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Callaway: Yeah. There's a lot of story to that. At the time that George Bush said that taxes are on the table, it was maybe a month or two before he agreed to the Democratic plan. I was at a meeting in Atlanta where we had about four of the top GOPAC people there. And all four of us in the GOPAC organization said George Bush is defeated the morning when he said it, not because we wanted him to, we just thought, 'You can't do that.' You can't say, 'Read my lips,' and then go back to raise taxes. I remember one night I was riding with Jim Pinkerton, who's one of the good guys in the White House, in my opinion, in the Bush administration, and Newt Gingrich and I were in the car, and I said to Jim, 'Please tell them at the White House to listen to Newt. I don't think they're listening. You think Newt's going along with this, whatever it is, out of loyalty to the president. And he's telling you he's not. He's telling you that this is what this package has to have for him to go along with it. And I don't see the package happening now. And if it doesn't, Jim, he's not going along. Please tell them that, because I don't think they know that.'

Now, Bush thought he was betrayed in the Rose Garden and all of that. And who knows, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. But I know that Newt told me consistently from the very first day what he had to have to go along with that package. I know he told the White House that. I know I told Jim Pinkerton that. I know Jim Pinkerton told the people in the White House that. I think they didn't believe it. I think they just figured that this is a Republican congressman and a Republican president, and the Republican whip is not going against his president. And they just guessed wrong. But Newt gave them every signal, every time. George Bush is one of the great humans that ever lived. But, Newt thought he was wrong. Of course, I think Newt was right to do that. What brought Bush down more than anything was the fact that he went along with it -- that Newt came out against him was a very small part of that.

Q: But it seems Bush viewed it as a betrayal -- isn't it another thing contributing to Newt's reputation of being mean-spirited?

Callaway: I've never seen Newt betray anyone that he gave his word to. He's never done that to me or anyone I've seen. One of the reasons people like Newt is that you can talk to Newt, anybody can talk to Newt. He'll tell you what's on his mind. He doesn't stop thinking, well, wait a minute, if I tell Steve this, then they might use that in this way so I better be careful here. And you know, 99 percent of politicians think that way after a while. They get burned once or twice and they say, 'I'm not going to do that again. I'm going to be a little more careful. I'm going to hedge my words.' Newt does not hedge his words. So if something occurs to him, he sees something, boy, he's got something coming out that makes great 30 second sound bites, and the 30 second sound bites get played on everything and some of those sound bites, if you take just the 30 seconds, sound mean-spirited.

Newt believes so fundamentally that the welfare state is hurting the people it's trying to help, specifically, the poor in inner cities. It's hurting the people. And he believes that. A lot of people don't believe that but he believes that. And he thinks that he's compassionate in trying to help the people in the inner cities by getting the government off their back and getting some new ways of doing things that will give them more of an opportunity as opposed to hand-outs which last from generation to generation. Now, whether you believe that or not, or whether a particular viewer believes that or not, Newt believes that and it's a very compassionate belief. And he's a compassionate person.

Q: What drives him?

Callaway: I don't think anybody will ever know what drives Newt Gingrich as hard as he's driven. This guy's amazing. Up every morning at 6 o'clock. 10 o'clock at night he's just thinking of three more meetings he's going to. I've never seen anyone driven as hard. And frankly, he's got to slow down. He's still being Speaker the way he was Whip and he's still being Whip the same way he was Congressman. There just isn't enough time for that. He's got to find ways to relax. And I know he wants to do that and he means to do that, but Newt--he just goes all the time.