anti-Saddam voices. No no. It was, rather, always the same guy whose “narratives” they wanted to hear: Abu the one-legged carwash attendant. And he could always be counted upon to say the god-awful things about American policies and American troop conduct that Eurotrash leftists SO wanted to hear.
That was a real learning experience for me.
And then this rabid anti-U.S. bias migrated to our own shores, and soon we had the New York Times sending out its top reporters to interview this same Abu fella, and fixating on the aberration of Abu Grahib, ad nauseum, and giving free advice to Islamic terror organizations on how to stay a step ahead of American (and cooperative Western) stratagems to roll up al Qaeda & Co.
I asked myself: Isn’t there some law against aiding and abetting the enemy in time of war? How can America’s “newspaper of record” get away with this crap? And why are the people so numb to the outrage? Where the hell am I?
So, anyway, to make a long story short, I now know EXACTLY what we traditional, patriotic Americans are up against. The American Left is a wing of the International Left. The MSM are almost to the man, card-carrying members of this leftist mindset and agenda. We are so screwed! And now they are systematically targeting every GOP presidential hopeful that comes down the pike. It began, by the most vicious of means, with the smearing of Sarah Palin and, yes, her family, including her newborn. Since then the Obama Media (which had no interest whatsoever in Rev. Wright or the Ayers terrorists), with support from feckless, so-called “conservative” talking-head elites (like Bill Kristol, Karl Rove, Charles Krauthhammer [when he's off his meds], etc.) knee-capped early front-runners Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain. Now they’re whipping up a nice vat of slime for Newt Gingrich. And after that, it will be a simple matter of pulling out every last peg — no matter how sleazy or bigoted — to destroy Mitt Romney.
And we will have plenty of Obama stalking horses, Ronpaulians, and assorted self-immolating candidate groupies here on PJMedia (and elsewhere in the rightwing blogosphere) HELPING the MSM leftists to put America’s worst president ever back in office for another four years of sheer audio-visual misery that no amount of prayer and alcohol will assuage.
And when that happens, I will truly no longer care. I will cancel my cable (yeah, like that’ll be a huge loss). I will delete ALL of my news-media bookmarks. I will … I will join a monastery. No. My wife wouldn’t allow it. But I will TUNE OUT completely. And gladly. I will turn to stocking up on ammo, novels. and freeze-dried food. I have enough music, old movies, and T.V. series on backup drives to see me through to my dying days.
Because if Obama gets another four years, he will truly ruin everything that this country once stood for. And it will be every man for himself.
Please, while Newt did not lobby in the precise legalese of federal law, he did lobby in the language of a sane person. Selling your influence to drive policy decisions in the favor of your clients is lobbying.
It’s a sad statement to the state of our party that a snake like Newt is even in the running. He respects America as much as his wives.
Who is Huntsman?
I imagine the following riposte from Gingrich:
“Fellow Americans, you may have heard or read recently that, in my years as a private citizen, I earned approximately $2 million by providing advice to Freddie Mac, one of the two federally-organized and subsidized mortgage giants. Also, I’ve organized a health-care-oriented think tank, the Center for Health Transformation, of which a number of large health-care companies are dues-paying members.
“A number of papers, including the Washington Post, and a larger number of Websites, including that of the American Broadcasting Corporation, are trying to make these enterprises sound like crimes. Yet no one has even hinted that I’ve done anything criminal, or even ethically questionable. It’s all about appearances: Newt Gingrich has made some money by providing advice to people and companies he knows, so something shady has to be behind it!
“Well, my friends, I invite anyone to find a shady dealing in those efforts, by myself or anyone else connected with either of them. And note this: The source of all the information about either of them is my campaign. I’ve not only released the financials of those undertakings; I’ve also released the Center for Health Transformation’s donor list, which I was not legally required to do. You see, I believe that a man who seeks the highest office in the world has an obligation — an ethical obligation — to be forthcoming about his doings, past and present. They’re the best possible guide to how he’ll act in the future.
“Compare my degree of transparency about my affairs to that of Barack Hussein Obama and the organizations that have promoted and supported him. Do we know anything but the bare bones about President Obama’s past? How did he go from an obscure community organizer in Chicago to the top of the poliltical world? Have we seen his transcripts from Occidental University? Do we know anything about his years at Columbia University, where he studied law? What professors remember him at either school? What do they have to say about him?
“What about his earlier life? He had a mentor named Frank, mentioned in his autobiography, who was apparently extremely important to him. What was Frank’s full name? Could it have been Frank Marshall Davis, the revolutionary Communist organizer of the Sixties and Seventies?
“His Chicago years are just as much a mystery. Just how deeply influenced was he by Reverend Jeremiah Wright? How deeply involved was he with terrorists Bill Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn? What about his involvements with Tony Rezko and Alex Giannoulias? Did he or did he not get a shady “sweetheart deal” with which to finance the purchase of his mansion in Chicago? And did he collaborate with former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in the attempt to sell his seat in the United States Senate?
“Friends, I believe in full disclosure. I’ve made it a principle of my campaign. Now it’s time for you to compare my record, on that subject and all related ones, to that of President Obama. Decide for yourself whom you’ll believe — and come November 6, 2012, whom you’ll support. Thank you for your time and attention.”
(Exit stage right to wild sustained cheers from the crowd.)
Well done! *applause*
As usual from the left we see the politics of lies and personal destruction.
I have to admit, one thing I definitely like about Newt is that he doesn’t take any BS from the MSM. He knows how to fight back. He has also been very good about not joining in on MSM efforts to get the repub candidates to spend all their time trashing each other, instead of Obama.
Please note that Newt made about 200K as a “consultant” for two Fed outfits which incompetently lost hundreds of billions. Was it his advice which led to the losses? This clown is bought and paid for by the International Bankers, including the Federal Reserve, aka Rothschild West.His personal life betrays his amorality. He is a Rino- John Edwards puppet; a Herman Cain with brains.
Mothers, don’t let your boys grow up to be Newts.
My God! Has it come to the point that our defense of a presidential candidate (Newt) is that he’s done nothing criminal. The MSM is not friendly, to be sure, but conservatives will not win the White House by running against them. Newt is a duplicitous clown at best, and a deceptive seller of influence at worst.
The Newtster carries more baggage than an Amtrak porter. Obama must pray each night for him to be the GOP nominee. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel. Republican Senators and Congress members must be quaking at being pulled down by an Obama landslide. Wake up, folks! We’re looking foolish to the rest of the country in entertaining thoughts of this clown.
It’s Gingrich Time!
All things come to those who wait and now it’s Gingrich’s turn. With the race for the Republican nomination for president seemingly narrowed to a pack of two, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, it was time for the Obama attack team to zero in on Newt since he has been waxing of late and Mitt has been stagnating.
Adhering to the military strategy of focusing on offing the leader, the Obamians have been dismantling the front runner until he is beaten to a pulp then deal with the remnants of the field. It worked with Bachmann, Perry, and Cain so why not go with whatever works?
Of course, even when he was bringing up the rear, Gingrich received his allotted share of undercutting but it’s a whole new ballgame now that he’s in the lead. The Big Guns are being trotted out to reduce him to size, if not to a quivering shadow of his former self.
However, with all his faults and baggage, Newt represents a lot of candidate to cut down and he’s not known to quiver much.
And, to utilize a tempting pun, his quiver is chock-full of arrows with which to bring down Obama, chiefly his knowledge, experience, intelligence, and debating expertise, all of which constitute fearsome forces to reckon with and the re-elect Obama team has evidently been doing a great deal of reckoning.
The latest Democrat stalwart to join the Democrat attack machine isn’t known for her intelligence or expertise in anything other than winning her own re-election in a super-safe congressional district and just launched her initial salvo of innuendo intended to inflict damage on her former House colleague.
House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi didn’t really say anything of substance to Talking Points Memo but rather, in her sly fashion, tried to smear and intimidate Gingrich with a threat.
As she inelegantly put it without elaboration, “When the time is right. . . I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”
Just think about it. An investigative committee of four so far un-identified individuals investigating an arch political enemy for twelve months behind non-transparent doors and compiling “a thousand pages of his stuff.” It’s a wonder they didn’t find Newt guilty of pulling grandma’s plug and tossing babies into wood chippers!
Imagine any committee secretly investigating Barack Hussein Obama for a year! They could determine he was born in Nairobi, his father was a confirmed Marxist drunk, and his mother had this peculiar thing for Muslim men. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=9629.)
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