Jay Bookman: Gingrich Cheats as a Historian, Too
Newt Gingrich the historian is not a man to be trusted. Much like Newt Gingrich the husband, I suppose.
Yes, I know, Newt’s bona fide — he has a Ph.D in history from Tulane, and he taught in the field for a while at West Georgia College (now the University of West Georgia). But as a politician, Gingrich shows no respect whatsoever for his former discipline, treating history as something to be manipulated as necessary to suit his own selfish needs and desires....
“In four years, unemployment fell from 5.6% to 4.2% and food stamp usage dropped by 8 million Americans thanks to record job creation. Furthermore, we turned a $107 billion deficit into a $125 billion surplus in four years, paying off more than $400 billion in federal debt. And we did it with a liberal Democrat in the White House.”
That bit of alternate history — a Gingrich specialty, by the way — neatly sidesteps the fact that in 1993, President Clinton signed into law the second largest tax increase in modern history (for the record, the largest was signed into law by President Reagan in 1982.) The bill was passed without a single Republican vote and with the tie-breaking vote in the Senate cast by Vice President Gore.