If you're wondering just how small the world is, consider this, a question I was asked back in late 1994, possibly early 1995, by the woman I was then dating, who had gone to a small private Lutheran college in Iowa:
"Have you ever heard of Newt Gingrich?"
"Why, yes," I said. "He's soon-to-be, or perhaps already is, the Republican Speaker of the House ... "
"He is?"
"Yes. From back-bencher, bomb-thrower, to Speaker of the House. You watch, he'll try to shut the government down to make his point—"
"Anyway, my friend, Callista—"
"Callista?"
Note, reader: this was before Ally McBeal, the popular television show (1997-2002), before anyone, particularly me, had heard of Calista (one "l") Flockhart, who played Ally McBeal in the TV show, before almost anyone had heard of a Callista, or Calista ...
Her friend, named Callista, worked in Washington, as an intern. Apparently she knew Newt Gingrich. As in, biblically.
"As in, she's fucking him—"
All right, those weren't exactly her words. It was more like they were involved, in the way that politicians and interns occasionally get involved, because they feel so passionately about their country, and work so hard, and well, sometimes—
Only, according to the woman I was dating, who talked to her friend, the future Callista Gingrich on the phone, Speaker Gingrich (a purported Futurist, after all) really didn't care much about politics, or, for that matter, his then-current wife. Apparently he only kept her around for appearances sake: fund-raisers, charity balls and the like. No, he found the political world tedious; he was more the intellectual, professorial, big ideas man with gadgets type, who, it so happened, was looking to trade in his old mare for a younger one—a much younger one, someone who didn't mind being involved with someone much older (23 years) and quite a lot heavier, who called himself Newt, whose middle name was Leroy ...
"You've got a friend who's fucking Newt Gingrich?" I reiterated, just to be clear.
"You can't tell anyone!"
"Who would I tell?"
Who says a man never dumps his wife to marry his mistress? That nothing changes in Washington?
Below, and largely unrelated to the titillating, seventeen-year-old gossip above, is a fine article by Andrew Ferguson in the Sunday Times, who, seeking to find out just how intellectual a certain intellectual really is, bravely took on the entirety of the Gingrich oeuvre (21 books, give or take, all written with co-authors) and has a few things to say about it (NB: at one point a comparison is made between Callista Gingrich and Linda McCartney, photographers, both of them ... ).
No comments:
Post a Comment