Gingrich Book Presents Game Plan For Return To Economic Traditions

There’s no lack of exposure in the liberal media of views expressed by Colin Powell in his new book, “My American Journey.”

Bland, non-committal and colorless as those views are.

We all know, for example, that the retired Army desk jockey is against quotas, but for affirmative action.

He’s semi-pro-life/semi-pro-choice.

He’s for economic development, but against environmental exploitation.

A recent poll reportedly found that 95 percent of African-Americans don’t know Colin Powell is black.

This guy is trying to become president of the United States without ever taking a position on any substantive issue.

In Newt Gingrich, we have exactly the opposite phenomenon - a moralizing, nerdy doofus with an air of the mad scientist about him, hellbent on converting the world to his radical right-wing slant on life.

The leader of the neo-American revolution is a writhing mass of opinion just squirming to get out.

But it’s almost impossible to find anything in the media about the subject matter of his new book. Instead, all the discussion is on the propriety of his dealings with the publisher. That, and a congressional inquiry into sources of funding for a series of college classes he once taught on “Renewing American Civilization.”

As to what his book says, who knows?

Well, this review seeks to fill that void, albeit from a somewhat limited business perspective.

Stripped of the social moralizing and political rhetoric, “To Renew America” is essentially a primer on business principles, work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit for an America that has lost touch with its economic traditions.

Gingrich writes a lot by the numbers. Maybe it’s the teacher in this former small-college instructor. He sets forth, for example, what he has discovered are the “five basic principles” at the core of American civilization:

“One - the common understanding we share about who we are and how we came to be.

“Two - the ethic of individual responsibility.

“Three - the spirit of entrepreneurial free enterprise.

“Four - the spirit of invention and discovery.

“And five - pragmatism and the concern for craft and excellence, as expressed most recently in the teaching of Edwards Demming.” Demming is the American business systems guru who taught the Japanese customer satisfaction, quality and employee involvement.

Again by the numbers, Gingrich writes: “Here are the six major changes that I believe are necessary in order to leave our children with an America that is prosperous, free and safe:

“We must reassert and renew American civilization.

“We must accelerate America into the third wave of the information age.

“We must rethink our competition in the world market.

“We must replace the welfare state with an opportunity society.”

“We must replace our centralized, micromanaged Washington-based bureaucracy with a dramatically decentralized system more appropriate to a continentwide country.

“And finally, we must be honest about the cost of government programs and balance the federal budget.”

It took Gingrich seven steps to address the drug problem. “We should have no sympathy for addicts,” he said in one step, “and every sympathy for recovering addicts.” Another step would impose a “mandatory death penalty for entering our territory with a commercial quantity of drugs.”

It took a still larger number of steps to tackle the welfare mess. “Replacing the welfare state with an opportunity society,” he writes, “will require eight major changes that need to be undertaken simultaneously.”

But rather than even attempting to wrestle with that great a number in the small space remaining below, a single anecdote illustrative of the need for change might serve better.

“In public housing projects today,” reports Gingrich in one of the book’s most telling passages, “the three ambitions cited by students are (to become) basketball, football and baseball players, in that order.”

That’s it. Period. Regardless of race.

And the 99.9 percent who aspire to pro sports but can’t make it as a paid athlete? What’s their second choice?

“They have no answer,” writes Gingrich. “It is simply beyond the experience of these children to consider becoming a lawyer, an accountant or a businessman.

“These public housing children - no matter what their ethnic background - have simply no conception of the world of everyday work.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel’s column appears on Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review