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COMMENTARY
January 21, 2012
Entertaining at least
Seventeenth time lucky, for the Republican presidential debates, and with the field narrowed to four and the stakes rising, it was "fight night" on Thursday, in Charleston, that convinced me such television could be worth watching. The U.S. general electorate is just beginning to tune in to the ineluctable fact that 2012 is an election year. But at last, the show is ready for prime time.The ancient Romans made politics into a blood sport, but they offered the circus to keep the masses entertained. The genius of the American Republic has been to merge these spectacles. It is gladiatorial combat, in the foreground of a "culture war" that has progressively engulfed the whole society. When I last checked into this topic, quite recently, it appeared Newt Gingrich was mortally wounded, leaving Rick Santorum as the last "tea partier" standing against Mitt Romney, the suave candidate. Silly me. Gingrich is on his feet again, and by sheer gladiatorial aggression has regained the field. He might actually beat Romney in the South Carolina primary. Which does not mean he can take Florida, or won't self-annihilate again, but I begin to think I, along with every other pundit, "misunderestimated" his peculiar strength: "creative destruction." Or more precisely, "creative self-destruction," as he rises stronger for each mistake he sheds. The pairing of him with his old adversary Bill Clinton has been done before. Both men seemed to thrive on their own personal foibles, and almost to require sordid private lives to forge political invulnerability. There is a hint here to the media, for we never really understood why revelations of sexual squalor hurt neither of them in the polls. (It was party infighting that took Gingrich down in the 1990s; the ethics controversies were bogus.) Let me try to explain this to ourselves. As the news broke that the ABC network would air the "revelations" of the man's (second) bitter ex-wife, this week, his poll numbers appeared to rise in response. That he had received a couple of useful endorsements must be taken into the account. But I think it was ABC which, quite inadvertently, made his day. Everybody (who cared) knew that Mrs. Gingrich (No. 2) was going to say just what she already had to Esquire magazine, and to everyone else who has been willing to listen these last 15 years. Gliberal (glib-liberal) moralizers forget that they, along with most of the adult population of North America above age about 30, have left trails of bitter estranged "partners" behind them, and these days, everybody "understands." Moreover, since the mainstream media went tabloid, everybody knows all the stories, too. It's only public policy they know nothing about. By comparison, Romney, merely by becoming a little defensive about the taxes he'd been paying, did himself real damage. He went with foolish caution into both debates this week, and by now, everyone knows what taxes he's been paying, even though he hasn't released the files. (Rich people who intend to run for president really ought to pay more taxes.) But at the very moment any normal, sane, reasonable politician would be going defensive, Gingrich went on the attack. His opening salvo Thursday night against poor hapless moderator John King, who almost innocently raised the question on everybody's mind, left the whole U.S. media dripping in egg yolk. Gingrich hit that ball so far out of the park, they will never find it. The Pajamas Media pundit, "Tatler," drew a passing comparison to Lincoln's famous general, Ulysses Grant, always under a cloud. But it was a cloud from which streaks of lightning kept crashing down upon his enemies. Tatler's point was that Republicans love a fighter. (In fact, most people do.) And that Grant went on to the presidency. A man of casual personal corruption; a close observer and rather capable artist; a brilliant tactician, and a ruthless butcher - Grant won the Civil War for the North. Gingrich reminds of him in each of these categories. The only thing he seems to lack is Grant's alcoholism. That Grant was the worst U.S. president until Barack Obama, might be argued. (There are a dozen credible intervening candidates, and I wouldn't want to make a snap judgment.) But the U.S. system selects for stamina, sliding questions of character and competence almost off the table. Certainly I'd rather watch Gingrich v. Obama, than Suave v. Suave. And certainly, Gingrich would make an entertaining president. As a Canadian, my best argument for him is that America's enemies (who are also ours) would genuinely fear him, and the direction of appeasement would be reversed. And peace comes when enemies are cowed. Moreover, Gingrich the historian and close observer, is more likely than most to make impressive political and judicial appointments, which is two-thirds of the job. But let us conclude by mentioning the economies. His mouth alone would be worth about six aircraft carrier groups. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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