The political world was aflutter over the weekend with word that Newt Gingrich is not only trying to mount a comeback, he’s even considering a presidential campaign.
Newt Gingrich is taking steps toward a potential presidential bid in 2008 with a book criticizing President Bush’s policies on Iraq and a tour of early campaign states.
The former House speaker who led Republicans to power a decade ago said he soon will visit Iowa and New Hampshire to promote his book, try to influence public policy and keep his political options alive.
“Anything seems possible,” including a White House race, Gingrich told The Associated Press.
I don’t actually believe any of this. I think Newt enjoys the attention and wants to sell some books; if a rumored White House bid gets his name thrown around on Meet the Press, then the rumors serve his purposes. The AP reported that Newt “seemed to welcome” the idea that his new political book would boost interest in his political aspirations. It seems to me this is backwards — speculation about his future is intended to sell books.
But the amusing part of Newt’s momentary return to the spotlight is his sudden interest in religion.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich says he “got fed up with people who argue that somehow the concept of the creator wasn’t central to how the Founding Fathers understood America.” So in a book being published today, he includes a 19-page “Walking Tour of God in Washington, D.C.,” cataloging references to the Bible, Moses and a heavenly father on the Capitol, monuments and memorials.
“In the last 30 years, you had this politically correct delegitimizing of God in American public life, which I think is a denial of the core of American civilization,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday.
He’s got to be kidding.
Newt Gingrich never viewed the religious right base of the GOP as anything but a necessary evil. He admitted to never attending church services, his Contract with America ommitted any reference to social conservative issues, and he did little as Speaker to advance the movement’s biggest issues. Indeed, James Dobson was so fed up with Newt’s disinterest in the religious right’s concerns that he threatened in 1998 to pull evangelicals out of the Republican Party altogether.
But now Newt’s found God? Please.
Perhaps after Newt is done lecturing us about the crisis of “delegitimizing of God” in American public life, he can explain why he’s had three marriages, had a lengthy affair during the second of those three marriages, served his first wife with divorce papers while she was in the hospital, and mysteriously asked the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta to annul his second marriage despite the fact that it lasted 19 years. I’m sure the explanation would shed light on Newt’s deeply-held religious Christian beliefs.