Newt's shabby treatment of House historian reveals his character, says son

William Price is the son of Christina Jeffrey, former Historian of the House of Representatives.

As a younger man I had the misfortune of watching my mother being lured into Washington by Newt Gingrich, who hired her as the historian of the House of Representatives when he was speaker of the House.

Newt and my mother, Christina Jeffrey, became close friends when she arranged for him to teach a class at Kennesaw State College in Newt’s congressional district, north of Atlanta. When Newt became speaker he had several jobs to dole out, one of which was the historian position. Newt offered the job to my mother, who was a professor at Kennesaw State. She left the security of tenure and crossed the Potomac for seemingly greener pastures.

This move turned into the biggest mistake any member of academia could ever make. As soon as Newt became speaker, vitriolic congressional Democrats quickly targeted all things Newt. My mother was no exception. Barney Frank and Charles Schumer pulled a partial quote from a confidential (never believe anything is confidential with the government) review she had written on a volunteer basis for the Department of Education 10 years prior about a program aimed at teaching the Holocaust to seventh-grade children....

Newt called a press conference immediately to announce that he had no idea that anything existed in my mother’s “past” that would have brought such disgrace on the Republicans (sarcasm intended).  He fired her eight days after taking the position by bravely ordering his staff to leave her a message on her answering machine, and we never heard from the man again....