Free Republic

I can’t understand why Newt Gingrich is getting such a pass on his Freddie Mac consulting. He claims to have been a historian for this outfit? FHLMC needs a historian like the U.S.A. needs a Department of Education, like Europe needs a common currency, like … like … I dunno, like Michelle Obama needs another $12,000 accessory. I sputtered about this on last week’s Radio Derb: Newt’s trying to ju-jitsu the thing, telling us that his experience as a shill for Freddie Mac gave him valuable insider understanding of governmental affairs. Isn’t that what we want in a candidate, valuable...

And there is Gingrich the liberal. “The liberal revulsion toward him obscured how unorthodox — occasionally, how liberal — his conservatism was. The books then and now are full of heresy. He showed a willingness to criticize other Republicans, even Reagan at the height of his popularity. He advocated a health tax on alcohol to discourage drinking — social engineering, it’s called — and imagined government-issued credit cards that would allow citizens to order goods and services directly from the feds. He thought the government should run nutritional programs at grocery stores and give away some foodstuffs free. He was...

Newt Gingrich explains away his work for the Freddie Mac mortgage giant by insisting on the rather fine distinction that he was never, officially, a registered lobbyist. And on that point, he has the intellectual — if inadvertent — support of an unlikely ally: President Obama.