April 25, 2003
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Newt's Back: Lock up Your Kids -- and the Animals in the Barn!
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS FLASHBACK
We wanted to thank the Republican Party for removing the stake from the heart of Newt "Sinner's Delight" Gingrich by recently trotting him out before the American Enterprise Institute (a sort of dugout of right wing wackos developing policy for the Bush Administration, including Lynne Cheney). We will reserve comment about Newt's ferocious -- and clearly coordinated -- attack on the State Department (with Colin Powell as the real target of his "major address," despite Newt's denials) until a BuzzFlash editorial on April 29th.
But for the moment, we wanted to take a stroll down memory lane and recall that Newt was one of BuzzFlash's first editorially-denounced Grand Hypocrisy Party role models. Almost any of the sins he piously claims Democrats are "guilty of," the Newtster has indulged in. The Democrats in question may not be actually "guilty" of anything, but the old flabby Freddie Kreuger of the Grand Hypocrisy Party (GHP) surely is. He's a rat hole of hypocrisy wrapped up in a veneer of faux historical gibberish.
In one of our first editions of BuzzFlash, in the spring of 2000, we noted how we had just come across a small item in the Washington Post real estate section that dapper Newt had just purchased a little mansion in Virginia for Callista Bisek, his third wife. You see, while he was viciously denouncing Bill Clinton for a little tryst with an intern, the Newtster had been carrying on an adulterous affair with a congressional aide some 20 years his junior. His second wife wasn't apparently pleased with the Romeo philandering of Newt, so she filed for divorce.
But his second wife should have known she married a guy with a roving jolly stick. After all, Newt notified his first wife that he was divorcing her while she was in the hospital with cancer. Of course, during all the time he was cheating on his second wife, Newt was conducting a slash and burn campaign against Clinton claiming that he lacked moral character.
In 1999, Newt had announced that he was going to step down from being Speaker of the House after the Republicans lost seats in a mid-term election that they were expected to decisively win. In retrospect, it appears that he might have been fearful that his sexual infidelities were about to be outed by Larry Flynt. So the Republicans chose another loud-mouth Jimmy Swaggart Southern moral role model, Congressman Bob Livingston, to pick up the sword of "Christian family values" that Newt had passed on to him.
As it came to pass, however, Congressman Livingston turned out to be even more of a bed-hopping Lothario than Newt -- and Livingston had to withdraw after a period of time when frantic damage control appeared to collapse due to an imminent bimbo eruption.
At that point, the Republicans, still claiming "moral clarity" with straight faces, searched frantically for another Speaker. The only problem was that they couldn't seem to find (one theory holds) any leading candidates who might escape exposure of their own little "immoral" peccadilloes.
So, as we noted, BuzzFlash believes that the Republicans caucused and held a test to ensure that the next candidate for Speaker of the House would not have any sexual escapades hidden in his or her closet.
So, this is what we think might have happened, although we can't prove it. In their emergency caucus to replace Livingston (who was no longer going to replace Gingrich), they projected a photo of a woman's stockinged thigh and a photo of a turkey thigh on a screen. They asked which Republican U.S. Representatives would prefer the woman's thigh to the turkey thigh. Anyone who held up their hand indicating preference for the woman's thigh was asked to leave the room.
Then they projected a man's thigh and a turkey thigh on the screen. They asked who would prefer the man's thigh to the turkey thigh. Anyone who held up their hand preferring the man's thigh was asked to leave the room.
At that point, the facilitator from the Republican National Committee asked for the lights to be turned on. Denny Hastert was the only Republican left sitting in the room.
So that is BuzzFlash's theory on how Denny Hastert became Speaker of the House. The Republicans decided that they could tolerate gravy stains on Denny's tie, but they couldn't afford another Speaker who fashioned himself a wizard between the sheets.
So to this day, the psychotic Tom DeLay (a man of such strong family values he doesn't even talk to his own mother) pulls the strings in the House and Denny Hastert gets to attend all the buffets and eat all the turkey legs he wants.
They still test Denny now and then. They have a few of those clenched-mouthed Ann Coulter Capitol Hill Republican aide types in short skirts and low-cut blouses walk by Denny while he is munching on fried chicken. He passes the test every time and never lifts his eyes off of the mashed potatoes.
So we, once again, thank the GOP and the American Enterprise Institute for allowing the morally challenged Gingrich to appear on April 22 in an administration-orchestrated effort to sabotage Colin Powell.
In the Grand Hypocrisy Party (GHP), you just can't keep a hypocrite down. And we just wanted to thank one and all for bringing back such blessed memories.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS FLASHBACK
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BuzzFlash Note: Some of this Buzz Flashback may have been written
tongue-in-cheek, but yes, most of the details outside of the Hastert
selection process are true.
