Gingrich camp heads off ex-wife interview

Reuters ^ | January 18, 2012 | JoAnne Allen

[Red Steel]

The Gingrich campaign launched a preemptive strike as news spread that ABC plans to broadcast a potentially damaging interview with Newt Gingrich’s second ex-wife on Thursday – just two days before Saturday’s crucial South Carolina primary.

Gingrich’s daughters (from his first marriage) Kathy Lubbers and Jackie Cushman came to their father’s defense in a letter released by his presidential campaign.

“The failure of a marriage is a terrible and emotional experience for everyone involved. Anyone who has had that experience understands it is a personal tragedy filled with regrets, and sometimes differing memories of events,” the daughters said in the letter addressed to ABC News Leadership.

“We will not say anything negative about our father’s ex-wife. He has said before, privately and publicly, that he regrets any pain he may have caused in the past to people he loves,” the letter said.

The daughters also said the former House Speaker intends to stay on message, suggesting one thing he will not be talking about in South Carolina is the ABC interview.

[tcrlaf]

“Presidenting ain’t debating.”

In today’s media-centric society, if you ain’t no good at debating, you won’t be Presidenting...

[ari-freedom]

There are.

[ari-freedom]

“In today’s media-centric society, if you ain’t no good at debating, you won’t be Presidenting...”

And if you are overweight and out of shape you will never be president. That’s why Christie never had a chance.

[annieokie]

I will not watch that interview, never watch that channel anyway.

I have no desire to listen to anymore out of that vile womans mouth. I have heard enough to determine that she is a bitter jealous ex., that now is thinking "I could have been FLOTUS". In my opinion, that is the meat of her bitterness.

Well marianna, woulda, coulda, shoulda has passed and you must have been a bitter, pushy, vile woman back then for Newt to leave you.

Newt would never say these things, but we can. Women are petty and vicious creatures. She sounds like many we all have known in the workplace.

[annieokie]

I will not watch that interview, never watch that channel anyway.

I have no desire to listen to anymore out of that vile womans mouth. I have heard enough to determine that she is a bitter jealous ex., that now is thinking "I could have been FLOTUS". In my opinion, that is the meat of her bitterness.

Well marianna, woulda, coulda, shoulda has passed and you must have been a bitter, pushy, vile woman back then for Newt to leave you.

Newt would never say these things, but we can. Women are petty and vicious creatures. She sounds like many we all have known in the workplace.

[raygun]

Which one of ANY of these guys can I count on when the mud goes flying?

Somebody is going to begin flingin mud soon...

I’m a mad-dinner-jacket! YOU are NOT talking to me! I mess your choke point!

[raygun]

It is my firm and concrete belief that Newt would actually say things of that caliber.

What’s amazing is your statement about what you’d NEVER do.

ALL things being equal, mebbe the Mitt Roninator may be more your caliber, eh?

Except for ONE thing: we ALL are going to gunn for your ass every and any time we see it.

Now stick that bulbous thing out there and we, I meann ALL OF US (we) are going to shoot at it simuiltaneously and with everything and ANYTHING that “we” have at our dispossal...

[sushiman]

There is only ONE party : Call them the Democans or Republicrats . Two card monte , Corrupt to the hilt . Where’s Pat Paulsen when you nned him ?

[AwesomePossum]

Call me crazy, but I suspect that the Clintons were behind this from the very beginning (in the 90s).............

8:}

[Ronin]

Wish for a pony. You’d have a better chance.

We’re talking about Newt here. This is his one last shot and he knows it. And I have to admit that this response, as fast and as well-put as it was, is going to have a major impact. The kid’s endorsement means a lot.

Santorum would definitely be better as a Conservative candidate, but I just don’t see him as a fighter. He’s not getting his numbers up, he’s not showing any fire. I wish he was.

He better soon.

[JediJones]

At least until the new batch goes corrupt, lazy, wobbly and liberal on us.

[JediJones]

I recently saw an old video of Newt emphasizing it was solely about perjury as well.

[JediJones]

And Newt revolted on Bush, Sr. when Bush Sr. hurt the Republican party’s good name and doomed his presidency by breaking his “no new taxes” pledge. This wasn’t just a polite “no thanks” either, it was a plan to embarrass Bush Sr. publically over it. It just shows that Newt will fight anyone no matter how powerful they are to stick up for his principles. Very few on the political scene ever show that kind of courage as often as Newt has. Of course Reagan was one of the others.

[MrEdd]

As an issue on sexual morality, it is poisoned bait for any idiot who attempts to go after Newt on his marriages from a perspective of Judeo Christian ethics.

Newts first wife was a sexual predator who married her young prey and then left him. Later she slimed him in the press.

If people want to slam Newt, they are going to have to explain why they personally support high school teachers who are bed hopping their students.

I am not a Newt guy. My picks have been whoever is strongest between Cain, Bachmann, and Santorum.

Nonetheless, pedophiles are not okay and if you go after Newt's first marriage or attempt to gloss over the fact that later behaviors stemmed from that then you need to explain your support of pedophiles.

Because you can't do one without the other.

[MrEdd]

Your timeline is incomplete.

Thats an incomplete timeline.
You fail to look at when Newt met Jackie Battley.

He has told his children it was his senior year, but his classmates and transcript say something else entirely. Geometry is a freshman or sophomore course, not a senior course. And Newt.was a national merit scholar, not some math challenged dufus.

Contrary to the libertarian hedonist lobby out to banish age of consent laws, this is damaging and has long term consequences. Even when the teacher is a woman and the student is a boy.

[anton]

The Newt is a toad. He has as much personal integrity as Bill Clinton and as consistent political philosophy as Arianna Huffington. He is the poster child for why not to be a Republican.

[Utmost Certainty]

His attacks on Free Enterprise are not in line with Conservative thought.

As somebody else explained to me recently:

Too many people are defending Romney as just being a good little capitalist, when this isn't really the case. He was playing shell games and essentially committing fraud with investors. I think most agree that the government should probably punish somebody selling watered gas… so why not punish dishonest debt instruments? I think most agree that if a minority shareholder uses company money to issue himself a big paycheck, this is embezzlement from the other shareholders. When Romney does this with his multi-million dollar consulting fees, this isn't different?

Now the crux of this problem is of course the government. Their corporate limited liability laws unfairly rip up contracts between creditors and debtors. Making debt financing tax deductible, but not equity financing, has seriously skewed the corporate structure. And lastly, the Federal Reserve issuing so much debt (largely indirectly) and then bailing out said debt (→ moral hazard) is a significant problem in aiding and abetting private equity craziness of reckless LBOs, etc.

Specifically how the system works: A bank overflowing with money they created from low Fed Reserve interest rates meets with a private equity firm to talk about taking over firm. The bank provides ~80/20 the money and they together purchase the take over target. The PE firm immediately loads up the acquired firm with debt for the bank to get their money. The debt is structured as a huge balloon payment set to self-destruct in about 5 years. The bank realizes this is ticking time bomb, so unloads this debt ASAP to other banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and pension funds. The smarter investors realize this is a hot potato and keep passing it around. Recently they've been hiding this bad debt in CLOs (almost identical in concept to real estate CDOs). Hidden amongst other debt, people have no idea the mess they purchased. The PE firm on the other hand wastes no time in borrowing HEAVILY again to finance corporate mergers (they don't want to do it from the PE firm directly because they could be liable for the debt). They also borrow heavily to finance huge dividends that more than make up for what they paid for the firm. They justify the dividend legally by jacking up short term profits (price increases, job cuts, quality reductions) that threaten the long term health of the company, and by money saved from tax deductible interest as well. If possible, the PE firm tries to dump their acquired firm before the balloon payment comes up… but even if they're stuck with the firm they usually do very well given all the consulting fees they charge and the huge dividends they give themselves.

Also note that Romney relied on corporate welfare. Take a walk down the list here:

A comparison of the 1999 Bain portfolio obtained by the Los Angeles Times to the information in the Subsidy Tracker database my colleagues and I at Good Jobs First created (as well as other sources), yields examples such as the following:

Steel Dynamics Inc. In 1994 this company, among whose financial backers at the time was Bain, got a $77 million subsidy package—including grants, property tax abatements, tax credits and reimbursement for training costs—for its steel mill in DeKalb County, Indiana (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, June 23, 1994).

GS Industries. In 1996 American Iron Reduction LLC, a joint venture of GS Industries (which had been taken private by Bain in 1993) and Birmingham Steel, sought some $20 million in tax breaks in connection with its plan to build a plant in Louisiana’s St. James Parish (Baton Rouge Advocate, April 6, 1996). As the United Steelworkers union noted recently, GS Industries later applied for a federal loan guarantee, but before the deal could be implemented the company went bankrupt.

Sealy. A year after the 1997 buyout of this leading mattress company by Bain and other private equity firms, Sealy received $600,000 from state and local authorities in North Carolina to move its corporate offices, a research center and a manufacturing plant from Ohio (Greensboro News & Record, March 31, 1998). In 2004 Bain and its partners sold Sealy to another private equity group.

GT Bicycles. In 1997 GT, then owned by Bain and other investors, decided to move its manufacturing operations to an enterprise zone in Santa Ana, California. Being in the zone gave the company, which was later purchased by Schwinn, special tax credits relating to hiring and the purchase of equipment (Orange County Register, July 9, 1999).

[nikos1121]

You can read much about it on Glenn Becks site.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ex-wife-to-unleash-potentially-career-ending-bombshell-about-gingrich-during-abc-interview-source-claims-network-now-in-civil-war/

I think the interview will be similar to the one in Esquire in 2010. It doesn’t make look Newt look very good. Would be unfair to run it now. This will hurt him big in Florida, but if he hangs in there it won’t.

Unless of course there’s a revelation that he’s gay.

One thing for sure...the MSM will vette the hell out of our candidate.

Makes me wonder too, if she was paidfor the interview.

[Dusty Road]

Was listining to Boortz the other day and he had a guest on that worked for Newt back during this period. He was reluctant to talk about it but did make mention of her having a boyfriend, I wonder if he’ll talk now.

[BlueDragon]

That’s a keeper. Thank you.