I got to say, I just don’t get it. We are conservatives! We believe in capitalism. Did Newt do anything illegal, unethical, or out of step w/ capitalism? Is he profiting from being speaker? Yes. Is that a problem as long as it’s not illegal?
I have to step into his shoes. If I had been a past Speaker, & corporations were willing to pay me big money for my ideas & knowledge of how the system works, would I have turned them down? NO! Conservative org.’s have long been working on solutions to the healthcare problem. Some of the proposed solutions have been bad. It’s part of the process.
These corp.’s got special access to Newt. And? He was a private citizen! Had he received those consulting fees for his access while he was speaker, then you’ve got a case, but that’s not the case.
By the way, you do realize that both Romney w/ Romneycare, & Newt got their healthcare ideas in conjunction w/ The Heritage Foundation, maybe the most prestigious CONSERVATIVE think tank around.
Seems to me you are hyperfocused on whether Newt’s conduct was illegal or unethical.
I don’t see that as the issue and I don’t see that that’s the point of the article. And I certainly don’t have any problem with someone making money off of their expertise or even their political celebrity.
The point of this is the IDEAS. Is someone who has made millions off of being a paid advocate (shill, to some) for big pharma and the health insurance industry — including strongly advocating for an individual mandate — the kind of person that can be trusted as an honest broker of CONSERVATIVE IDEAS about health care reform?
Much more importantly, can you trust the political instincts of someone who says they are conservative, seems to spout conservative ideas, but then for money (BIG money) actually fights for the one thing conservatives — indeed, MOST Americans — want to be free of, the Obamacare mandate and similar?
My suggestion is don’t get caught up in a hypertechnical analysis of whether Gingrich did anything illegal or unethical. That’s the LOWEST BAR. Ask: does Gingrich’s actions demonstrate that his thinking and his actions (IOW, his political instincts) are truly informed and animated by conservatism?
Do they show that Gingrich “gets it” in terms of the zeitgeist in the country and the conservativism of the Tea Party movement?
The answer, I think, is that he gets it, more or less intellectually, but it’s not something coming from his gut.