Gingrich, 10 Years After the Revolution

Remember Newt Gingrich? It's been exactly 10 years since the then-Georgia rep. was the poster child for the conservative movement, voted Time's "Man of the Year" for his role in leading the much-heralded Republican Revolution of the mid-1990s.

Sadly for Gingrich, the GOP insurrection quickly sputtered to a halt and Gingrich fell out of favor, his own allies (including Rep. Tom DeLay) attempting to depose him in a coup in 1997. Mary Lynn Jones of the Gadflyer had a good piece last year about what went wrong. A series of ethical lapses (sound familiar?) played a role, but Jones points to the fact that "Gingrich couldn't transition from minority-party bomb throwing into majority-party governing." The caustic congressman alienated voters with his myopic pursuit of Clinton's impeachment, and drove Congress into a budget impasse that shut down government, a move the public largely blamed on Republicans.

Tom DeLay was a product of Gingrich's slash-and-burn 1990s GOP revolution, and there are many similarities to their stories of power and defeat: the use of fear to impose rule; a chronic and debilitating hubris; operating as if they were in the party of opposition even as their hands were on the levers of power.

Gingrich is now on the road hawking a book, the clearest sign that he's preparing for a 2008 presidential run. And apparently he hasn't learned much over the past 10 years. In explaining why he's making a run for the White House, Gingrich points to the need to "get [his] message out" of conservative reform. He also sees the Katrina catastrophe as opening a big opportunity because it allows Republicans to talk about the current "failure of leadership."

What rock has Newt been living under? Is the problem facing conservatives today really that they're having trouble "getting their message out?" And just who does he think is in the "leadership" of government today? Packaging himself as the crusading outsider may have worked in 2005, but it will be a hard sell in 2008.