A Time for Change

I previously posted this week that Newt Gingrich was charged with and fined for serious ethics problems while he was speaker of the house in the 90′s.  Consider this from the Washington Post dated January 22, 1997:

The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and order him to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House’s 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.

The ethics case and its resolution leave Gingrich with little leeway for future personal controversies, House Republicans said. Exactly one month before yesterday’s vote, Gingrich admitted that he brought discredit to the House and broke its rules by failing to ensure that financing for two projects would not violate federal tax law and by giving the House ethics committee false information.

There is an interesting history there though. Nancy Pelosi actually led the charge on the investigation that led to Gingrich’s unprecedented censure.  According to the New York Times, Gingrich recently sid of Pelosi “When you become speaker of the House, you no longer have the luxury of being dishonest, demagogic and destructive.”  During that investigation, Pelosi said the same of Gingrich:

Ms. Pelosi essentially accused Mr. Gingrich of all three more than 12 years ago as she urged her colleagues to endorse an ethics committee rebuke of Mr. Gingrich for using tax-exempt money to promote political goals and for providing false information to the special ethics panel Ms. Pelosi was on. She said Mr. Gingrich spoke often of ethics but did not make them a priority and had put the Congress in a bad light.

“Mr. Gingrich’s statements lead me to one conclusion: that Mr. Gingrich, in his dealings with the committee, is not to be believed,” said the future speaker, who urged Republicans to weigh whether Mr. Gingrich should remain the pre-eminent figure in the House. “He is technically eligible. I hope you will make a judgment as to whether he is ethically fit.”

Ultimately, the House voted to reprimand Mr. Gingrich and fine him $300,000 for ethics violations in the most severe rebuke ever visited on the presiding officer of the House.

But on Friday, Ms. Pelosi — not about to be drawn into a discussion of Mr. Gingrich and whether he is seeking revenge for her role in his own ethics case — said she was finished talking about the C.I.A. imbroglio.

“I don’t think about it,” Ms. Pelosi said.

Gingrich has an axe to grind against his former nemesis Pelosi, that much is obvious.

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