Newt

It's not too late for a once (and future?) leader | David Aikman

I recall dimly and perhaps inaccurately a Russian tale about a bandit chief who led his cavalry so well against government forces that the Czar sued for peace. As part of the deal, the chief rode lightly across plains and rivers to Moscow, where he received a gorgeous gift: a suit of armor encrusted with jewels. The delighted bandit wore it going home-until, crossing one of those rivers, he fell off his horse and drowned.

I recall much better a recent bandit chief, Newt Gingrich. Because we shared some ideas about welfare reform, he and I were sitting across from each other in a Washington restaurant late one evening in 1995, at the height of his influence. I asked him how I could pray for him, and he said, "the physical things"-strength to go through 18 hours a day of running around from meeting to meeting and speech to speech, with any misstatement becoming instant fodder for reporters who truly were out to get him.