Witcover: Gingrich -- up from the ashes

WASHINGTON -- By the process of elimination of fools and knaves, the Republican Party's prime snake-oil salesman has finally wriggled to the top of the unappealing heap of pursuers of the 2012 presidential nomination.

Unlovable but self-adoring Newt Gingrich, with a trail of clanking cans of ethical and personal misbehavior tied to his tail, has emerged as the leader in public-opinion polls in Iowa, where the first real Republican voting takes place less than four weeks from now.

According to the Washington Post/ABC News poll, Gingrich holds a nearly 2-1 lead over former frontrunner Mitt Romney, the steady tortoise to Gingrich's hare among likely precinct caucus goers in a state in which neither candidate has campaigned much until recently. The poll gives the former House speaker 33 percent to only 18 for Romney and the same for Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the darling of libertarians and contrarians, with the rest of the weak field in single digits.

After foundering in the weeds for months, Gingrich has risen like a liberal's bad dream from a combination of the serial collapse of rivals Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and, most recently, Herman Cain, and his own confident contrasting performances in the televised debates.

What is particularly amazing is that in those debates, Gingrich has offered himself as the man who, like Barack Obama in 2008, will change the way Washington does business. Yet he remains the same self-proclaimed adult in the room with all the answers who led a Republican "revolution" in the 1990s that then crashed and in effect kicked him out.

The only easily perceived difference now is that Gingrich, so far at least, has been making an effort to cloak his ego and previous contempt for others' opinions. His televised show of courtesy toward the hapless others in contention smacks suspiciously of a "New Newt," as does an earlier flash of compassion for certain elderly illegal aliens who might face deportation.

Once again, the American public's willingness to turn a blind eye to personal and ethical transgressions of political leaders is on display. Half a century ago, several versions of a "New Nixon" enabled a nominee to rise from the ashes and win not only election but re-election, before being brought down by revelations of gross misconduct in office.

The public's toleration of wrongdoing in high places has been bipartisan, as was seen in Bill Clinton's lying to a grand jury and, after the House impeached him, his acquittal by party-loyal Senate Democrats, followed by his political resurrection. Most notably, Americans meekly swallowed George W. Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq on false intelligence and assumptions in 2003 and reelected him, too.

After the latter radical misadventure in foreign policy, and its dire ramifications for America's reputation in the world and for economic collapse at home, voters did vote for a change of party in 2008. But they did so without much apparent recognition that the damage done by Republican policy has lived on and severely handicapped the Obama presidency.

All this history has made possible the reemergence of a charlatan of Gingrich's dimensions, sliding into a vacuum of Republican leadership in the current field of presidential aspirants that lacks enough appeal to satisfy the party's faithful. The one clearly identifiable rallying cry remains Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's proclaimed priority of making Obama "a one-term president."

Among the most-often heard arguments for Gingrich now among Republicans is that he is the one of their flock best able to debate the incumbent president in the fall campaign. The former speaker, in characteristic modesty, has proposed seven Lincoln-Douglas debates at that time. He no doubt sees himself as playing Lincoln in this particular fantasy.

The Obama strategists, meanwhile, had been anticipating Romney's nomination. They likely would welcome Gingrich instead as the president's opponent in debates and on the campaign, confident that his reputation and track record of self-destruction would prevail again. But, for the country's sake, a Romney-Obama contest is the outcome devoutly to be wished.

Tribune Media Services columnist Jules Witcover's email address is juleswitcover@comcast.net.