Newt Gingrich, Republican velociraptor, recently tried to take a big bite of that ailing brontosaurus, the Democratic Party. The GOP House whip told some Washington lobbyists that Republican congressional candidates would gain ground by painting Clinton Democrats as the "enemy of normal Americans." Leaked to the media, that intemperate talk harmed its author more than its intended target.
This is not the first time that overheated rhetoric has burned the GOP strategist, obscuring his attractive ideas about an "opportunity society" in the thick smoke of vitriol.Back in 1990, a political action committee that Gingrich oversaw supplied a list of 64 words to Republican office seekers for use against Democrats. The terms included "sick," "decay," "pathetic," "corrupt" and
"anti-flag." In his latest remarks, Gingrich claims to have meant only that some key Clintonites - e.g., Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders and Ira Magaziner, the Clintons' health-care Rasputin - are far out of the American
mainstream. But what Gingrich actually said, including a reference to some Democratic legislation as "Stalinist," is doubly regrettable.
First, it feeds a vengeful and visceral sort of partisanship that impedes good lawmaking. If the GOP did capture the House, Speaker Gingrich would face the undying enmity of a sizable Democratic minority. Republicans didn't start slasher politics - ask Robert Bork - but both parties should stop it.
Second, politics-as-total-war scorches the very democratic earth. Some citizens are so repelled that they deem any political involvement sullying; others, convinced that all sides are scoundrels, become blase about outright villainy. Neither trend befits a self-governing people.