In his unfailing piety, Newt Gingrich in 2008, fresh off his paid gig for Freddie Mac, went on Fox News and counseled John McCain to demand that Obama “give back all the money that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae gave to you.”

Then a week later he urged John McCain to exploit “the close ties Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and Barney Frank have to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

Again, this just after Newt had wrapped up an eight-year consulting stint with Freddie Mac that paid him $1.6 million.

Herman Cain hasn’t even been sworn in yet. But Congress is already insisting that Pizza is a vegetable.

The real news in Bloomberg’s new reporting on Newt Gingrich’s time as a consultant for Freddie Mac isn’t how much he made — though that’s pretty precious — but that Freddie Mac sources from that time period say Newt was not, as he claimed, warning them about the housing bubble or the dangers of their business model. Nor, it should be added, was Newt advising them, as he most preposterously claimed, as a historian. In fact, his role was, in part, to protect the mortgage giants from more regulation by the Republican-controlled House.

Newt now seems to be backing away from his claim in last week’s debate that he warned them about the housing bubble. He’s also now calling the advice he gave “strategic” rather than historical. Read More