Newt Gingrich
Dr. Newton Leroy Gingrich (born June 17, 1943), is best-known as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives between 1995 and 1999.
He was born Newton McPherson in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the son of Kathleen and Newton McPherson. His parents separated soon after Newt's birth, and her mother raised him by herself until she married Robert Gingrich, who adopted Newt, hence the name change.
Gingrich's adopted surname has been generally pronounced "Ging-gritch" since his entry into public life. However, his adoptive family has always pronounced the name "Gin-grick," as would be customary in the Pennsylvania Dutch ethnic milieu.
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2 Political career 3 Post-speakership career 4 Quotes 5 Sources and external links |
Education
Gingrich attended school at various military installations and graduated from Baker High School, Columbus, Georgia, in 1961. He received a bachelor's degree from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in 1965. He received his master's degree from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1968 and his PhD from the same university in 1971. He taught at West Georgia College in Carrollton, Georgia, from 1970 to 1978.
Political career
Gingrich was elected as a Republican to the House of Representatives in November 1978. He served ten terms in Congress. He was re-elected to the 106th Congress in November 1998 but did not take his seat. He served as minority whip from 1989-1994 and as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995-1998.
In 1994, Gingrich defined a Contract with America, a list of campaign promises signed by himself and other Republican candidates for the House of Representatives. The promises were designed to unite the various factions of the party and provide a contrast with Bill Clinton. Many credit that contract (as well as demographic trends) for the election successes of November 1994. After that election, Republicans took control of the House for the first time since 1954. For the next four years, the Congress under Gingrich's leadership took aim at the embattled president, investigating various scandals and calling for impeachment.
Gingrich became an icon in the Republican Party and was respected, if not beloved, by elements of U.S. conservatism. However, his opponents, even some within the Republican Party, characterized him as mean-spirited.
Ironically, Gingrich himself faced ethics investigations that ended in him admitting wrongdoing. In January of 1997, Gingrich was fined $300,000 by the Congressional ethics committee for using tax-exempt foundations for political purposes, which was a violation of House rules.
After the 1998 election campaign, in which the Republicans expected big gains but ultimately showed the poorest results in 34 years of any party not in control of the White House, Gingrich resigned from the speakership and from his seat in November 1998.
Many critics of Gingrich has noted that while his party hammered President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal, that Gingrich himself had a history of what many would consider bad personal conduct. In 1981 to reportedly informed his first wife, Jackie Battley, that he wanted a divorce just as she had received a diagnosis of cancer. Gingrich and Marianne Ginther were married months later.
Also, during the very time of the Lewinsky scandal, Gingrich was having an extramarital sexual affair with Callista Bisek, a scheduling and assistant hearing clerk on his staff who is 23 years his junior. The affiair reportedly began well before Gingrich assumed the speakership in 1994, and continued through his divorce from his wife, Marianne Ginther Gingrich, in 1999. Reportedly, Gingrich's fellow Republicans knew he was engaged in the extramarital relationship and used that knowledge to ease him out of the speakership.
According to the Washington Post, in late 1999, Gingrich reportedly telephoned Marianne in Ohio during Marianne's mother's birthday party to inform her that he "didn't want [her] as his wife any more."
He has since remained involved in national politics and public policy debate.
He is a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, focusing on health care (he has founded the Center for Health Transformation), information technology, the military, and politics. He is occasionally a guest or panel member on Inside-the-Beltway news shows. Gingrich has publicly questioned the decisions and motivations for some of the policies, particularly foreign policies, of the Bush Administration. Specifically, he has challenged policy of the State Department, calling for a transformation of the department due to numerous diplomatic failures. He has also called the State Department "ineffective and incoherent" in its resolve to persuade members of the UN Security Council for a second resolution for military action against Iraq.
In early December 2003, Gingrinch, although generally supportive of the Bush Administration, took issue with the administration's strategy in Iraq, stating that the U.S. had "gone off the cliff in Iraq" and that "Americans can't win in Iraq. Only Iraqis can win in Iraq."
Gingrich has also been co-author with science fiction author William Forstchen, of three alternate history novels: 1945 (in which World War II never happened), (in which the Confederacy won the Battle of Gettysburg) and Grant Comes East, a sequel to Gettysburg.
Post-speakership career
Gingrich was often touted as a possible presidential candidate in the 2000 Presidential election, but this never materialized.Quotes
Sources and external links