Wow! The Establishment is a slimy bunch.
Byron York: What really happened in the Gingrich ethics case? "The Romney campaign has been hitting Newt Gingrich hard over the 1990s ethics case that resulted in the former Speaker being reprimanded and paying a $300,000 penalty. Before the Iowa caucuses, Romney and his supporting super PAC did serious damage to Gingrich with an ad attacking Gingrich's ethics past. Since then, Romney has made other ads and web videos focusing on the ethics matter, and at the Republican debate in Tampa Monday night, Romney said Gingrich "had to resign in disgrace."
In private conversations, Romney aides often mention the ethics case as part of their larger argument that Gingrich would be unelectable in a race against President Obama.
Given all the attention to the ethics matter, it's worth asking what actually happened back in 1995, 1996, and 1997. The Gingrich case was extraordinarily complex, intensely partisan, and driven in no small way by a personal vendetta on the part of one of Gingrich's former political opponents. It received saturation coverage in the press; a database search of major media outlets revealed more than 10,000 references to Gingrich's ethics problems during the six months leading to his reprimand. It ended with a special counsel hired by the House Ethics Committee holding Gingrich to an astonishingly strict standard of behavior, after which Gingrich in essence pled guilty to two minor offenses. Afterwards, the case was referred to the Internal Revenue Service, which conducted an exhaustive investigation into the matter. And then, after it was all over and Gingrich was out of office, the IRS concluded that Gingrich did nothing wrong. After all the struggle, Gingrich was exonerated.
I wrote about the matter at the time, first in a 1995 article about Gingrich's accusers and then in a 1999 piece on the Internal Revenue Service report that cleared Gingrich. (Both pieces were for The American Spectator; I'm drawing on them extensively, but unfortunately neither is available online.)"........................
Here are the facts from CATO.
"As U.S. real output grew 13 percent between 2002 and 2006, Massachusetts trailed at 9 percent.
* Manufacturing employment fell 7 percent nationwide those years, but sank 14 percent under Romney, placing Massachusetts 48th among the states.
* Between fall 2003 and autumn 2006, U.S. job growth averaged 5.4 percent, nearly three times Massachusetts' anemic 1.9 percent pace.
* While 8 million Americans over age 16 found work between 2002 and 2006, the number of employed Massachusetts residents actually declined by 8,500 during those years.
"Massachusetts was the only state to have failed to post any gain in its pool of employed residents," professors Sum and McLaughlin concluded.
In an April 2003 meeting with the Massachusetts congressional delegation in Washington, Romney failed to endorse President Bush's $726 billion tax-cut proposal."
[Cato Institute annual Fiscal Policy Report Card - America's Governors, 2004.]
Wow! The Establishment is a slimy bunch.
Hastert is the ace that never got any credit (dis-credit) for allowing the Repub Congress under Bush to create more government and run up deficits. A me-too Republican!
Hastert is an old screwel teechur, liberal as they come, and slimey as a slug.
Hey Hastert, how’s your pal, William Jefferson, D-LA?
IIRC, Hastert was a weak and useless Speaker.
His "endorsement" of Romney won't change anyone's mind, but it does signal that the establishment 'Pubbies are desperate to get their moderate the minimum number of delegates required for a first round ballot.
Because if it goes to a second round, mittens won't stand a chance.
“I ended up being speaker longer than anyone in the country.”
Not quite. Hastert was the longest serving Republican Speaker. 3 rats served longer. Rayburn has everyone beat by a wide margin. Interesting, most Speakers don’t last long, usually cause the other party takes over the House. #2 and #3, O’Neill and McCormack both served during the 40 years of darkness.
Hastert deserves a good deal of the blame for 2006 and 2008 so I’m not really interested in his glowing opinion of Romney.
I found it amusing that minority leader Boehner was our nominee for Speaker in 2007, even though Hastert was still in the House and hadn’t decided to resign yet.
We really need a good Speaker to go along with a good President. Both Newt and Hastert had their failings in the office. Boehner does not impress so far.