Ready for the new Newt?

WILDLY irresponsible governance in Washington. Incipient civil war in Iraq. I know what you’re thinking: What this country needs right now is ... Newt Gingrich.

OK, maybe you’re not thinking that. But you know who is? Newt Gingrich.

One of the rules of presidential politics is that the higher profile a prospective candidate has, the more coy he can be about his intentions to run. So, at the top of the spectrum you have, say, Hillary Clinton, who because of her lofty status can resolutely deny any intention to run and still leave everybody believing that she intends to do it anyway.

At the bottom end of the spectrum you have washed-up, semi-employed pols like Gingrich. Few people think Gingrich ought to or will run, so he’s forced to show a lot of leg. Gingrich has been telling anyone who will listen that he plans to decide next summer, and he has splashed the resulting headlines -- i.e, “Gingrich’s Words Sound Like Those of a Presidential Candidate” -- on his website.

(Gingrich’s website also features a section titled, “Bring Newt to Your Event.” Why didn’t I discover this before my daughter’s birthday party?)

Refreshingly unchanged after all these years is Gingrich’s healthy self-esteem. When asked by the Wall Street Journal if he had made any mistakes during his reign as speaker of the House, he offered two. First, “I think I failed to create enough people who were leaders who understood what it was we had done right in 1994 to 1997.” Translation: My triumphs went unappreciated.

Second, “We failed to create a third wave of reform. If you count the Reagan wave of 1980 and the Contract [With America] wave of 1994, we’re still looking for a third wave that has to come from the country.” Translation: Those Republicans who came after me failed to match my triumphs.

As was the case a decade ago, Gingrich’s preferred self-image is that of a world-historical visionary driven by his love for ideas. Recently, Gingrich has added a second layer to this narrative. According to Gingrich, his leadership of the Republican Party represented a wholesome time of pure devotion to conservative ideals, and the GOP has only been corrupted since he departed the scene in 1998.

There are numerous flaws with this heroic account. The first is that Gingrich’s ideas were, and remain, mostly bunk. He has mastered the art of speaking in grand superlatives, mixed with specific details, to give the utterly misleading impression that he knows what he’s talking about.

Recently, a Journal editorial writer breathlessly recorded the former speaker’s penetrating insights on domestic policy, including this: “We just got a report yesterday that was in the newspaper that children on Medicaid are six times as likely to be obese as children who are not on Medicaid. Now even for a liberal that should give them some pause as to how bad Medicaid is as a system.”

In fact, as UC Berkeley economist Brad DeLong has noted, this number is wildly wrong: 34% of kids on Medicaid are obese, as opposed to 21% of non-Medicaid kids. Even if Gingrich’s number was true, does he think that being on Medicaid makes kids obese?

It doesn’t take a world-historical genius to figure out what’s going on. Poor kids are more likely to be obese and more likely to be on Medicaid. It’s as if Gingrich noted that ex-prisoners are more likely to commit murders than Harvard grads, and concluded that we should send all the convicts to Harvard instead of the clink.

Particularly laughable is Gingrich’s assertion that corruption has sullied the Republican Party only after he was deposed. It’s true that things have gotten marginally worse. But it was 1995, the height of Gingrich’s power, that saw the imposition of the K Street Project, which essentially delegated to lobbyists the task of governing. In 1995, lobbyists were drawing up the party’s deregulatory agenda, and one of Gingrich’s deputies was handing out checks from lobbyists on the House floor. Some golden era.

Is anyone other than Gingrich eager to relive it?