Clinton, Gingrich Sail In Same Boat

They’re much alike, Newt and Bill. A couple of small-town boys, overachievers who seized the chance for political stardom, exuberant schmoozers who’ll gab until the last listener snores.

Like prize fighters with similar moves, Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton are mirror images.

Now they have something in common besides ample egos, Dixie roots and chunky waistlines.

At what should be their peaks of triumph, the House speaker and the president will be damaged political animals.

Both were wounded in Washington’s money chase. They were driven to win, to keep power. Maybe legal corners were shaded. They stare from opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, leaders with dented halos.

Oh, sure, Republicans will re-elect Gingrich as speaker. Never mind how raucously Democrats jeer about ethics charges. And sure, the balls and bands will be noisy for Clinton’s second inaugural.

But I expect there will be a hollowness in the rituals, a queasy sense of blight about the 1997 re-emergence of Gingrich and Clinton.

The love songs are wrong. It’s not better the second time around.

Think back to Jan. 5, 1995, the day Gingrich was all-conquering King of the Hill. When he walked into the House of Representatives, the first Republican speaker in 40 years, he was floating on helium like a Macy’s balloon.

Everywhere Gingrich was mobbed by media and idolatrous fans. He was as triumphant as Lenin and Marx in 1919. “It’s day one of a revolution,” Newt crowed as cameras flashed. “I’m drowning in attention. And I love it.”

“This is overwhelming,” Gingrich said in a victory speech to the House that was slightly shorter than a Castro harangue. “I’m overwhelmed by the historic moment.”

But Newt may be underwhelmed when the rite is repeated Jan. 7.

“It’s going to be stormy, rough and tough,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a Gingrich supporter. Unlike the jubilee two years ago, when sullen Democrats grudgingly handed over the gavel, they’ll fight like wildcats to spoil Newt’s party. They hate Gingrich, detest what he did to Jim Wright, fume he’s too tainted to be speaker.

“He should resign,” said Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas. “If not, he should be censured by the House.”

“How can we have a speaker, second in line to be president, who’s lied to Congress?” said Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., who pursues Gingrich like a hound from hell.

They can’t block Gingrich’s re-election. With a 20-vote Republican edge, his juggernaut’s greased. And Gingrich beautifully choreographed his confession of guilt - sort of - when Congress was out and normal Americans were wrapping Christmas presents.

Sure, the ethics panel said Gingrich “did not reflect creditably on the House” when he fudged tax laws. And sure, the panel charged Newt gave it “inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable” information.

Does that legal mush mean Newt lied? Either way, his alibis, blaming it on accountants and lawyers, wouldn’t sway a steely-eyed IRS auditor.

In effect, Gingrich copped a plea, much as did Spiro Agnew when feds caught him red-handed.

Instead of the combative Newt, he was silkily contrite: “I was overconfident and in some ways naive. … I brought down on the people’s House a controversy which could weaken the faith people have in government.”

He had that right. Will Gingrich’s two-step dance work? Probably. The ethics panel must hustle to hit Newt with a reprimand (translation, a wrist slap.) Then the full House must agree before Newt takes his gavel. Watch Demos try to gangtackle that waltz.

Goodbye, civility. The Jan. 7 rabbit-punching, groin-gouging and hell-raising will make any Andrew Golota fight seem genteel.

Before chasing Jim Wright into oblivion, Gingrich said, “A speaker must be held to a higher standard.” He’s junked that axiom. What’s baffling is why Gingrich, who writes the nation’s tax laws and is surrounded by lawyers, lurched into this jackpot.

I think Gingrich will survive. Folk beyond the Beltway already saw him as a blowhard. His Republican cadre will rally round. But Gingrich will be a crippled boss operating cautiously in the shadows.

Ironically, the man at the other end of the avenue is trapped in a similar fate. Like Newt, Bill Clinton’s joyous 1997 is turning into a sackful of ashes.

If only political junkies keep the Asian money guys straight - who knows John Huang from Charlie Trie? - there’s an aroma of sleaze over Clinton’s fund raising. Turning the Lincoln Bedroom into a Checkbook Motel was scandalous. Long after the inaugural bands’ tootling fades, Clinton faces trouble more serious than Newt’s.

Sure, they’re alike: Small-town overreachers who grabbed too hard to hang onto power.

Both may have pawned an irredeemable jewel - their moral authority.

xxxx