Lying Liar Newt Gingrich Lies All Day Long, Is a Huge Liar

Pop quiz time! How many of the following things in this paraphrase of some dumb thing Stay-Puft clone Newt Gingrich said during a recent GOP debate are true: "The $300,000 I was paid by Freddie Mac were for my services as, uh, a historian." Correct answer: ZERO. Newt was paid at least $1.6 million, and part of his job was to shill Freddie Mac's good name to congressional Republicans who wanted to burn the government-backed mortgage giant to the ground. Of course, it also turns out that Newt was earning all these piles of silly monies by lying about his True Feelings, since he immediately started to trash Freddie Mac the minute he stopped getting their checks.

Exhibit A, from Bloomberg:  

Former Freddie Mac officials familiar with his work in 2006 say Gingrich was asked to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it.

Exhibit B, from TalkingPointsMemo:  

As Republicans presidential nominee John McCain struggled to match his opponent in the polls, Newt Gingrich urged the Arizona Senator to reboot his campaign by relentlessly attacking Democrats for being too close to housing giant Freddie Mac. That would be the same Newt Gingrich who took a reported $1.6 million in “consulting fees” from Freddie Mac during an eight-year relationship that had ended only months earlier.

Is his real name even NEWT? (Because seriously, how is that anyone's real name.) [ Bloomberg / TPM ]