Rich Lowry - Newt's friend Freddie

Newt Gingrich racked up between $1.6 and $1.8 million in payments from Freddie Mac through the years for, the former speaker maintains, essentially doing nothing.

It’s not inconceivable that he’s right. Such was the incredible largesse available to the government-sponsored mortgage giant that one or two million dollars over the course of a decade was practically chump change. Gingrich says he didn’t lobby for Freddie, and in response to a question about his payments at one of the Republican debates, said he only offered advice to Freddie “as a historian” that its lending practices were insane....