And Newt said...

"Thank you LINDSEY." That's right. I met Newt Gingrich last week. I keep telling everyone about it because I think it was a pretty big deal. Of course, I didn't realize it was a really big deal until I looked him up on Wikipedia, but does that really matter? The point is that he shook my hand and thanked me personally, with my name at the end of his sentence. And he doesn't look nearly as mousey as he does in that wikipedia picture.

One of our alums works for The Gingrich Group, one of Newt's (we're obviously on a first name basis) healthcare transformation organizations. He was going to be in town with a free afternoon, so we arranged for him to come and talk to a group of our alumni. It was all on short notice, but it was free and it was a great talk and we had about 80 people come. I obviously knew very little about him and politics and his place in history, but he's a very interesting guy and a great presenter. He apparently has his PhD in history and taught at the University West Georgia for a while, so he was very comfortable in the classroom, used the chalkboard, made lots of jokes, etc.

I know he's controversial and stuff and has caused some dissention in Washington in the past... and I don't know enough to feel really passionately about who he is and what he's done, but I can't argue that he was really engaging and has a lot of fascinating things to say about healthcare and the state of our country. I won't tell you all about what he said here, but it was really interesting. If you ask me about it I'll be happy to share what I remember.