Who knew that Newt's undoing would come not from his untoward association with Callista, but stem instead from his interlude with Freddie – Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprise that sells mortgage-backed securities and whose attempt to compete with private companies in the sub-prime market helped move along the mortgage crisis.
The mere association is bad – it's one that Republicans have lassoed around Obama – though Gingrich, characteristically, has tried to turn it into another point in the case of how People Should Just Listen to Him. He said at a GOP debate that he "offered them advice on precisely what they didn't do", which seems plausible enough, except that this unheeded advice apparently cost Freddie Mac around $1.6m.
On the one hand, hey, it's an example of government procurement run amok, paying exorbitant prices for something you can get cheap on the open market – on par with $500 hammers and $20 muffins (and other urban legends). On the other hand: Newt Gingrich made over a million bucks off of a company that's foreclosing on thousands homes that, on average, are worth about one tenth of that.
It reminds me of something Churchill once said: you're screwed.
