Hey, Newty--Give Mom Credit Where Credit Is Due

OK, lemme get this straight.

You’ve got a 68-year-old woman, the mother of the baddest Republican in Washington, giving an interview to a network news anchor. Her son--let’s call him Newty because that’s what she calls him--is about to be sworn in as Speaker of the House. Newty has been in politics for most of his adult life-- national politics at that--so you gotta figure his mom, Kathleen Gingrich, has been around the block a few times, interview-wise.

Now, Newty has spent a good deal of time lately casting aspersions on Bill Clinton, his arch-nemesis who lives in the White House. He says a lot of Bill’s employees have used drugs and have had trouble getting FBI clearances. Also, he has called Bill and Bill’s wife, Hillary, “counterculture McGovernicks,” whatever that means.

Point is, Newty slings epithets the way Alice used to sling hash. He’s got a mouth on him that a lot of moms might want to familiarize with a bar of Zest.

Then his mom goes and tells Connie Chung during an interview for national television that Newty thinks Hillary is a bitch. So maybe they both need their mouths washed out with soap. Or maybe this is some kind of Republican family values thing.

What are you gonna do? They’re too old for timeouts.

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So news about the interview breaks and now you’ve got the congressman feigning outrage, demanding an apology from CBS for reporting his mom’s nasty remark about Hillary.

“My mother is not a professional politician, she’s not a national figure, she’s not a millionaire television correspondent,” he sputters.

Have you ever noticed how Newty calls people rich when he wants you to hate them? (I thought Republicans liked rich people.) Last week, while decrying federal funding for public television, Newty accused the parents of children who watch Big Bird and Barney of being “a bunch of rich, upper-class people who want their toy to play with.” Wonder if he’d be so hostile if he’d been able to keep that $4.5-million book advance.

And have you also noticed how conservatives like to say that when liberals are on the defensive, they resort to name-calling? (Like making fat jokes about Rush Limbaugh, I guess, although I don’t think David Letterman really represents mainstream Democratic thinking.) Just last week, Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman, wrote in The Times that the Democrats’ “stock in trade” is “a blend of disdain, vilification and hate mongering.”

But Newty calls people names all the time, Mickey!

In fact, it seems to me that name-calling is a Republican party tradition. Remember Barbara Bush’s prudishly vulgar description of 1984 Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro as “that $2 million--I can’t say it, but it rhymes with rich?” (Republicans are just obsessed with money!)

Why can’t they come up with something a little more original? Like . . . rich feminist bitch?

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I suppose you could just write off this whole episode off as yet another example of When-bad-relatives-happen-to-good-politicians. (Billy Carter, Roger Clinton, Patti Davis, etc.)

But I, for one, cannot let Newty’s slap at his mother pass without defending her.

If Kathleen Gingrich chooses to say on national television that her son called Hillary Clinton a bitch, why is his only out to claim that his mother was duped?

Frankly, I resent his patronizing tone.

Older women are consistently devalued in this country. They are made to feel that they are stupid, or that they don’t exist. They are virtually invisible in the popular culture except as doddering grandmas.

Just because your mom is not a professional politician or a millionaire television correspondent doesn’t means she’s an idiot!

To claim, as Newty does, that his mother was victimized by Connie Chung is tantamount to saying you have to be a congressman or an anchorwoman to know a fabulous opportunity to safely slam the opposition on national TV.

Give your mom some credit, Newty.

She knew exactly what she was doing.

And so, I bet, did you.

Robin Abcarian’s column is published Wednesdays and Sundays.

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