Amnesia, Gingrich-Style

There’s nothing like a new day when it comes to trying to polish up your political reputation, as House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) showed last weekend in a whiny display of selective amnesia in discussing his congressional ethics problems.

Was it just two weeks ago that the speaker narrowly won reelection in a House vote that saw nine of his fellow Republicans refusing to support him? Just after that vote he contritely declared: “To the degree I was too brash, too self-confident or too pushy, I apologize. This has been a difficult time. Some of the difficulty I brought on myself.” And less than a month earlier he had admitted violating House rules in connection with tax-exempt charitable organizations and had agreed that he had provided “inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable” information to the Ethics Committee.

Well, the old Gingrich is back. In weekend appearances before supporters near Atlanta his rash brush with humility and contrition was gone with the wind. He was nailed on ethics, he confided, because, “Somehow, if you’re on the left you can commingle everything and no one seems to notice. If you are a conservative and you hire a lawyer and you make a mistake, you had better prepare to be pilloried. . . . It’s a substantial double standard that is consistently repeated.”

We’re not so sure that’s the way it goes, Mr. Speaker. A number of liberals who have been nicked under similar circumstances have gotten their due. Isn’t this where a politician is supposed to stand up and take his medicine?

Has Gingrich forgotten his lead role in the ethics investigation of former House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas), who was forced to resign? Has he forgotten his unyielding allegiance to hardball partisan politics?

Another political leader could have grown in response to such difficulties. So far, not Newt, who prefers to wallow in misery that he won’t admit making.