Talk:Newt Gingrich

Well, it just seems to me that the end of the bio was pretty much irrelevent. While it certainly describes recent events in the post political life of Gingrich, I believe we need to keep Bios in perspective and not add every thing that a person does (in this case it seems the motives are to disparage GWB, with the majority of the ending comments being decidedly critical.) There certainly seem to be many actions of Gingrich left out at this point, and I see no relevence to including these select actions. Please let me know if you mind my editing of this section. -bro

Kind of a tough call. It's nice to have some indication he hasn't dropped off the face of the earth, and it's interesting that Gingrich and Bush don't see eye to eye. Whether this will be historically important, who knows. I certainly agree that we don't need to track every time he flushes a toilet, but maybe the answer is to make sure the POV stays reasonably neutral and flesh out the rest of the biography rather than to discard it wholesale. Just my 2 cents. Of course, you're free to do whatever you think will improve the entry. -Dave Farquhar 19:50, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Umm....call me picky, but shouldn't we have maybe a source or two for the quotes? I recognize a few certainly as being legitimately from Gingrich, but I'd like to see the sources for the ones I haven't heard. Can the people who worked on this article provide this? If not, they should be deleted. --Xinoph 04:09, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

family life

What's the family life of this guy? Is he married, divorced? How many kids does he have? 68.23.224.34 21:08, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't he get his wife to sign the divorce papers while she was coming out of the anesthetic after cancer surgery? DS 21:13, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This paragraph is not supported: "Gingrich became an icon in the Republican Party and was respected, if not beloved, by elements of U.S. conservatism. However, his opponents, even some within the Republican Party, characterized him as mean-spirited." Who exactly called him mean-spirited? Which elements loved him? Who respected him? I think this should be removed unless someone wants to provide specifics; as written it seems editorial, not factual.

I wrote that paragraph. Who loved or at least respected him is easy. Most of the people who signed the "Contract With America" at least respected him. Conservative newspapers like the Washington Times held him right up there with Ronald Reagan. Rush Limbaugh certainly thought very highly of him. I don't listen to G. Gordon Liddy and never did, so I can't tell you what he thought of him, but it would be uncharacteristic of him not to hold Gingrich in high esteem.

The more moderate elements were less enamored with him. Now did David Gergen or John McCain specifically call Gingrich mean-spirited? Good question. I don't have either of their complete works on CD-ROM to search. Did some Republicans feel that way? Certainly they did. I know because I am a Republican and I was one during Gingrich's heyday. You better believe I remember conversations with non-card-carrying Republicans--dunno what you'd call them, they consistently vote Republican but they don't put bumper stickers on their car and may not bother to vote in the primaries. These people almost universally didn't like him. "I don't like Newt," they'd say. "Why not?" I'd ask. They'd think about it for a minute. "I dunno. He's mean, I guess."

It's safe to say the conservative elements at least respected him because of his accomplishments, even if they didn't like him as a person. To others on the right-hand fringes of the party, he was a hero. Moderate Republicans and most Democrats characterized him as mean spirited. I'm sure Hillary Clinton had some choice words about him after Connie Chung interviewed his mother. (Is that incident in the story?)

If you want to rework it, that's fine, but I think the article loses an awful lot if we don't mention the way he polarized U.S. politics and even, to a degree, his own party. Would you print a George W. Bush biography without mentioning the controversy around him? Without the controversy, I really don't see why Gingrich warrants an entry. --Dave Farquhar 05:31, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Impeachment

Hi- nice article, but I think it's clear your POV is not that of a Republican supporter ;) Of course, the article shouldn't have that POV either, so I hope some of my changes are more neutral. There were objective actions of the Gingrich Congress that were not mentioned and I added these (they are facts) and this para, "For the next four years, the Congress under Gingrich's leadership took aim at the embattled president, investigating various scandals and calling for impeachment." is a subjective summary of what the Congress did. While investigation by the OIC and Starr did occur then, it's clearly prejudicial to have that statement be the only discussion of the Gingrich Congress' activities. User: Kaisershatner

Kaiershatner, you are right that paragraph alone is not a reasonable summary of Gingrich's tenure. However, you have corrected that by filling in the details of the Contract, etc. But, you cut the paragraph about the investigations and calls for impeachment. That is also an important part of the story. It should be written NPOV. But merely saying that impeachment was a notable event that happened during Gingrich's story omits the important and relevant fact that Gingrich was a driving force behind the impeachment So, for the moment I am going to restore that one paragraph. If you feel that the phrasing is POV, I have no objection to edits. However, it should not imply that impeachment was just a notable event during Gingrich's tenure because that omits his fundamental role in the whole chain of events.Wolfman 15:26, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)