If some readers find this piece unusually partisan for Fortune, I protest that I am simply acting here-as Gingrich has so often claimed to-as a nonpartisan educator. Fellow oldsters may find this enlightening, too, because when you live through a story that dribbles out of a period of years, with professional spinners raising smokescreens and barking denials at every turn, it’s often hard to keep track of the big-picture story line.

So gather round, young voters, and I’ll tell you the story of how Gingrich became Speaker. It’s his calling card, his tell-tale modus operandi, and-when in trouble-his reserve-chute rip-cord.

I say “inevitable” because, as we oldsters know, Gingrich has always invoked his status a “historian” or “educator” to excuse his grubbiest, borderline-illegal politicking. He offered a series of belligerently delivered but utterly inconceivable explanations of his work for Freddie, beginning with the inevitable whopper: He had been acting as its “historian.” Then, as Gingrich bullied his way past questions about his Freddie assignment, his hypocrisy was soon eclipsed by his breathtaking lack of candor. Barney Frank for his ties to Freddie (FMCC).

While Freddie was, in anyone’s book, a contributor to the great financial crisis that still afflicts us, it was, in the view of most Republicans, an archfiend on the level of Lex Luthor.īut aside from the substantive questions Gingrich’s lucrative assignment raised-exactly what services had he performed for Freddie?-it was also an embarrassment at a more elementary, glass-house-stone-throwing level, since Gingrich had so recently and contemptuously denounced Rep. Young conservatives were apparently taken aback by recent revelations that late-surging GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich had, between 19, received at least $1.6 million in payments from the now-seized mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

Newt professional mac