Newt Gingrich: The Bad Republican Joke [View All]

We thought that we had finished with a man that was one of the most hated figures in American politics in recent history.


Newt Gingrich: The Bad Republican Joke
Libération, France
By Fabrice Rousselot
Translated By Courtney Webster
11 May 2011
Edited by Michelle Harris

What do you think of the expected announcement of Newt Gingrich’s candidacy for president, which Lorraine talked about this morning in the news?

Honestly, that the Republicans have fallen pretty low and it is always possible to reinvent yourself on that side of the Atlantic.

In fact, we thought that we had finished with a man that was one of the most hated figures in American politics in recent history.

It was Gingrich who was the architect of the Republican wave that stormed Congress in 1994, after the first two years of Bill Clinton’s term in office. In a few months, however, the speaker of the House of Representatives had managed to turn everyone against him, even in the Republican camp.

A radical hard liner holding a discourse almost too far right, Gingrich was the sole architect of the government deadlock the two following years, in 1995 and 1996. His famous “Contract for America,” which mainly focused on minimizing the role of the federal government, was a crushing failure.