Newt Gingrich in Wonderland

When it comes to Newt Gingrich's post-speaker activities on the Hill, it all depends on what your definition of "lobbying" is.

In Monday's debate, Mitt Romney charged Gingrich with "influence peddling." But Gingrich insists that he was merely working as a historian when he collected $1.6 million from Freddie Mac over a six-year period.

Which in some version of reality could be true. Broadly speaking, a historian who is hired to dig ditches is still a historian. But, strictly speaking, Gingrich did sign a contract with the mortgage giant at a time when Republicans wanted to end its special status as a government-backed private entity. And, he was a cheerleader for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, according to political action committee donors who heard him speak in 2007 before he became a critic insisting that others who backed the mortgage companies should be jailed.

Under pressure from the Romney campaign, Gingrich's consulting firm released a copy of one year of its contract with Freddie Mac, which leaves another five years unaccounted for and only shows earnings of $300,000. That leaves a significant time gap and a chunk of change, but the operative question is whether Gingrich acted as a lobbyist for the company. The question is crucial to the issue of character because the American people and congressmen deserve to know whether someone is being paid to advocate for a position.

A lobbyist for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae whose tenure overlapped with Gingrich's told me on background that both signed the same contract. This person immediately registered as a lobbyist and said that Gingrich was clearly exerting his influence, though he may have been able to maintain a legal, if not entirely ethical, distance from the definition of "lobbying." The law is very specific about what constitutes lobbying, having to do with, among other things, the number of times one meets with legislators and-or how many times one speaks to a particular group. If you come just under that number, then you're technically within legal bounds.

Gingrich didn't want to step over the line, clearly, and may not have. But it is fair to ask whether such line- walking is appropriately transparent and forthright for a presidential candidate.

Yet another mother lode for Gingrich has been the health care industry. Various companies paid Gingrich $55 million between 2001 and 2010, according to Bloomberg News. When asked what the companies received in return, Gingrich told The Washington Post that they got to visit with "a really important guy who really knows a lot and who really has lots of information." That person would be Gingrich's Holy Trinity -- Me, Myself and I.

For Gingrich in Wonderland, as Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

Email: kathleenparker@washpost.com.

WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP

This story was originally published January 25, 2012 at 11:09 PM with the headline "Newt Gingrich in Wonderland."