Setting the record straight on Newt

Here are a few facts about Gingrich and the GSE's.

After being forced out of the Speakership in 1999 and paying a $300,000 fine for what proved to be a very minor ethics violation, Newt was offered a consulting job with Freddie Mac,  where he earned 30,000 dollars a month. His job,  according to folks in Freddie Mac,  was to work on behalf of the government sponsored enterprise (GSE)  as it deflected attacks from the Right and help strategize in the face of a very difficult political climate,  facing the mortgage giant.   He worked from 1999 to 2002  and,  again, from 2006 to 2008. 

His memory of being at Feddie Mac was somewhat different from what I am reporting,  but suffice it to say that he did not serve simply as a "historian" for that enterprise. . . . . . .  he certainly was not an opponent of the two GSE's.  

He sat on a couch with Nancy Pelosi and argued for a Cap and Trade remedy to man-caused global warming, but , now,  wants that episode in his life dismissed on the grounds that he acted stupidly.  

He supported the TARP legislation. 

He supported an individual mandate.  

He helped create the Department of Education.  

He worked to build up funding for Planned Parenthood. 

While he is running around claiming the mantel of  "Reagan Conservatism,"  well, he has acted inconsistently to that comparison.  

There is much to be said that is good about Newt,  but he is far from perfect,  and,  at times,  far from being the Reagan conservative he proclaims himself to be.