To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People August 17, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/1999/08/17/gingrich In the eye of the Newt storm: Thar she blows! Gingrich affair heating up D.C. Exactly when did it begin? Somebody say "blackmail"? Finally, some good news: Cher definitely not involved; and more good news: Experts say Prince Philip is not an idiot! - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter Question one (and only) on today's pop quiz: Who has a minty-cool head, an ice-cold heart and is suddenly a hotter topic of conversation than even he thought possible? Why, you're absolutely correct: Naughty Newt Gingrich. Speculation surrounding the Newtle's recent decision to ditch his wife of 18 years, Marianne Ginther Gingrich, and cop to an affair with a woman 23 years his junior has made summertime in Washington even steamier than usual. Now that D.C.'s scandal-starved denizens have digested the scraps of the singularly unappetizing affaire Gingrich -- after boinking Callista Bisek, a 33-year-old congressional aide said to show a somewhat kinky resemblance to Hillary Rodham Clinton, for years, the former House speaker gave his weeping wife the heave-ho over the phone while she was celebrating her mother's 84th birthday in July -- they're struggling with a touch of dyspepsia over a few greasy details: Just when did Bisek (so adept at puckering up and blowing she plays horn in Virginia's City of Fairfax band) catch the eye of Newt (tongue of dragon)? And what really inspired the big-talking speaker to suddenly grow silent as a lamb and vanish into the night in the midst of the Clinton/Lewinsky cacophony? While most press outlets have reported that Newtie and his cutie have been consorting for at least three years, whispers that the Gingster might have horned in on brassy Bisek more like five years ago have wafted Nothing Personal's way. Big deal? Well, it might be. If it turns out that the two were indeed nuzzling noses before the hard-blowing, nimble-fingered young lady was installed in her cushy $55,000 congressional aide job (sniff if you like, that's biggish bucks for a lowish-level government worker without a whole lot of prior Hill experience). Such timing would raise the same sort of ethical questions Clinton faced when it appeared his good buddy Vernon Jordan may have pulled some high-placed strings at Revlon on behalf of a certain unthankful thongstress. What's more, NP has also gotten wind of some banter about blackmail on le Hill. Could it be that Gingrich's surprise decision to abandon his throne in the midst of the Monica madness (not to mention his uncharacteristic mumness on the matter) was not based simply on his weakening approval rating, but was a direct response to pressure from Republicans now running the show -- Reps. Dick Armey and Tom DeLay (the latter, it bears noting, an erstwhile pest-control expert)? The Gingrich/Bisek affair is rumored to have been an open secret among House Republicans and could well have been used as leverage by Newt's power-hungry "friends" to rid him of his crown (leave town quietly or get slimed by scandal). After all, Mrs. Newt, whose divorce lawyers will likely put her hard-hearted hubby through an exhaustive deposition, claims to have been unaware of Gingrich's out-of-wedlock dalliance until he dialed her up to demand a divorce -- mere seconds before the story hit the papers. And we all know to what lengths politicians will go to protect their families from the truth ... - - - - - - - - - - - - Couldn't he just zap them with his tongue? "I'm sitting on Mount Olympus and these silly humans don't behave the way I want them to, and now the heavens will open and I will zap them with lightning bolts." -- Kiss front man-cum-movie producer Gene Simmons commenting on "Detroit Rock City's" whimpering opening weekend and (unwittingly) confirming that he is the devil's hair apparent. - - - - - - - - - - - - More chaste than Chastity; bluer than Elijah Blue I got no one, babe? Cher's started singing the second verse of her new sad "poor me" song. (You may remember that a couple of months ago, she shocked the world by sharing that she hadn't had sex in years.) Now the ab-fab singer/actress is claiming to be shy, even with her very best buddies. Sounding suspiciously like Greta Garbo, she recently told TV Guide that she's given to bouts of isolation in which she refrains from speaking to friends for years and has been known to throw parties and then not show up. One Thanksgiving, for instance, she invited a slew of people over for dinner and then never bothered to join in on the feast because, she says, "I didn't feel like going to it." She's more comfortable, she confesses, performing onstage for 50,000 people than playing hostess to five friendly folks in her living room. So that's why she settled for Sonny ... - - - - - - - - - - - - Items on this table slightly damaged by purple rain "I was hoping to come and see Prince sitting on a lawn chair, marking down prices." -- Disappointed bargain hunter Kii Arens, who, along with 300 other fans, flocked to a Paisley Park garage sale held by the artist formerly known as Prince. - - - - - - - - - - - - Naughty by nurture Blame nurture, not nature, for gaffe-a-minute Prince Philip's bumbling bigoted ways. A crack team of British and Russian geneticists has looked into the matter and just announced that Queen Elizabeth's comedy-of-ill-manners hubby, who came under fire last week for commenting during a factory visit that a fuse box looked as if it had been "put in by an Indian," is not genetically programmed to be a complete idjit. Samples of his DNA, the scientists have determined, do not contain a royal gene known to produce low intelligence. "It is a miracle the Duke of Edinburgh is so normal considering the many generations of inbreeding that produced him," royal watcher Harold Brooks-Baker recently told the Times of London. But perhaps the high-born low-intelligence gene could explain Prince Charles' daffy desire to be reincarnated as a tampon? salon.com | August 17, 1999