In a statement he posted on Facebook, Thomas was plain about his decision. “I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government. Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.” Thomas has been tut-tutted by such political philosophers like Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser, who on ESPN played establishmentarian court jesters, saying that when one has been invited by the President, one ought to go, out of respect for the office.

Nonsense. First, this has nothing to do with the country. President Obama is merely copying a move pioneered by John Lindsay, who in the midst of tight mayoral race in New York City in 1969, barged into the locker room of the World Series-winning Mets and inserted his head under waterfalls of champagne. (The ploy worked; he won a narrow plurality in a three-way race.) President Nixon soon began rewarding winning coaches with congratulatory phone calls. Now it’s receptions. Clearly these are held as publicity opportunities for the incumbent, and I have no problem with Tim Thomas or any of these other jocks exercising his right to absent himself. The White House is such a bubble, it’s good when this or any president hears some disagreement.

Indeed, I wish it was plainer why the 277 would-be honorees in Britain declined their invitations; no reasons were cited, and the Palace took care in its response to a BBC request to release only the names of people who are dead. Over the years, explanations have been provided by some people who are not on the list. According to the New York Times, the writer J. G. Ballard said he did not want to be named a Commander of the British Empire because the whole thing was a “preposterous charade.” The poet Benjamin Zephaniah (left) refused membership in the Order of the British Empire, saying “Stick it, Mr. Blair and Mrs. Queen.” David Bowie declined a C.B.E. in 2000, saying “I seriously don’t know what it’s for.” (Selling records, duh!) In 1992, Doris Lessing declined a knighthood, saying “Surely there is something unlikable about a person, when old, accepting honors from a institution she attacked when young?” But eight years later, she accepted another title, the Companion of Honor, saying she liked that “you’re not called anything” special.

And that’s the point–we don’t know if these folks were trying to raise an objection, or to avoid being used as a monarchical prop, or simply because they were holding out for a better honor. After all, Alfred Hitchcock turned down a C.B.E. in 1962, then later accepted being named a Knight Commander of the British Empire. But I like what Terence Blacker wrote in the Independent. Noting that the opt-outs “have little in common politically or personally beyond the fact that their work is the product of uncompromising individuality,” Blacker suggests that “Simply by accepting a bauble of thanks from the nation, they would be sacrificing what was best about them – their apartness. Once they became part of the national community, their voice, their eyes, their strength would be changed. They neither accepted the honour nor, in what has become a new form of boasting, told the world that they had rejected it.”

A Selection Of Speaker Gingrich’s Thoughts Over The Years
Gingrich on Gingrich:

“I Think I Am A Transformational Figure.” (PBS.org, 12/2/11)
“I Am Essentially A Revolutionary.” (The New York Times, 8/23/92)
“Philosophically, I Am Very Different From Normal Politicians … We Have Big Ideas.” (NYT, 6/29/11)
“I Have An Enormous Personal Ambition. I Want To Shift The Entire Planet. And I’m Doing It. … I Represent Real Power.” (Washington Post, 1/3/85)
“I First Talked About [Saving Civilization] In August Of 1958.” (GQ, 8/05)
“Over My Years In Public Life, I Have Become Known As An ‘Ideas Man.’” (NYT, 6/29/11)
“I Am The Longest Serving Teacher In The Senior Military, 23 Years Teaching One And Two-Star Generals And Admirals The Art Of War.” (GOP Presidential Candidates Debate, 12/15/11)

Speaker Gingrich Has Compared Himself to a Litany of Historical Leaders:
Ronald Reagan And Margaret Thatcher: “Because I am much like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, I’m such an unconventional political figure that you really need to design a unique campaign that fits the way I operate and what I’m trying to do.’” (CNN.com, 11/16/11)
Abraham Lincoln: “I begin as Lincoln did.’’ (Washington Post, 12/1/11)
Woodrow Wilson: “I am the most seriously professorial politician since Woodrow Wilson.’” (Washington Post, 11/22/11)
Henry Clay: “I was not a presider, I was the leader. I think Henry Clay’s probably the only other speaker to have been a national leader and a speaker of the House simultaneously.” (USA Today, 8/30/99)
Charles De Gaulle: “First of all, in the Toynbeean sense, I believe in departure and return. . . .I believe in the sense that, you know, De Gaulle had to go to Colombey-les-Deux.”
Thomas Edison: “Once he took over GOPAC in 1986, the organization became what he called the creative thinking and research group of the Republican Party. ‘We are on the way to becoming the Bell Labs of politics,’ Mr. Gingrich proclaimed. ‘That’s the closest model you can find to what we do, and nobody else is in that business. The first thing you need at Bell Labs is a Thomas Edison, and the second thing you need is a real understanding of how you go from scientific theory to a marketable product.’” (NYT, 12/3/95)
Vince Lombardi: “What the Republicans had accomplished, Gingrich said, was like the old Green Bay Packers sweep during the days of Coach Vince Lombardi: The opposition knows you are going to run at them, but they cannot stop you.” (Washington Post, 8/13/95)
The Wright Brothers: “At that dinner. . . Gingrich sought to add more emotional lift into his stump speech. ‘I am asking you to embark with me on a voyage of invention and discovery, to be as bold and as brave as the Wright brothers.’” (Washington Post, 12/1/11)
Moses: “At one point, he likened himself, lightheartedly, to Moses. He’d help them cross the Red Sea once again, Gingrich vowed, but only if they promised, this time, to stay on the other side.” (NYT Magazine, 2/25/09)

By the way, I like this sort of stuff, although in moderation. And I far prefer a politician who can drop in an apt historical or literary reference to a brick like George W. Bush.)

LBOs were the golden chariots in which the Reagan Market Revolution conquered Washington and Wall Street, and with their more sinister-sounding stable-mates, Hostile Takeovers, they were the vehicles by which the doctrine of creative destruction carried the day. They were the operating arm of market efficiency, the principle that conquered all: it excused closing those factories, laying off workers, shipping machinery to sweatshops overseas, and above all, enriching the stockholders. They would be the winners because they deserved to be, because they took the responsibility and risk of allocating precious capital among winning industries. And the losers? You might think that the losers would be workers who lost their jobs, or who found their salaries or pensions or benefits adjusted, or who found their unions weakened, or who found themselves working for WalMart in jobs that carried no benefits. Not so: the losers would be those slowly failing companies who were trying to halt an immovable force; the losers would be those who failed to embrace the free market future.

Championed by Reagan and the Republicans, LBOs won the day without a serious political challenge. The Democrats in the 1980s, chastened by failure and dumbstruck by defeat, spent a decade wandering in the political wilderness, unconvincingly quoting old verities before reemerging with a set of ideas, many of which bought into the GOP’s pro-market ideology. Oddly, the more trenchant criticisms of LBOs came from law enforcement through the insider trading trials of Rudy Giuliani, and from the arts late in the decade and in the 90’s: plays like Serious Money and Other People’s Money and Rent, novels like The Bonfire of the Vanities, movies like Wall Street. But there was never a real political challenge to LBOs, to the idea that we should not be able to destroy without relieving or replacing that which was destroyed, to the thought that the market, as all-knowing and unknowable as God, would always set things straight.

At the start of the campaign, it would have seemed that to have been a Republican in 2012 and to doubt the legitimacy of LBOs would have been like being a Christian and doubting the miracle of the Eucharist. But now here comes Rick Perry, sounding a lot like the pro-Gore Democrat he was in the mid-eighties, says “”I happen to think that companies like Bain Capital could have come in and helped these companies if they truly were venture capitalists, but they’re not — they’re vulture capitalists.’’ Astonishingly , that attack is repeated in a video by Newt Gingrich’s Super Pac. “A story of greed,” the narrator says. “Playing the system for a quick buck. A group of corporate raiders, led by Mitt Romney. More ruthless than Wall Street. For tens of thousands of Americans, the suffering began when Mitt Romney came to town.” Nothing, not even his hypocrisy about his personal life, so clearly reveals Newt Gingrich’s fundamental cynicism. It turns out that the man who rode the pro-market rocket in the nineties now wants to separate good capitalists from bad—like we French or something!.

Perhaps this might be one of those cases where Americans find a stand-in issue for things they can’t otherwise discuss (you know—we can’t talk about race, but we’ll chew the OJ Simpson case to death.) In this case, this may be the beginning of a way to talk about capitalism, regulation, and the distribution of wealth without frightening the special interests who underwrite our campaigns. But beyond that—how does Bain-era capitalism look a quarter century gone?

In an excellent article in the Times yesterday, Ross Douthat praises Bain and other investment capital firms for helping America keep a competitive edge it had begun to lose in the sixties, and for helping sustain the country’s standard of living during the decades since. The formula that had profited America so sensationally in the first half of the 20th century would not have continued to work, Douthat says, and that change was necessary, even though results were mixed. “Our economy became more efficient, but also more ruthless and Darwinian. Our G.D.P. kept rising, but the new wealth was less evenly distributed. The revolution delivered growth, but at the expense of stability and certainty. And for many Americans, even the “modest net impact” of private equity buyouts cost them a solid, good-paying job.’’

Nicely said, but I’d go Douthat a step farther. The pro-market ideology gave a blessing to greed. In the decades following, useful regulations were overturned, sensible practices were ignored, sound practices were jettisoned, and every limit was pushed to its breaking point, and beyond. There were moral breakdown, far, far more damaging than anything that happened in the sixties.

Douthat says that these problems must be recognized. “Romney needs to prove to anxious voters that he and his party have more to offer them than just Bain capitalism alone. To win the White House, he’ll need to promise not only competition that leads to growth, but growth that leads to broadly shared prosperity. To defend his revolution, he’ll need to show that he’s reckoned with its costs.’’

I doubt very much whether Romney is capable of doing this. Last week Matt Lauer asked the candidate “Are there no “Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as envy?” Replied Romney, “ You know, I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms, but the president has made this part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach.”

Talk about it in quiet rooms? My God, was this man awake in the 20th century? None of those LBOs tiptoed in.

My problem in understanding whether Kagan’s advice is right or wrong is the same problem I have in reacting to the Pentagon’s recalibration of America’s strategic vision of the the future: I just don’t understand anymore what America gets for its military expenditures. I literally do not know. What does China do or not do because we have a powerful military? What does Russia do or not do? What does any country do or not do? What does our vast arsenal of nuclear weapons obtain for us that would not otherwsise come our way? And what can we reasonably expect our military might to accomplish?

There was a time when ordinary Americans were given explanations for military expenditures. We had to protect against Soviet tanks coming through the Fulda Gap. We had to defend ourselves against ICMB strikes. We had to resist communist expansion throughout the world. We could not allow the Soviets to place missiles in Cuba. Whether these explanations were bogus or not, exaggerated or not, explanations were made.

I don’t know what we ought to be concerned with right now. Ethiopian pirates? Crazy North Koreans? A nuclear Iran that wants to do what? Whatever the threat is, how does having a million men at arms address it.

I would love to hear our government talk about the threats they envision that will be addressed by arms. Where do they think we might engage China? Do they think we’re going to have to invade Iran? What do our guarantees to Israel require us to do, and do these guarantees give us any sway over the Israeli government’s policies? Are we still vulnerable to realistic threats of terror from Islamic fundamentalists, and what percentage of our forces is devoted to fighting those threats?

Absent these explanations, what it seems is that we’re past a lot of Cold War era threats, and that we don’t have very many current threats that justify our present levels of spending, but that we don’t know what might be coming, so we need to stay strong. The problem with that notion is that while it may seem prudent, the reality is that if you have an army sitting around, people start thinking of ways to use it, and before long, you’re in Iraq. It’s good that the president wants to cut eight percent of the Pentagon budget, but I’d like him to explain why he thinks he needs the other 92 percent.

Come on, Mr. President, what is this “you never want to say it’s all them” crap? You’re acting like you’re taking your political strategy from Dr. Phil‘s relationship advice. Maybe you should watch The Fighter instead. Study Mark Wahlberg. Listen to the disturbed recovering addict played by Christian Bale. Lose touch with your Venusian side, Mr. President. Get ready to rumble.

At some point in the next few months, Mr. President, you’ve got to stop the sulky griping about the Republicans in Congress. Really, the only way it could get worse if you shrugged at the end and sniffed “Just saying.” You need to work up something resembling a full-throated Harry S Truman battle cry (“”I don’t give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it’s Hell.”) Because here’s the thing: you’ve been a pretty good president. When you’ve been left alone to act unilaterally, you’ve shattered Al Qaeda into a shattered shell, brought Osama bin Laden American justice, and backed a controversial plan that ousted Gaddafi without losing a single American life.

It’s when you’ve had to act with Congress, and most particularly, the Republican-controlled House, that you can’t get anything done. Worse, they humiliate you, and when their recalcitrance causes trouble, like damaging the credit rating and the economy, you’re the one who suffers the blame. So it is all on them, Mr. President, and if you’ve got to go all Buford Pusser on them, then fine: make it clear to them with a two by four.

This shouldn’t be a tough one, Mr. President. It’s not like you’re being sent to Canada to clobber baby seals. This is the Republican Congress whose approval rating has dropped from 29% at the start of the year to 11% today. According to the Washington Post, this makes Congress less popular than polygamy, Paris Hilton, caning, and BP’s handling of the Gulf oil spill.

It’s your John Wayne moment, Mr. President. The traditional American hero is slow to anger; well, Mr. President, you’ve got that part down. Now you need to work on the part where you punch the bully in the nose. The American people need to see you that you believe in what you stand for. They want to see that you have the courage of your convictions. Remember what John Wayne said? “If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‘Why the hell not?” Simplify things for the voters, Mr. President. Make it clear that the only thing standing between the country and the path to recovery is John Boehner and Eric Cantor and a band of irresponsible, self-indulgent hard-liners.

But here’s the thing. Not only do you need to fight, Mr. President–that’s really the easy part–you need to take the fight to them. They’re going to want to make the election a referendum on your administration; you need to make it a referendum on theirs. It won’t do for you to age a tactical campaign and win the election by waiting for whoever your rival turns out to be to reveal his manifest limitations. That kind of campaign carries the risk of a Republican majority returning to the House, and that’s just not god enough. The country cannot continue to endure the stagnation of the last months. You need to come out fighting, Mr. President, and challenge the American people to not only re-elect you, but to give you a Congress that is willing to work on your agenda of reform and revitalization. Sure, it’s a risky strategy, Mr. President. Given how many voters are legitimately dubious about the big-government propensities of a Democratic Congress, you might be better leaving every man for himself. But we can no longer afford the status quo. We have long ago left the waters of divided government. We’re even beyond divided non-government. We’re sitting in divided entropy, headed for divided collapse.

Once and for all, Mr. President, it is all them. Get up and say it. And put some muscle behind it.

“Often,” explains Oremus, “congressional gerrymanders are the result of bipartisan compromise—an agreement that allows the majority party to solidify its hold on the state while throwing bones to the minority party’s incumbents. . . Such back-scratching was absent from the citizens redistricting commission’s process. It dispensed with the old maps entirely, drawing new districts that look less like abstract doodles and more like, well, districts. One result is that Democrats appear poised to pick up a few seats in California in 2012, assuming the new maps stand. Another is that some unlucky incumbents, including Democrats, have been drawn out of their own districts—a grim fate normally reserved only for those who have egregiously offended higher-ups within their own party as well as the opposition. The prominent Southern California Democrats Brad Sherman and Howard Berman, for instance, have been thrust into the same district, setting up a costly Berman/Sherman primary showdown. No wonder the commission has taken heat from all sides. Arizona’s commission actually had an explicit mandate to promote competition between parties, almost assuring that its plans would meet resistance. It upset the current 5-3 Republican House majority with a map that leaves two seats safe for the GOP, two for the Democrats, and three up in the air.”

The voters of this country will be cheated out of their Constitutional birthright as long as the nudge-nudge, wink-wink approach to redistricting persists. Self-preservation by incumbents cannot be the goal; power maximization by professional cannot be the goal. Creating a system that maximizes the number of competitive seat is the only way to end of with a government that is responsive not to politicians, and not to parties, but to voters. It should be the goal of all lovers of democracy in this coming decade to make sure that this current redistricting that is left to insiders and partisans.

(Slate has a great slide show showing how progress is being made in California and Arizona, including the picture of a redrawn western AZ district above. Check them all out here.)

THE SHORT HAPPY LIFE OF THE REPUBLICAN REVOLUTION
By Jamie Malanowski

The curtain opens in the Capitol Building, on the floor of the House of Representatives on the morning of January 3, 1995. The floor is empty—deserted. But suddenly the orchestra breaks into the overture, the doors fly open, and from stage left, right, center and even from the rear of the theater, 229 singing, dancing Republican congressmen enter the chamber. Three of them—-DICK ARMEY, JOHN KASICH and TOM DELAY—move to center stage and begin to sing:

ARMEY
Today’s the day that we have always dreamed of
KASICH
The day our side finally gets a chance!
DELAY
Goodbye to all the tired Democrats
ALL THREE
Hello, Republicans!
ALL CONGRESSMEN:
Goodbye godless liberal Democrats
Hello, hello, hello Republicans!

ARMEY
In both Houses of the Congress
DELAY
We have won majorities!
KASICH
Bill Clinton may still sit in the White House
ALL THREE
But we intend to do just as we please
ALL CONGRESSMEN
Slick Willie still sits in the Oval Office
But we will do just as we please!

ARMEY
And now we’re pleased to present
DELAY
The man who, beyond dispute,
KASICH
Led us to this smashing victory
ALL THREE
Our genius, our leader, our Speaker—Our Newt!

Enter the boyishly handsome Speaker of the House NEWT GINGRICH, who addresses his troops.

GINGRICH:
When I see you here before me
It fills my heart with pride
Truly the sun that dawned this morning
Rose on America’s right side
Here and now we launch our revolution
We shall wage a culture war
We must stop the leftward drifting
Being pushed by Clinton-Gore
We’ll change some things
Then change some more

For the next one hundred days we’ll be working
To fulfill the terms of our Contract
We’ll pass a truly balanced budget
We’ll slash the income tax.
We’ll put an end to eco-regulation
That puts a crimp in business growth
We will also banish welfare
No more subsidies for sloth
And with the Christian Coalition’s blessings
God will join us on these votes

We’ll save some buildings
We like them just the way they are
We might give them different uses
AT EPA we’ll park our cars.

Let’s give all the poor kids lap tops
I’ve got a million thoughts like that
I’m aiming to renew America
Or at least destroy the Democrats

ALL
Count on us to renew this nation
And destroy the Democrats

Meanwhile, over at White House, the boyishly handsome president of the United States, BILL CLINTON, is in a somber, reflective mood.

CLINTON
One term, and then it’s over
A washout, like Cater, Bush and Ford
No accomplishments to put my name on
No legacy that will endure
I came in with big intentions
Thought I could really do a lot
Then Hillary took over health care
I’ve accomplished less than squat

Still. . .
Still. .
Still maybe there’s a way around this
Governing is harder than they think
Newt’s troops are held together
With a chain of fragile links
Next to moderates from New England
He’s got nuts from Idaho
Right now he’s got the lid on
I’d like to be there when it blows
I’ve just got to hold on ‘til it blows

Back at the Capitol, in another big Act One production number, the Republicans work frantically to pass the Contract with America within the promised one hundred days. With the House in session, Majority Leader DICK ARMEY takes the floor

ARMEY
It’s my aim, I’ll say it plain
So no one is surprised
This government is humongeous
It needs to be downsized
There’s agencies and interest groups
That keep bureaucracies afloat—
Well we won’t stop ‘til they close up shop
All we gotta do is

ALL CONGRESSMEN
Vote! Vote! Vote!
We’re gonna vote a lot today
Vote! Vote! Vote!
Just got rid of the NEA
We’ll cut tax and limit terms
Do it all before we adjourn
Get it done within a hundred days

Now Budget Committee chairman JOHN KASICH steps up.

KASICH
A balanced budget is my object
Looming deficits a threat
Americans love getting hand-outs
We’re piling up the debt
Higher taxes on the richies ain’t the answer
It’s just not easy saying so
But we won’t quit ‘til we balance it
All we gotta do is

ALL CONGRESSMEN
Vote! Vote! Vote!
Let’s start voting ‘round the clock
Vote! Vote! Vote!
Just ship the grants out in a block!
Now if we don’t get results
It’ll be the Senate’s fault
Cause we’ll pass it all within a hundred days

A freshman Congressmen is recognized.

ARMEY
Who’s that speaking?
KASICH
Gee, I don’t know
DELAY
That hair! That voice!
ALL THREE
SONNY BONO!

BONO
They say we’re young and we don’t know
Our inexperience will bring us woe
That may be true, we don’t have a lot
But at least I’m sure of the most important thing we got
We got Newt, Babes
We got Newt.

Majority whip TOM DELAY takes the floor, as the calendar wanes.

DELAY
Environmentalists are on the rampage
They’ve had everything their way
I like flowers, I like trees
I’m just not loopy like the EPA
All their niggling regulations
I’d rather kill bugs than business growth—
But we won’t withdraw until we change it all
All we gotta do is

ALL CONGRESSMEN
Vote! Vote! Vote!
Ain’t nothin’ gonna stop us now!
Vote! Vote! Vote!
Let’s make Dave Bonior howl!
He’s gonna claim that Newt’s corrupt
But his lies won’t be enough
We just saved the world in a hundred days

The gavel comes down as the last page of the calendar slips away, and a victorious NEWT GINGRICH addresses his troops

GINGRICH
One hundred days
Are now behind us
The future
Lies ahead
The GOP
Stands in triumph
The Democrats
Are stone-cold dead

When posterity
Thinks about us
Here’s the image
That they’ll see
One party that favored
Strength and Freedom
Growth, Reform and Prosperity
One party with pride and vision
That was pro-work, pro-child
And pro-family
Pro-dreams, pro-rights and pro-goodness
Pro-work and morality

Then they’ll see
Another party
One pathetic, radical
And sick
Self-serving, sensationalist
And shallow
Full of permissive
Hypocrites
A party that reveled
In collapse and crisis
Weakness, incompetence and doubt
For all time
We’ll be honored
Because we’re the ones
Who threw them out

Yes, we are the hope
Of tomorrow
While they
Decay and drift
Oh we’ll empower
America
While they produce
More Susan Smiths

I’m so proud
To be your leader
A world historical figure
Like Robert the Bruce
Don’t be worried
If I visit New Hampshire
I’ll just be there
To look at moose

My sole objective
Will be to spot at moose
Not even thinking about the presidency
Just want to look at moose.

But the frantic pace of change has made voters uneasy. While Gingrich celebrates, a Clinton ally, the political consultant DICK MORRIS talks to JOHN and MARY, two typical Americans.

JOHN
Last November
We were angry
The White House
Had fallen apart
MARY
But now it seems
Newt is going to extremes
BOTH
We’re worried that these guys might go too far.

MARY
We think the budget
Should be balanced
We can’t run deficits like we are
JOHN
But now Newt’s said he wants to
Eliminate Cookie Monster
Why do these people want to go so far?

JOHN
Our whole family’s
Heterosexual
Except for possibly Aunt Marge
MARY
But it really is a drag
When Dick Armey says `Barney Fag’
I’m afraid these men are going way too far.

MARY
Yes we need to
Cap entitlements
The cost of Medicare
Is climbing to the stars
JOHN
But their plans might mean that we’re
Gonna have your mother living here
I’m sorry but these guys are going to far

JOHN
Gordon Liddy
Says `Head shots! Head shots!’
MARY
Jesse Helms says Clinton
Shouldn’t go south without a guard
JOHN
And now down in Oklahoma
We see the work done by a bomber
MARY
I’m sorry, but these nuts have gone too far
BOTH
It’s scary, but these nuts have gone too far.

Newt’s revolution has begun to stall, but Clinton still isn’t sure how to exploit the opening. DICK MORRIS shows CLINTON the way.

CLINTON
Tell me, Dick, you’re such a clever schemer—what should I do?

MORRIS
You’ve. . .
Got. . .
To. . .
Triangulate
Your positions
Don’t accept the either-or
Throwing people off of welfare
Doesn’t mean you’ve hurt the poor

Just triangulate
Your thinking
Give yourself some room to swerve
You can favor gays being in the army
But you don’t have to let them serve

Forthright stands
Are so old-fashioned
Years ago, they brought success
Now forthright stands
Just hurt your ratings
You need to float above the mess

So triangulate
Your presidency
Look at means instead of ends
Make yourself
More like your enemies
You’ll find yourself with lots more friends

Clinton takes the advice, and his approval ratings improve. Feeling once again like the Comeback Kid, Clinton starts planning his reelection campaign. At a meeting with ICKES, PANETTA, STEPHANOPOULOS and other Clinton advisors, MORRIS makes an unprecedented suggestion: start advertising on TV a whole year ahead of the election.

MORRIS
I have a thought that might sound crazy
But I assure you, I’m not nuts
Lets run TV ads around the country
So we can get our numbers up
The ads will get undecided moving
And boost your supports’ fealty
Best of all, this will give you
The first fully advertised administration
In U.S. history.

ICKES
Morris, you are such a moron
Those ads won’t do us any good
STEPAHNOPOULOS
Voters won’t remember that we ran them
As if we ever could
PANETTA
Hell, they’ll cost us tens of millions
And we can spend just a limited amount
ICKES
We’ll have nothing left for when we need it
And we’ll be beaten in a rout

MORRIS
Well, the way you do it
Is through the DNC
They could buys ads, say, for party building,
It would be like we got them all for free
As for your point about how to fund it
We could do it all with soft money
You’d have to raise it, but it would be worth it
To have the first fully advertised administration
In U.S. history.

CLINTON
By George, boys, I think he’s got it!
Soft money’s well in reach
We’ll hold coffees and other functions
Charge fat cats fifty thousand each
Special donors can be my guest here!
Sleep overnight in Lincoln’s room
Call John Huang and Charlie Trie up
How much can the Riady family do?

Oh man, I love this program
It’s time we got up off the mat
Send Al to meet some Buddhists
Get him to pass the hat
I want these ads to play all over
From Seattle to Miami
Let’s see what Gingrich does to counter
The first fully advertised administration
In U.S. history.

The advertising program begins, and as budget negotiations get underway, Clinton’s approval ratings improve. This puts more pressure on GINGRICH, and when he is the recipient of a rebuff on Air Force One, he cracks.

GINGRICH
The back door!
The back door!
They made me leave
By the back door!
They thought the Speaker of the House
Would be meeker than a mouse
And shuffle off without a cough
Through the back door.

Flew all the way across to Rabin’s funeral
Thought I’d be meeting Clinton head-to-head
Find a way to break the budget impasse
He spent the whole time playing hearts instead

Then I went
Out the back door!
Pushed me and Dole
Out the back door!
I thought it might be fun
To jet around on Air Force One
But then they made creep without a peep
Out the back door.

Now Clinton takes a former stand in the negotiations, Soon the president’s affability, sincerity and elusiveness begin to wear GINGRICH down, as we see in this ballad.

GINGRICH
He’s a big spending liberal
The kind I battled all my life
All he wants is costly programs
And don’t get me started on his wife.

And yet there’s something warm about him
The way he bites his lip is so sincere
I‘m touched when he discusses OMB numbers
And from his eye there falls a tear

And that’s when I start disintegrating
And cutting deals that never should be dealt
I don’t know, there’s something about him
When I’m with him in the Oval, I just melt

Finally, in December, after one government shutdown, the Republicans threaten an encore if Clinton doesn’t swallow their budget. The showdown has arrived.

GINGRICH
You don’t realize
That we’re serious
The public wants changes in this town
If you veto
These appropriations
We’ll shut the government down!

GOP FRESHMEN
Shut it down! Shut it down!
If we can’t have our way
We’ll shut it down!

CLINTON
So shut it down
You’ll see who suffers
When there’s no government around
You’ll be the Gingrich
Who stole Christmas
They’ll blame you when it closes down

The Speaker tries to persuade the freshman

GINGRICH
His position’s
Non-negotiable
This is the best deal he will make
We won the cutbacks
And the time frame
This is a deal that we should take

GOP FRESHMEN
Not enough!
Lose more entitlements!
We know that Clinton’s got no guts
Now’s not the time to accept half measures
Clinton must accept more cuts!

GINGRICH
Don’t misjudge him
He’s still president
He still holds a lot of cards

GOP FRESHMEN
Newt, you’re wrong here
He can’t take more trouble
He’s got to keep an eye of Kenneth Starr
So shut it down!

Pressed hard by his freshman, Gingrich and the Republicans force another government shutdown. It turns into a political disaster. The Republicans cave, Newt’s ratings slide, and Clinton gains new stature. Just before the final curtain, the two leaders marvel at the amazing reversal of fortune.

GINGRICH
One year, and then it’s over
The revolution’s all but spent
I thought the people wanted changes
They didn’t even want argument
I guess the people thought me nasty
Domineering, arrogant, and shrill
I sought to bring back Ronald Reagan
But instead I brought back Bill

CLINTON
I don’t know how
All this happened
It’s a mystery to me
I gave the GOP
Nearly all they wanted
And that’s what drove them to their knees

My wife has dates
With prosecutors
Jim McDougal
Might drop a dime
Paula Jones
Is out there lurking
And yet my polling
Numbers climb

I guess I must be
A pretty good president
Though how, I don’t think I know
All I’m sure of
Is that I’m not Newt Gingrich
And that is why
They love me so

All I know is that I’m not Newt Gingrich
And that is why they love me so.