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Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to the National League of Cities:

No one I know of in modern times has gone from a backbencher to being this much in the centre of things in that short a time. And some of the stuff I mishandled. I said controversial things that probably at this level I shouldn't have... I know I get in trouble occasionally, because I am so determined to try to be blunt and candid and to break out of the nonsensical, politically correct mechanisms of Washington, to even risk having ideas and to even risk saying things bluntly rather than obfuscating in a diplomatically appropriate manner.