Tell Newt To Shut Up: Prize-Winning Washington Post Journalists Reveal How Reality Gagged The Gingrich Revolution

A blow-by-blow account of the "Republican Revolution" in Congress, which collapsed after little more than a year, this feast for political insiders includes moments both absurd (Newt Gingrich confessing to White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta that "I melt when I am around" President Clinton) and critical. (Gingrich's realization, at the start of 1996, that "He had grievously miscalculated his opposition and strategically botched the most important political battle of his speakership.") As an insider's analysis of what went wrong with the largest rightward tilt in the U.S. Congress in this century, Maraniss and Weisskopf's book is indispensable.

PRIZEWINNING WASHINGTON POST JOURNALISTS REVEAL HOW REALITY GAGGED THE GINGRICH REVOLUTION

Speaker Newt Gingrich and his troops promised a revolution when they seized power in January 1995. The year that followed was one of the most fascinating and tumultuous in modern American history. After stunning early success with the Contract with America, the Republicans began to lose momentum; by year's end Gingrich was isolated and uncertain, and his closest allies were telling him to shut up.

Here is an unprecedented, fly-on-the-wall look at the successes, sellouts, and perhaps fatal mistakes of Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution. Based on the award-winning Washington Post series that documented the Republicans' day-to-day attempts to revolutionize the American government, "Tell Newt to Shut Up!" gets to the heart of the political process.