Can you stand one more about Newt?

According to an article on Huffington Post based in part on an AP source, Newt was a popular young assistant professor at West Georgia College in Carrollton, GA before he ran for Congress.

But, much as he now touts himself as a history professor, it seems academia was not Newt's goal. Instead of climbing the academic ladder to achieve tenure and promotion to Associate Professor, he ran for Congress. Once he left for Congress in 1979, he never returned to an academic career. He had bigger and more lucrative things on his mind. Changing the world and becoming a historical personage needs a bigger stage than the West Georgia classrooms.

In fact, this article implies that he chose West Georgia College in part for the demographic makeup of Carrollton and its area, which he thought would be a good spot to try to end the Democrats' "century-long stranglehold on the 6th Congressional district.

This may or may not be true, but it fits with the patten we see over and over again with Newt. It's all about Newt's ambitions and grandizement, about his messiantic vision of himself as a transformative, historical figure.

A healthy amount of self-confidence and determined purpose is necessary to be a strong leader, but too much and you begin to see the kind of cosmic narcissism that reveals itself from time to time in Newt's character.

Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-OK), a colleague in the House, says of him: "I found him to be somebody who was primarily interested in his own advancement. ... Newt has had one primary interest for his entire public life, and that's Newt."

But it's really his tactics that are so odious. In a speech to college Republicans in 1978, when he was running for Congress for the third time and finally won, he said:

"One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient and loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the campfire, but are lousy in politics."

He's infamous as Speaker for circulating a list of nasty words for his colleagues to use in their speeches and campaign rhetoric against the Democrats. Then he decided to get rid of then House Speaker, Democrat Jim Wright. He carefully plotted and for two years relentlessly pursued ethics charges against Wright until he finally got something to stick, and Wright was forced to resign for violating the rules about gifts and outside income (something to do with a book deal, if I remember right). In retrospect, the case against Wright pales in comparison with the ethcis case against Newt himself that finally brought him down and led to his resignation from Congress. And then there's his pursuit of impeachment of Clinton at the same time he was having his own affair with Callista -- whom he now wants us to accept as the First Lady of the Land.

Of course, we should keep in mind -- as Newt reminds us -- that he is a different person now that he has found true love and religion and has confessed and been forgiven for his past indiscretions. As he said in an AP interview this year: "I believe that I am a much more disciplined, much more mature person than I was 12 years ago."

Yes, but here's the rub. In 1985, he said much the same thing: "That was the old me – abrasive and confrontational. You'll see a change now."

Bah, humbug.

Don't trust someone who has to keep telling you
how much he has changed.

Ralph