WASHINGTON -- It might have been enough to make "normal Americans" choke on their morning cornflakes. Here was Rep. Newt Gingrich, arch-enemy of politics-as-usual in the nation's capital, breakfasting with the elite liberal Washington press corps and gushing about how thrilled he was to be there.
During yesterday's interview at a venerable downtown hotel, the next House speaker expressed regret about having raised the issue of drug use by Clinton aides (though he neither apologized nor retracted his words) and revealed more about his plans for 1995 (including his desire to eliminate federal funds for the arts and force wealthy senior citizens to pay the cost of their own health care).
The hourlong session with several dozen newspaper and magazine reporters and columnists, conducted out of the range of microphones and TV cameras, showcased the other Newt Gingrich, one whose existence is known to few people beyond the Capital Beltway: the skillful insider who learned long ago how to win at Washington's power game.
"Sending memos on Page 1 gets them into the White House much faster than sending them by fax," he told his news media breakfast companions. "You are an enormously important part of how America governs itself."
Known to conservatives everywhere as a dedicated press-basher, Mr. Gingrich has nonetheless courted influential journalists since his arrival in Washington in the 1970s. He made it clear yesterday that while he considers national reporters hopelessly leftist and out of step with mainstream America, he understands that their attacks on prominent politicians are nothing new.
"Even Washington was attacked at times, and he's the closest thing to a national saint," said Mr. Gingrich, who taught history to college students before entering politics. "Lincoln was routinely excoriated."
Since leading his party to power in last month's election, the Georgia congressman has been subjected to a flood of news coverage, most of it negative, including the suggestion that his sudden fame appears to have gone to his head. Even his usually mild-mannered host at yesterday's press breakfast, Godfrey Sperling of the Christian Science Monitor, advised him to "work on humility."
But Mr. Gingrich seems clearly tickled by all the attention he's getting, even, it seems, the most brutally negative kind. After being attacked by Herbert Block, the Washington Post editorial cartoonist, who likened him this week to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, one of the worst demagogues in American history, Mr. Gingrich reports that one part of him "cringes . . . the other part thinks, 'This is neat.' "
The Georgia congressman acknowledged, however, that he has not come to terms yet with his new role as leader of the House.
He's struggling to learn that "if I say something en passant [in passing] in the middle of an analytical answer, it becomes Page 1," and he says there have been times since the November elections when he should have sidestepped questions.
"Newt Gingrich as speaker is hopefully gradually replacing Newt Gingrich as whip," he said, referring to his job as second-ranking House Republican when the GOP was the minority party.
"If you'd asked Jack Kennedy in 1961 is it different being a back-bench senator than being president of the United States, he probably would have said yes."
Mr. Gingrich, who before the election described the Clinton administration as "the enemy of normal Americans," said he regretted having recently called the president and his wife "McGoverniks," although he says the word he actually used was "McGovernites."
"If I had it to say over again, I probably wouldn't say it, and so I won't," he said, adding that he probably should have made the criticism anonymously in the first place. "In a wiser world I would have said, 'Let me say this off-the-record and not for attribution.' "
He also said that he should not have asserted on a talk show last Sunday that "up to one-fourth of the White House staff, when they first came in, had used drugs in the last four or five years." But he says he stands by the accuracy of that statement, which he says he got from a senior law enforcement official he has declined to identify.
Mr. Gingrich's aggressive style is of growing concern to fellow Republicans, who worry that he's in danger of becoming a polarizing figure who could hurt the party's image. Indeed, a Times Mirror poll completed last weekend found that a majority of those with an opinion of Mr. Gingrich view him negatively.
During his freewheeling session with reporters, Mr. Gingrich reiterated his party's desire to remove retirees with annual incomes above $100,000 from the Medicare system and to cut off federal funds for the arts.