Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire At age 16, Newt slept with his high school math teacher....

who he eventually married.

ADULTERY, DISHONESTY AND CORRUPTION AREN'T "BAGGAGE".

In this age of euphemisms, it�s rare to hear a spade called a spade any more. No one is blind any more, they�re �visually impaired.� We don�t put criminals in jail any longer; we house �career offenders.� And we don�t bomb the crap out of countries that cross us, we engage in �kinetic military actions.� So, it shouldn�t come as much of a surprise to anyone who follows GOP politics that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is often referred to as �having a lot of baggage.�

Let�s clarify something up front. Adultery, dishonesty, and corruption aren�t �baggage.� They are the outward signs of an inner lack of integrity and character. They are the symptoms of an unprincipled and dishonorable life. They are like the oft-overlooked tiny wormhole on the shiny red apple that leads to a rotten inner core. When we ignore the symptomatic signposts that warn us of serious character flaws, we end up with bad politicians who do bad things to our country, our system of government, and ultimately, to us.

Newt Gingrich is the only Speaker of the House in history to have been disciplined for ethics violations. Eighty-four ethics charges were brought against him. In order to avoid a full hearing, Gingrich negotiated a settlement in which eighty-three of the charges were dropped, and he was sanctioned for the remaining charge by a House vote of 395 to 28 and fined $300,000 on January 21, 1997. And let�s not forget that this was while the Republicans had a majority in the House!

At age 16, Newt Gingrich slept with his high school math teacher, Jackie Battley, whom he eventually married in 1962 when he was 19, and she was 26. Perhaps this sort of thing was accepted with a wink and a nod in the early 1960′s, but today, we call such behavior �statutory rape� and �inappropriate teacher-student relationships.� There are plenty of female high school teachers languishing in prisons today for exactly the same behavior.

Consider this narrative, which appeared in a 1995 Vanity Faire article about Gingrich:

In the spring of 1977, [Anne Manning, who admitted to a relationship with Gingrich that started during his 1976 campaign] was in Washington to attend a census-bureaus workshop when Gingrich took her to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. He met her back at her modest hotel room. �We had oral sex,� she says. �He prefers that� because then he can say, �I never slept with her.� Indeed, before Gingrich left that evening, she says, he threatened her: �If you ever tell anybody about this, I�ll say you�re lying.�

During that same period, one of Newt Gingrich�s neighbors told the following story about him:

Kip Carter, who lived a few doors down from the couple, saw more than he wanted to. �We had been out working a football game �I think it was the Bowdon game� and we would split up. It was a Friday night. I had Newt�s daughters, Jackie Sue and Kathy, with me. We were all supposed to meet back at this professor�s house. It was a milk-and-cookies kind of shakedown thing, buck up the troops. I was cutting across the yard to go up the driveway. There was a car there. As I got to the car, I saw Newt in the passenger seat and one of the guys� wives with her head in his lap going up and down. Newt kind of turned and gave me his little-boy smile. Fortunately, Jackie Sue and Kathy were a lot younger and shorter then.

According to first wife Jackie Battley, in April 1980, Gingrich and their children visited her while she was in the hospital, recovering from surgery to remove a tumor, and Gingrich surprised her by asking for a divorce. She learned he�d been carrying on a long-term affair with Marianne Ginther. Gingrich fought hard to avoid paying any alimony or child support to Battley. She said, �We went to court to get the basic financial necessities met.� The utilities were about to be cut off. Jackie�s testimony at a hearing to determine alimony �revealing Newt�s $34,000 personal debt, his irresponsible spending habits, his refusal to pay household bills� appeared in detail on the front page of the hometown newspaper on October 23, 1980.

He married Marianne in 1981, and not long afterwards began a long-term affair with House of Representatives staffer Callista Bisek, who was 23 years his junior. Gingrich carried on this affair, even as he led the Congressional investigation of President Clinton for his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.


Newt's three wives: Jackie, Marianne, Callista

Gingrich�s second wife, Marianne, described how she learned that Gingrich wanted a divorce:

�Marianne went to the doctor and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In early May � just before Mother�s Day � she went to Ohio to visit her mother. She told Esquire that Gingrich didn�t return her calls for two days � which, for a man that usually checked in several times a day, was quite unusual. And when he finally returned her calls, that�s when she knew. He wanted to talk in person, he said. �I said, �No, we need to talk now.� Marianne responded, �There�s somebody else, isn�t there?� She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?�

In fact, Gingrich admitted the affair to Marianne just days after after giving a speech in Erie, Pennsylvania about the importance of family values. He divorced Marianne, and in 2000, Gingrich married Callista Bisek, his congressional staffer, with whom he�d carried on an affair for 6 years. In 2009, Gingrich � a Southern Baptist since college � converted to Catholicism, Bisek�s religion.

Gingrich�s instincts for politics were just as chaotic, disloyal and unprincipled as his personal life. Here are just a few highlights, in no particular order:

During an 8-year period leading up to the housing bubble burst and recession in 2008, Gingrich was paid as much as $1.8 million in �consulting fees� by Freddie Mac during a period when congressional Republicans were demanding more accountability and attempting to reign in their irresponsible lending practices. Critics say Gingrich was a lobbyist, bought and paid for by Freddie Mac, hired to lobby influential Republicans. Gingrich claims he was paid the exhorbitant fees for his �knowledge of history,� and to dispense advice that Freddie Mac did not take.

In November 2003, in support of expanded Medicare entitlements, Gingrich wrote in the Wall Street Journal, �Every conservative member of Congress should vote for this Medicare bill. It is the most important reorganization of our nation�s health-care system since the original Medicare Bill of 1965.�

In April 2007, Gingrich had this to say about Anthropogenic Global Warming, and Cap and Trade: �I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there�s a package there that�s very, very good. And frankly, it�s something I would strongly support.�

In 2008, Gingrich teamed up with Speaker Nancy Pelosi as part of the �We Can Solve It� global warming ad campaign sponsored by former Vice President Al Gore�s Alliance for Climate Protection, and made this television commercial.

You may also recall that recently (May 2011) Gingrich angered many conservatives by commenting thusly on the Ryan Plan for balancing the federal budget: �I don�t think right wing social engineering is any more desirable than left wing social engineering.�

For those who reject Gov. Mitt Romney over individual health care mandates, Forbes reported the following in May 2011:

In a June 2007 op-ed in the Des Moines Register, Gingrich wrote, �Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it.� An �individual mandate,� he added, should be applied �when the larger health-care system has been fundamentally changed.�

Lest you think that this was a one-time slip up on Newt�s part or some misunderstanding of biblical proportion, think again. Gingrich has been pushing individual mandates as a matter of individual responsibility ever since he joined up with Hillary Clinton in 2005 in a bi-partisan effort to solve the growing health care problem in the United States. As recently as 2008, in Gingrich�s book, �Real Change�, Newt called for everyone earning above a defined income level to be obligated to buy health care insurance or post a bond to guarantee their ability to pay for their care should they fall ill.

Bottom line: Newt Gingrich�s personal, financial, and political life have been one long train wreck. He has shown again and again a total disregard for any semblance of loyalty to his three spouses, the Republican party, or even to his religion. Anyone who can reject a good man like Governor Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee, and throw their support behind a cad like Newt Gingrich needs to take a long hard look at their own scruples, and their unfathomable reasons for doing so.

so are you jealous or what.

Who do you support Rob?

It's obvious who you don't.

Life ain't fair! Some guys have all the luck!

Hell, I used to spend lots of time wishing Julie Stevens, my high school health teacher, would do that.

Read the article. Do you really want a man of that character for president?

Who do I want? I follow Bill Buckley's "rule of politics for grown-ups"---support the most conservative electable candidate. That person is Romney.

Romney is no conservative and maybe if you got a little you wouldn't be so uptight.

I saw Newt loading dead Babies into a truck with his PITCHFORK once, Rob, and Laughing !

.....I just don't have the Moral Certitude to go after him with anything VAGUELY resembling your tenacity.

Keep up the good work,....

GTC

Could give two [bleep] less about Newt, but one thing I do know is, you're giving a couple of guys a run for their money in the Biggest Internet [bleep] Contest.

You need to get a life..............I wouldn't vote for Romney if he was running unopposed..I will write in Porky Pig 1st

In fact I hope Porky Pig runs as he is a far better choice than any and all!

I just like seeing you guys get your panties in a wad!

I think you are the one with bunched up panties.....just look at your posts....go get laid and relieve the stress. your pet sheep might appreciate you.

Newt's still better than what's in the Oval Office now. I'd take him any day over the Liar 'N Chief from Kenya and/or Indonesia.

Krap with a history like that(?), based on the Democrat viewpoint of the fine job Slick Willie done and using that same reasoning Newt should make both parties happy. He could fit right into Bill's oral office. Rob Jordan thanks for all your informaton and Newts endorsement. GW

I guess it takes a scumbag to condone the actions of a scumbag. I always knew there were plenty of them here.

Am I the only one to mind my own d**n business anymore? Dutch.

Pretty poor way to boost one's ego.

heard Newt drives one of those sporty Ford Explorer Sport Tracs.

Is there a poll going,...who are the top 5, at this time ?

GTC

If he isn't man enough to take his wedding vows seriously there's absolutely no reason to believe he'd take the oath of office seriously either. I guess scumbags deserve to have scumbags in the white house.