Critics turn up the volume, claim arrogance, betrayal

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 27, 1996 | by Tiffany Danitz

Partisan attacks are par for the course in an election year. However, it's not just the Democrats who are raging against House Speaker Newt Gingrich -- some Republicans are snapping at his heels as well.

He marched in like a general with fresh troops to sustain the revolution. He boldly spoke of 100 days of change, of smaller government and an end to deficit spending. But after the long winter of Democratic retreat came the counterattack, and the strategy was to take out the House GOP leader: Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"We're stringing up the electric chair here, but we didn't make him guilty," Democratic fund-raiser Steven Jost told the Wall Street Journal as the battle began. This was just after Jost had prepared ethics complaints claiming that Gingrich mismanaged funds by mixing the political monies and educational activities of GOPAC, a political-action committee once headed by the speaker and a major force behind the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994.

The elephant ride is over, charge Washington Democrats. Gingrich's ideology has turned upon him and his vision is fizzling. "It lies in tatters," says Alan Secrest, a Democratic consultant. "He is guilty of ideological overreaching and it crippled him politically."

One expects partisan attacks in an election year. But the Democrats aren't the only ones on a rampage against Gingrich. Perhaps because they know the liberal media are avid to publish criticism of the speaker, some elements of the Republican Party have been all but rabid, drooling at the first taste of mutiny. "He prevented, by his leadership, any progress on the issues Republicans talked about in '94, and he undermined the freshmen," says Llewellyn Rockwell Jr., president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a freemarket think tank, before adding, "He betrayed the revolution -- he did it with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in the lame-duck session and with the Mexican bailout -- for that alone he ought to be exiled."

By making his speakership and the "Contract With America" synonymous, claims New York Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, Gingrich has created an illusion of failure. "He kicked off his speakership with the contract, and when very little passed he was consigned to doing the circus circuit," says Secrest, referring to last month's Tonight Show segment on which Gingrich appeared with zoo animals.

But according to Michael Coles, Gingrich's multimillionaire Democratic opponent in Georgia's 6th District, such appearances don't wash. "He has so little regard for the voters and their intelligence, he thinks that appearing on these shows will somehow nullify his voting record."

Gingrich has reason to pay attention to the attacks of his Georgia opponents. It was former Rep. Ben Jones, his Democratic rival in 1994, who raised the GOPAC complaints. House Minority Whip David Bonior of Michigan, who took it to the House Standards of Official Conduct Committee the same year, has used the negative allegations against Gingrich ever since.

He has been accused of using his videotaped history course for political purposes, abused for an "800" number during speeches on the House floor and roasted further for a proposed $4.5 million book advance -- which he returned in favor of a royalty. The problem was one of perception. "To a public inflamed by Democratic spin, his whole book deal stunk to high heaven," a Republican detractor tells Insight.

Gingrich has been accused of everything from being a liberal to being reckless. "He attacks the liberal welfare state, but he wants to erect a conservative welfare state in its place," says Rockwell, who believes even Pat Buchanan is giving way to left-wing enticements. "He appeals to the people who think he is a good guy because the liberal media hate him. When people become more aware of what his actual role has been they will toss him where [former House Speaker Jim] Wright is."

Gingrich is haunted by deja vu reminiscent of his tertier-like nipping at the heels of Wright. "It is a paradox for the speaker that he was involved in bringing down a former speaker and now he is charged with very similar things," says Alex Benes, managing director of the Center for Public Integrity.

As a backbencher, Gingrich promoted this kind of inquest, explaining that the speaker, as leader of the House, should meet higher standards. Wright, who resigned May 31, 1989, attributed his resignation in part to the orchestrations of Gingrich. In his new autobiographical book, Balance of Power, Wright describes a freshman Gingrich, struck by hubris, telling the then-speaker, "Someday, I'll be as good as you."

And there may be something to that prophecy, as a GOP critic notes, "He has made the speaker position all-powerful, more than Tip O'Neal or Wright." In doing so he also made himself the object of dramatic expectations for good and bad which, in turn, fired the ethical scrutiny that left him at risk of being hoist by his own petard.

"I'll let the ethics complaint of Ben Jones speak for itself about what is wrong with Newt Gingrich," Jost tens Insight. According to Jost, the mere charge does damage in a kind of McCarthyism of the left.