Campaigning at Tiffany's

In the spirit of piling on, the media is bringing back tales of Newt Gingrich's purchases for his wife at jeweler Tiffany & Co. So, here is a quiz about Gingrich:

1) True or False -- Gingrich used his wife's money to make a long list of expensive purchases.
2) True or False -- Gingrich has three houses each of which is worth well in excess of a million dollars.
3) True or False -- Gingrich sent his wife Calista on a lengthy European vacation earlier this year which cost over $70,000 per day.
4) True or False -- Gingrich's wife routinely dresses in expensive designer gowns for dinners with supporters.
5) True or False -- Gingrich used the confidential information that he gained as Speaker of the House to make millions of dollars of profits in the stock market.
6) True or False -- Gingrich used his former political position to run a variety of profitable schemes that depended on his using his political influence to help them.
7) True or False -- Gingrich helped his children to prosper by letting them use his influence in careers as lobbyists.

So, here are the answers. If you answered true to any question, you were wrong. John Kerry, the 2004 Democrat presidential nominee uses his wife's money to make millions of dollars of expensive purchases. Mitt Romney has three houses, each of which is worth over a million dollars -- one is reputed to be the biggest house in the state of New Hampshire. Barack Obama sent his wife on a European vacation earlier this year which cost over $70,000 per day. Obama is also the one whose wife regularly dresses in expensive designer clothing for dinners with supporters. It was Nancy Pelosi who used confidential information gained while Speaker of the House to profit from trading in stocks that were about to get good news from the government. It is Al Gore who ran a variety of profitable schemes that depended on his using his political influence to help them; Gore has made well over one hundred million dollars from his efforts supposedly intended to stop global warming. Fianlly, it is Harry Reid who helped his children to prosper by letting them use his influence in careers as lobbyists; Reid has four sons and each has been a lobbyist.

So here's the question: we have seen a variety of rich, very rich and extremely rich candidates for president. Kerry was the richest, even though the money belonged to his wife. No one said anything about this wealth at the time (although nearly all of the millionaires and billionaires in question were Democrats and that may explain the silence.) So why now do big bills for gift bought at Tiffany & Co suddenly become important? It is a total double standard.