Burning Down the HouseIntent on making history, Newt Gingrich may become its victim
By GARY KAMIYA
Illustration by Zach Trenholm
As Washington digs out from the great blizzard of '96, there is one battle that Newt Gingrich, that noted student of military history, would probably not like to be reminded of: Stalingrad. As his tanks sink into the budgetary mud, his elite troops turn on him, his ethical supply lines stretch to the breaking point and his own behavior grows increasingly erratic, those glorious days when the Republican blitzkrieg carried all before it must seem like a distant memory.
Whether the metaphor will hold -- whether Gingrich's audacious decision to strike at the very heart of America's social contract will prove, like Hitler's daring invasion of Russia, to be an act of monstrous and self-destructive hubris -- remains to be seen. If the American people decide that the values and goals of the Republican Revolution cannot be separated from those of its leader, 1994 may be remembered not as the annus mirabilis of conservatism but as the year of the failed coup.
One thing is clear: Most Americans do not like Newt Gingrich. A Time/CNN poll taken in December 1995 found that only 24% had a favorable impression of the Speaker of the House (compared with 61% for President Clinton) and just 9% would like to see him become president. A remarkable 49% found him "scary." To be fair, the poll was taken at Gingrich's lowest moment -- during the government shutdown, after he had delivered a petulant outburst about being disrespected on Air Force One and a typically wild, Limbaugh-esque roundhouse in which he blamed a horrific murder on Democratic policies. Still, the conclusion is inescapable: most people, including many Republicans, think there's something fishy about this guy -- even if they can't put their finger on it.
A new Frontline special, "The Long March of Newt Gingrich," which aired January 16 on PBS and will be reshown at various times, seizes that quavering digit and sticks it where the sun don't shine -- in Newt's character. The Gingrich that emerges from this documentary, produced by Stephen Talbot with correspondent Peter Boyer, is a Machiavel, a ruthless chameleon who shed his moderate image and reinvented himself as a fire-and-brimstone conservative to win his first election. He is a hypocrite who preaches moral regeneration -- and proposes draconian measures to ensure it -- while his own past, personal and political, is littered with sins of singular unpleasantness. A second-rate intellectual, he is a superb tactician with a hotline into populist resentments who uses negative messages brilliantly. And he plays the media like a violin.
In short, he is the modern politician par excellence -- a master of seeming whose own center is impossible to locate, and may not exist. Since his career has been built on exploiting Americans' hatred of the very class -- professional politicians -- of which he is the most illustrious member, this is somewhat strange.
Next page: A legend in his own mind
