Newt's makeover

The shunned former speaker, reborn as Big Ideas Guy, calls for an end to adolescence, and says we're not really in the Information Age yet.

By David Corn

Jan 20, 2000 | Is Newt Gingrich back? The former speaker of the House has kept a fairly low profile since resigning last year. That made sense as he underwent his second messy divorce, which revealed the affair he had maintained with a congressional aide when he led the pro-family-values Republican revolution. Now that the divorce has been settled -- with the details a secret -- he seems to be finally stepping out again, positioning himself not as a political aspirant, but as a visionary.

About 100 Washingtonians gathered Tuesday night at the center-right American Enterprise Institute, where Gingrich is a resident scholar, to hear him deliver a speech, "Reflections of a Private Citizen." The crowd included about a dozen journalists, including Donald Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, a few lobbyists (representing Honeywell and Lehman Brothers among others) and several think-tankers, such as AEI colleague Norman Ornstein. Two camera crews filmed the event. And a smiley Callista Bisek, Gingrich's mistress-turned-girlfriend, listened attentively.

It was something of a coming out for Gingrich, and he took the occasion to present himself as a big thinker. That's only natural. In the heady days when Gingrich led the GOP, he cultivated a multilayered image: He was a philosopher-historian who vowed to revive American civilization, he was a masterful political strategist and he was the champion of conservatism. These days -- his personal behavior undermining his conservative credentials, and his reputation as a tactician shredded by the House Republican failures in the last election -- all that's left is Newt the Big Ideas Guy.

But first, Gingrich offered a defense -- not of his own private-life foibles but of his tenure as speaker. He claimed the Republican Congress deserved credit for the large drop in welfare rolls. Welfare reform worked, he said, but "You won't hear this in the Gore-Bradley debates." (Actually, you do; Gore brings it up.) He also boasted that the Republicans were responsible for the explosion in stock prices. The Dow Jones average, he said, increased a puny 300 points during President Clinton's first two years, when the Democrats controlled Congress, but began a steep climb once he and his party took over.

Gingrich did concede that he had not led the House "in the right ways," and that the Republicans' performance in the 1998 elections was disappointing. He attributed this failure -- the loss of five House seats -- to a failure to develop "a second wave of ideas" to follow up on the 1994 Contract With America. In late 1997 and 1998, he said, the Republican House leadership lacked "the energy and drive" to draft a convincing second contract. Gingrich neglected to mention that he and many Republicans were busy with another matter: impeaching Clinton.

Not once did he refer to the episode. Nor did he acknowledge the possibility that the voting public became disenchanted with the policies of the House Republicans. Instead, he moved on to his mega-themes.

Next Page: Among his bits of advice: Play nice

• View blog reactions