0 he was house majority leader for the republican party for eight years. that means he was the number one republican in the house. that should have put him in line to be speaker of the house if anything happened to the guy above him. but when something did happen to the guy above him, dick armey never got the job. it was newt gingrich who had been the number one in the house. he had been the speaker while dick armey was the number two republican in the house. and newt gingrich did get thrown out by his own house republicans in 1998. dick armey was next in line for the speaker s job when newt gingrich was thrown out. but they threw dick armey over as well. mr. armey never got the top job. he then left and took a very sweet and highly paid job as a lobbyist, which led to his even sweeter job with freedomworks, which has now led to the sweetest job of all, which is getting paid $8 million to please not come to work anymore. what happened to dick armey and what happened to newt gingrich ha
at one point he started inviting the press to come along to talk to him about campaign-related issues. but price of admission for the press was that they had to go to the zoo with newt gingrich in order to hear what he had to say. whether you find that endearingly eccentric or creepily eccentric, that form of eccentricity is a recurring theme in american politics. president lyndon johnson famously used to do interviews from the bathroom. he would be sitting in the bathroom, using the bathroom, speaking to reporters about important things, but if reporters wanted to record their thoughts of those important things. that would have to take themselves within earshot of his toilet time. that s even weirder than taking people to the zoo. but my nomination for 2012 s most awkward setting was shoshana walsh, who scored a really fascinating interview with the former house majority leader dick armey. she scored that interview while mr. armey was doing this stroke, stroke. okay, s