[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
This is one of my favorite ads by Ron Paul:
The DNC will eat him up and spit him out! This could be a huge victory for President Obama. But…at least he’s not a traditional republican.
YEAH MAN! [/quote]
Older folks who followed the ethics violations remember it a bit differently.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/what-really-happened-gingrich-ethics-case/336051
Newt has his baggage, but the US congress owes him 300k. A lot of people still don’t know that a few years afterwards, the IRS finished it’s investigation, ruling that his college course (center of the one ethic violation the council refused to drop) was legit and proper…
"In the end, in 1999, the IRS released a densely written, highly detailed 74-page report. The course was, in fact, educational, the IRS said. “The overwhelming number of positions advocated in the course were very broad in nature and often more applicable to individual behavior or behavioral changes in society as a whole than to any ‘political’ action,” investigators wrote. “For example, the lecture on quality was much more directly applicable to individual behavior than political action and would be difficult to attempt to categorize in political terms. Another example is the lecture on personal strength where again the focus was on individual behavior. In fact, this lecture placed some focus on the personal strength of individual Democrats who likely would not agree with Mr. Gingrich on his political views expressed in forums outside his Renewing American Civilization course teaching. Even in the lectures that had a partial focus on broadly defined changes in political activity, such as less government and government regulation, there was also a strong emphasis on changes in personal behavior and non-political changes in society as a whole.”
The IRS also checked out the evaluations written by students who completed the course. The overwhelming majority of students, according to the report, believed that Gingrich knew his material, was an interesting speaker, and was open to alternate points of view. None seemed to perceive a particular political message. “Most students,” the IRS noted, “said that they would apply the course material to improve their own lives in such areas as family, friendships, career, and citizenship.”
The IRS concluded the course simply was not political. “The central problem in arguing that the Progress and Freedom Foundation provided more than incidental private benefit to Mr. Gingrich, GOPAC, and other Republican entities,” the IRS wrote, “was that the content of the ‘Renewing American Civilization’ course was educational…and not biased toward any of those who were supposed to be benefited.”
The bottom line: Gingrich acted properly and violated no laws. There was no tax fraud scheme. Of course, by that time, Gingrich was out of office, widely presumed to be guilty of something, and his career in politics was (seemingly) over.
Back in January 1997, the day after Cole presented his damning report to the Ethics Committee, the Washington Post’s front-page banner headline was “Gingrich Actions ‘Intentional’ or ‘Reckless’; Counsel Concludes That Speaker’s Course Funding Was ‘Clear Violation’ of Tax Laws.” That same day, the New York Times ran eleven stories on the Gingrich matter, four of them on the front page (one inside story was headlined, “Report Describes How Gingrich Used Taxpayers’ Money for Partisan Politics”). On television, Dan Rather began the CBS Evening News by telling viewers that “only now is the evidence of Newt Gingrich’s ethics violations and tax problems being disclosed in detail.”
The story was much different when Gingrich was exonerated. The Washington Post ran a brief story on page five. The Times ran an equally brief story on page 23. And the evening newscasts of CBS, NBC, and ABC – which together had devoted hours of coverage to the question of Gingrich’s ethics – did not report the story at all. Not a word."
[/quote]
Oh Sloth do I have to repeat rule number one in politics? It’s not the facts that matter it’s the PERCEPTION of those facts.
A good example is Mitt Romney’s tax return. His opposition only has to scream “Romney only pay’s 15% in taxes…evil rich…evil rich.” When you and I both know that he’s already paid the highest tax possible when he first made the money and now it’s double taxation on his investments.
But…that’s how the game is played. And Newt will get destroyed while trying to carry his baggage into the White House.
