It’s Time To Give Newt Some Credit

As King Louis XVIII re-entered Paris on a fine June day in 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Count of Chambord bowed in welcome and coined a phrase: “A hundred days have elapsed, sire, since the fatal moment when your Majesty was forced to quit your capital in the midst of tears.”

On Friday of this week, in a prime-time television address, Speaker Newton Gingrich will mark the close of this House’s first hundred days - a historic period that drove the liberal ancien regime to tears of rage.

Despite the lack of total delivery on the hopes of his Contract, and notwithstanding the necessary sober second-thinking in the Senate, nobody can deny that ours is a nation with a new sense of direction - toward a new balance in budgeting, in federal and state power, and in social welfare and personal responsibility.

Democrats know that the driving force of change has been the daringly divisive speaker. Because they cannot compete with his intellectual energy, and cannot effectively counter restraints on government that reflect the will of the majority, House Democrats are waging a guerrilla campaign to discredit and besmear the speaker.

That is what lies behind the series of ethics charges that Democratic leaders hope will bedevil the thin-skinned politician into the sort of self-destruction of which Newt is all too capable.

Democrats want an outside goo-goo to determine the standards of right and wrong. But internal goo-goos are elected to do that job, guided by the public’s sense of right and wrong, and the ethical judgments of the seers of seemliness on the sidelines. Let’s examine the accusations of Gingrichian corner-cutting now before the House Ethics Committee.

First: Did a tax-free foundation, in which Newt is closely involved, finance a college course that he taught? Sure; nothing wrong there. But did Gingrich’s course have an “overt” political purpose - like persuading students and lookers-in that the national hairdo needed a new permanent wave?

Of course it did, and what’s unethical about that? This is not a case of the use of tax-free funds for lobbying purposes, buttonholing legislators to pass self-serving bills; on the contrary, Newt’s Progress and Freedom Foundation is an example of a political activist getting and using the wherewithal to shout his political philosophy from the academic and electronic rooftops.

We should have more such avenues to the marketplace of ideas. (I’m thinking of starting the “Greed and Mean-Spiritedness Foundation.”) Newt’s mistake - an error in seemliness, not an ethical transgression - was failing to disclose the names of contributors, which he belatedly rectified.

Two other complaints are a joke. Did the cable company that carried the Gingrich course, not paying for content, unethically donate time? If an assault on press freedom can be called silly, that’s it. And should Newt be censured for plugging his course on the House floor, which is carried by C-Span? That’s the sort of nitpick that gives ethics a bad name.

Now to the $4.5 million book advance.

A loophole in ethics rules allows lawmakers to make money writing books; its purpose is to encourage the dissemination of views, not to make millionaires out of public employees.

In defense of his deal, Gingrich points to the precedent set by then-Sen. Al Gore, who made a million on his screed about the environment, approved by an ethics committee, drawing no press criticism.

The Gore precedent should be overturned. If it had been widely known Al Gore was pocketing a bonanza (and using the vice-presidential pulpit to promote the commercial venture), ethicists would have hollered foul. Al can say piously he obeyed the rules, as can Newt, but the rules obviously need a rewrite.

Nobody should enrich himself while on the taxpayers’ payroll. It matters not if the compensation is paid in advance or is deferred; any creative output done by a public official while in office should be public property.

The Ethics Committee should give the speaker and all other representatives this guidance: The public servant who earns major outside income for private work done while in office is acting unethically. Wait until retirement to cash in.

With that policy clear for everyone, the speaker should be allowed to get on with the next hundred days.