Gingrich Attacked As Party Traitor Bennett Accuses Speaker Of ‘Cozying Up’ To Democrats

Former Education Secretary William J. Bennett, a leading voice in conservative Republican circles, Wednesday accused House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., of trying to appease the Democratic Party’s left wing to rehabilitate himself and said the speaker “should change course or step down.”

Bennett, in a flurry of news interviews, stepped up an attack that began with an article in the current issue of The Weekly Standard, a conservative journal.

Bennett said he was angry over Gingrich’s decision to invite Jesse Jackson to sit in the speaker’s box during President Clinton’s State of the Union address and incensed that Gingrich had apologized for remarks by Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., suggesting that Jackson and District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry were “race-hustling poverty pimps.”

“If you want to add up statements that need to be apologized for, there are a lot more in Jesse Jackson’s record than in J.C.’s,” Bennett said. He added: “Few people have done more to further racial polarization than Jesse Jackson.”

Jackson could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

Jackson earlier had said Gingrich had told him the remarks by Watts, who delivered the Republican response to Clinton on Tuesday night, were “unbecoming” and did not reflect the Republican Party’s views.

Meanwhile, Barry said in a radio interview early Wednesday that Watts’s comments were “out of line.” In a statement issued Wednesday night, the mayor said Watts called him “and emphatically stated that he never mentioned my name in any interview.” Barry said, “I will accept him at his word.”

Bennett said Gingrich had no more business apologizing for Watts than Watts would have had apologizing for Gingrich to House Minority Whip David E. Bonior, D-Mich., who was the speaker’s principal accuser in the ethics controversy that ended with the House voting to reprimand the speaker.

Gingrich spokeswoman Lauren Maddox said the speaker had not apologized to Jackson for Watts’ statement, but that he had made clear that the civil-rights leader was welcome in the speaker’s box despite what Watts had said.