Newt Gingrich: “I simply wanted to rise to report to my colleagues and to our citizens that we had a very useful weekend retreat in…”

“I simply wanted to rise to report to my colleagues and to our citizens that we had a very useful weekend retreat in Hershey on a bipartisan basis to talk about, I think, one of the most difficult and complex things that people do: How to engage in passionate and difficult differences, how to bring to this room 435 people who represent the entire country, and how to do so in a way in which disagreement does not become disagreeable and in which the fact that people may have different dreams and different visions and sometimes different ideologies does not become so separating us and so divisive that it becomes difficult or impossible for us to do the people's business. This House has a long and a proud history of handling great conflicts in a very civil and orderly manner. Some of the greatest debates in this country's history have taken place in this building between people of great compassion who felt deeply what they were saying, but who recognized the legitimacy of the other person feeling equally deeply what they were saying. In addition to just the sense of handling debate, the more bipartisan our spirit can be, the more we can work together without the division of faction, as George Washington described it, the more good ideas we will have because on many topics, I would argue on most topics, the ideas are individual. They are not Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. They are just better, smarter, more effective ways to get the job done.”