Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was front-and-center during the Republican-led , is cautioning his GOP colleagues about the risk of appearing to be too eager as they dig into the scandals now dogging the Obama administration.
"I think we overreached in '98 鈥� how's that for a quote you can use?" Gingrich told NPR's Mara Liasson for a .
Now, says Gingrich, Republicans should proceed with caution. "They need to be calm and factual," he said. "For example, a [House] subcommittee ... should invite every single tea party, conservative, patriot group that was messed over by the IRS 鈥� every single one of them 鈥� to come in and testify, so that they build this deadening record of how many different people were having their rights abused by this administration."
The first such hearing, with the now-axed former head of the IRS, .
As we've been reporting, the Obama administration is faced with:
-- The IRS scandal, which involves the for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.
-- First Amendment-related objections about the .
-- Continued scrutiny over its response to the .
Gingrich's view about how Republicans should proceed echoes those expressed by other GOP leaders in :
"Republicans are worried one thing could screw up the political gift of three Obama administration controversies at once: fellow Republicans.
"Top GOP leaders are privately warning members to put a sock in it when it comes to silly calls for impeachment or over-the-top comparisons to Watergate. They want members to focus on months of fact-finding investigations 鈥� not rhetorical fury."
Earlier this week, :
"Talk to any Republican political strategist about whether GOP leaders should spend their time talking about the terrorist attack in Benghazi or the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservatives and you will get a unanimous answer: IRS."
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