A trip back in time: Gingrich
I find this article from 1995 quite disturbing for what it reveals about Newt Gingrich’s psyche. And by the way, that has nothing to do with whether I like his politics or not. I would find the sort of information disclosed there disturbing even in a candidate I otherwise supported.
Since the article is a PBS Frontline product, you might protest that it’s obviously a liberal hit piece on Gingrich, using the usual “disgruntled employees.” But there sure are an awful lot of them—and the article does a pretty good job explaining why. And many of the worst quotes there are from Gingrich himself. Even more importantly, it seems to me that Gingrich’s psyche and behavior as described in the article is almost perfectly concordant with his utterances and actions during this 2012 campaign.
It’s worth reading the whole thing. Here’s a sampler from it:
“I’m a mythical person,” says Newt, no stranger to revolutions. “I had a period of thinking that I would have been called ‘Newt the McPherson,’ as in Robert the Bruce.” He is referring to his childhood, when he strongly identified with his biological father, Newton McPherson.
“Robert the Bruce,” Newt continues, “is the guy who would not, could not, avoid fighting…He carried the burden of being Scotland…
“It’s not altruism! It’s not altruism!” he proclaimed to The Washington Post in 1985. “I have an enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it…Oh, this is just the beginning of a 20-or-30-year movement. I’ll get credit for it…
Dolores Adamson, Gingrich’s district administrator from 1978 to 1983, remembers, “[Gingrich’s first wife] Jackie put him all the way through school. All the way through the P.h.D…He didn’t work.” Adds Adamson, “Personal funds have never meant anything to him. He’s worse than a six-year-old trying to keep his bank balance…Jackie did that.”
When I ask Marianne [his wife at the time of the article] if she keeps the checkbook for the man determined to balance the nation’s budget, she laughs quietly: “Yes, I do a lot of our finances…I pretty much handle the money.” She acknowledges that at the time of their marriage, in 1981, Newt was in great personal debt, “so we had to work our way out of it,” a feat she says was accomplished only last year [1994]…
Newt Gingrich is hardly the first young politician to exhibit relentlessness or tenacity. But from the beginning there has been an overheated quality to Gingrich’s ambition that has caused remark. It still does. “He’s the man overtaken by his own energy,” says Mary Kahn. “He’s just all over himself. It’s like ‘Take a pill. Calm yourself down.’ If he calmed himself and could be more thoughtful, then perhaps he could be more effective.”
Dot Crews calls Newt “a frenetic psyche.” Frank Gregorsky, who began working for Newt in 1978 while still in college and served as his chief of staff in the early 80s, says, “All of his colleagues have had the rug pulled out from under them enough to know that Newt’s a bright bulb with no dimmer switch. It’s either on or off…either pitch-black or you’re blinded by the light…He can’t modulate or nuance or taper.”…
“Newt read books,” says Eddie Mahe. “He doesn’t do friendship.” …
Unlike Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich cannot easily transmit empathy to the camera or a gathered audience. Like Nixon, he does not easily communicate sympathy, trustworthiness, or compassion. His eyes do not meet the camera. He meets the world with the gaze of an outsider whose attention is inwardly engaged. People willingly give to Newt for quite an extended period of time because they are electrified by his tenacity and vision. But as time passes and they expect their relationship with the man to deepen, it doesn’t. And when he is finished using them, he moves on, discarding former loyalists like so much used ammo. Gingrich routinely dismisses any negative public statements as the work of disgruntled former employees, but the depth of feeling among his former allies is remarkable. “There are no former disgruntled employees,” says Dot Crews. “We’re all just sorry that we ever went to work for him in the first place and that we didn’t get out sooner.”…
Echoes Dolores Adamson, “He would say, ‘You have to understand that I am a think tank, I can save the West, and when I come up with a new idea, we need to move on it immediately.’ We’d have this big project going, and all of a sudden it just faded away. Everybody went into swarms to try and get something accomplished. And then he turned on them and did something else.”…
Of course, there’s also a lot in there about Gingrich’s marriages and sex life, all of it unpleasant. I’ll skip it; it’s not my focus here. But I can’t help but note one very interesting (and prescient) detail, considering that the piece was written in 1995, five years before Gingrich’s divorce from second wife Marianne. After revealing the rather sad fact that, when she first met Gingrich and started her affair with him, Marianne had been involved with another married man whom she ditched for Newt, the author writes—in one of the strangest juxtapositions ever, considering how things have turned out for both women mentioned:
But in Washington there are many demands on the Speaker’s time. Since Newt became a national celebrity, he has no shortage of female admirers –from Callista Bisek, a former aide in Congressman Steve Gunderson’s office who has been a favorite breakfast companion, to the ubiquitous Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, who has become a self-appointed guardian to the newly desirable Newt.
Marianne Gingrich, however, doesn’t see her husband very often.
Here’s another oddly prescient observation, in light of 2012:
One well-known television interviewer recently observed Newt at very close range. “When Gingrich was being made up for his interview, he looked beat, lifeless, exhausted.” Once the interview started, he came to life. “But you know from seeing people that wrung out and still under high pressure, their judgement isn’t great and they can make disastrous decisions,” says the interviewer. “I think Gingrich will inevitably self-destruct.”
[NOTE: If you read the whole thing you may wonder, as I did, what’s up with all these fatherless presidents? Clinton, Obama, and wannabee Gingrich? Either that or fathers who were very much present and larger than life: Bush and Romney.
And almost as soon as I wrote that, I saw that Michael Medved had made the same observation.]
He has survived a challenging life, beginning with his experience at home. He is clearly narcissistic. I wonder if this will translate to opportunistic behavior, as it has with Obama, or will his rebellion take the form of seeking redemption. His historical performance would suggest the latter; but, the available evidence has been distorted and is inconsistent.
“Looking back on everything, Newt was always focused on his agenda,” recalls Dot Crews, Newt’s campaign scheduler through the 70s. “It was not about political philosophy with Newt –never. If the country today were to move to the left, Newt would sense it before it started happening and lead the way.”
That’s a pretty damning statement.
This piece is like a scaffold to which you can add everything we are seeing today, from the half a million credits at Tiffany’s, to the cushy job for Callista, to the jealosy of Romney’s wealth, to the Pellosi sofa session, to the moon colony. The new Newt he tries to put forward would only be believable if there was an accompanying humility, but I don’t see it.
People who are complaining about the establishment should maybe consider that sometimes the established has inside knowledge.
Gerald Ford was also an abandoned son who was raised by his stepfather.
I’m surprised we haven’t heard more about and from his sister, Candace.
A family I know has several members diagnosed with Asperger’s (in the younger ones) or polar disorder (in several of the older ones). The article reminded me of them–especially the part about discarding people. Any thoughts on that, Neo?
Toy
Bipolar disorder, that is, not polar.
Bipolar disorder, not polar.
Toy
So lets see how Newt’s history compares with Obama’s… Oh! That’s right. We know next to nothing about Obama except for a little bit of fiction he has put out there. Frontline hasn’t showed us How Obama was able to travel to Afghanistan when he was 20 because he surely couldn’t have done that with an American passport. So was he a citizen then? Lests ask Frontline … “crickets chirping”… So how did Obama get to go to two prestigious universities, who helped him and fast tracked him? Try getting your kid into one of these prestigious schools. Who paid for it? Big bucks, someone paid for it and someone got him into those schools. Who and why? It seems like this would be much more important then Newt’s fiction about his father. Why does Obama use the Social Security number of a dead man from connecticutt? That’s a mystery worth investigating but not a peep from mainstream media. The mysteries off Obama are only exceeded by the mystery of why a reporter would not want to dig up the answers. We have enough ambition to discover who balances Newt’s checkbook but don’t seem to care what Obama did for the hospital that tripled his wife’s salary.
GoneWithTheWind, Obama went to Pakistan, not Afghanistan (unless he took a side trip); however, excellent comment. This is a great article Neo!
GoneWithTheWind: the article about Newt was written in 1995.
Well, how’s this for a foreshadowing? Marianne Gingrich’s comment:
‘”What happens if Newt runs?” I ask.
“He can’t do it without me,” she replies. “I told him if I’m not in agreement, fine, it’s easy” –she giggles at her naughtiness. “I just go on the air the next day, and I undermine everything…I don’t want him to be president and I don’t think he should be.”‘
And so she did: 16 years later.
what’s up with all these fatherless presidents? Clinton, Obama, and wannabee Gingrich? Either that or fathers who were very much present and larger than life: Bush and Romney
they are progressives. which follow feminism, and the only good dad is an absent dad…
or havent you noticed the trend over the past 20 years of womens/childrens movies in which the father/husband (and sometimes both parents) have to be dead to be good?
if they are alive or present, then the story is always about how abusive they were, and beat everyone, etc..
start off with Mrs. Doubtfire… then there is the perfect storm… or the golden compass… or harry potter, or even jack frost (where the good dad is dead but comes back as a snoman for the kid)…
ie.. liberal progressive socialist parents are not parents. as feminists say, raising children is oppressive, and even women should not even HAVE babies (care to see the quotes).
kind of makes the sociopathic seem more normal for being distant, or absent…
all these designer mssives of how to live and all that started a long time ago, and the pc progressive feminist crowd makes sure that they follow them…
and those that wish to appeal to them, have to have such a life… a life where they want abortion for all, but like nancy pelosi have 5 kids…
unless your gay or of a race or dead, your just not a good man in the zeitgeist
“Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at. Bill Ayers
and these people claim when running for office to be family people…
You are right, Pakistan but do you get the sweet irony that if the media had vetted Obama we would all know that and my memory of which country he snuck off to would be clearer. We know so little about Obama. He was supposededly the editor of Harvard Law Review but never wrote even one article. Someone (don’t remember who because the damned MSM never reported it) tried to track down people who might remember Obama in college. He was able to find people who took the same classes and graduated at the same time and not one of them even remember seeing Obama. If the media can’t do the job maybe we will have to call Ghostbusters because Obama’s past is like a ghost.
Baby Newt: Utterly unqualified psychpathologically to be president. And, baggage wise? Vast.