Regarding Newt Gingrich

[H2O Man]

“March 8, 2003: State Department spokesman says of forged documents, “We fell for it”; shortly thereafter, Wilson tells CNN that the U.S. government has more information on this matter than the State Department spokesman acknowledged.

“Sources have informed Wilson that soon after the CNN interview, a decision was made at a meeting in the Office of the Vice President – possibly attended by Dick Cheney, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Newt Gingrich, and other senior republicans – to produce a workup on Wilson to discredit him.”
Joseph Wilson; The Politics of Truth; Carroll & Graf; 2004; page 452.

Discussions about the long anticipated and recently announced presidential candidacy of Newt Gingrich frequently focus on two things: his experience as a hostile Speaker of the House, and his marital infidelities. It would be easy – too easy – to dismiss Gingrich as a bitter politician, with deep character flaws that render him unlikely to be elected to high office. Yet this is the country in which both Richard Nixon and Richard Cheney held the reins of power.

I am convinced that Gingrich is actually running for the Vice Presidency. I base this opinion on information pertaining to the role that Gingrich played in VP Cheney's cabal. Although Gingrich was neither elected nor appointed to any position in the Bush/Cheney administration, he definitely played an under-reported and powerful role.

Gingrich did serve in a visible position: he was “a member of the Defense Policy Board, an outside group that periodically advised Rumsfeld, but his real connection was to Cheney.” (Bob Woodward; State of Denial; Simon & Schuster; 2006; page 251) Cheney and Gingrich had both been elected to Congress in 1978, and had remained close friends. Thus, Gingrich was a member of Cheney's Office of Special Plans, the vice president's intelligence group that adhered to a neoconservative world-view.

In this position, Gingrich worked with Cheney, Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, Richard Pearle, John Hannah, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and retired Navy Commander William Luti. (In fact, Luti had previously served as a foreign policy aide to Gingrich.) Gingrich would serve as one of the top supporters of Ahmad Chalabi, including well after the CIA had discredited Chalabi. Hence, Gingrich's role in attending meetings at the CIA's headquarters, along with VP Cheney and Scooter Libby, to pressure analysts (Wilson; page 6), should not be underestimated.

More information on Gingrich's knowledge of, and participation with the unconstitutional power of the Office of the Vice President can be found in the two books quoted from above, along with Woodward's “The War Within” (Simon & Schuster; 2008) and Michael Isikoff & David Corn's “Hubris” (Crown; 2006). There are, of course, numerous other reliable sources of documentation of this.

There are many reasons that Newt Gingrich should never be elected or appointed to any position in government. The fact that he was eager to shut down the federal government while serving as the Speaker of the House is definitely a good one. The business about his advocating the impeachment of President Clinton for behavior that he engaged in is yet another. But most important, I believe, is that Newt Gingrich was an active participant in the Cheney effort to destroy our Constitutional democracy. Gingrich wants to have the shadowy powers associated with the OVP. And that is no joke.

Peace,
H2O Man