he s been around politics in one incarnation or another basically forever. to trace the origins of the eyebrow raising stuff that newt gingrich is promoting now that he s the presidential front-runner, go back to newt gingrich s old cassette tapes. remember cassette tapes? for all viewers younger than me, this is a cassette tape. used to have boom boxes and machines in our cars that would play these things and sometimes your car would mess it up and the tape could get tied like this. one of the things newt gingrich did when he was on his way to becoming speaker of the house newt gingrich look, i broke it. there it goes. he took over a republican organization called go-pac and he would send republican coaching cassette tapes to republican candidates for office all around the country. people running for dogcatcher. if you were a republican candidate for anything, newt gingrich would get you on his mailing list and you d start getting inspirational cassette tapes in the mail from newt
it wasn t a setup. it was a simple straightforward question and newt gingrich gave his answer. all on videotape too. right, but it s also republicans who were criticizing newt gingrich. they saw the show and knew what they saw. the other republicans weren t coming out and saying you know what, newt, somebody played a game of gotcha with you. it was the republicans saying no way. joe, you pointed out this half a million dollar credit line he had at tiffanies and he didn t want to talk about it. if you re running for president of the united states, you have to assume that everything in your personal, financial, political life is open. you have to talk about it. you can t just say i m not talking about it. it s impossible. the cat s out of the bag. when you re running for president, everything is fair game. he knows that. he was raked over the coals in a lot of ways when he was on capitol hill. people got into his business. go pac is a good example of it. so speaker gingrich nose
opportunity in the middle east. this hour, his vision for the region and the controversial way he s pushing the israelis and the palestinians to make peace. we want to welcome viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. the financial power broker who bailed out countries is being baled out himself as he awaits trial on charges he sexually assaulted a hotel maid. dominique strauss-kahn denies the allegations that many people find shocking. but the former head of the international monetary fund has been tied to previous allegations of sexual misconduct. our brian todd has been looking flow that. wolf, we ve learned about one serious allegation that strauss-kahn wasn t even publicly linked to till his arrest in new york. and about another incident in his past where at the very least, his character and judgment came into serious question. his attorney and his wife vigorously defend dominique strauss-kahn saying the imf s
are just attack dog stuff. i think he went after jim wright ferociously. i think he i think he s nasty person as a politician. it is always negative, negative, negative. that s what i think. he practiced. i don t think he s a positive force. he has sort of institutionalized thugish politics. when he was leading go-pac and rising in the house, he would send out lists of language to use against democrats. calling them traitors. my own opinions don t matter here but they are here. let me ask you about your party. i think you have a big problem. i think half of your political party is mad dog angry tea party people. they certainly have a case which i m with them on in spending. i don t think there is any responsible level of spending. nobody sits back in congress and says i can t unless i will raise the taxes. nobody puts together on the hill. they do what they feel like doing. good point there. here it is. you have a party of people all they care about is that. very angry. t
congressman, i m so amazed to have well, great to have you on, because you re an eyewitness to this guy s performance. he went out during a book scandal, the marital craziness that was going on there. right in the middle of the clinton thing, he was having his own problems in that part of the world, that behavior pattern. he was reprimanded formally. a lot of people thought he should have been censured. he had to leave and he was probably going to get hit by larry flynn or somebody else on the way out the door, now he s back completely forgiving himself, having rejuvenated himself in some bizarre way on the right. is this just an indication of how bad the republican list is if he s on it? it s a litany to go through, newt would probably argue that you don t have to be a saint to run for president. however you do need to find a way to respond to all those issues whether it s go-pac,