Photo of the Day: The Gingrich Peacock

A couple of weeks ago, when I was visiting the James A. McFaul Environmental Center in Wyckoff, N.J., I was startled by a sound from within one of the cages. I rushed over to get a better look when the peacock inside raised its plumage (inviting this photo), then squawked some more, as if to say, How dare you! Oh, by the way, get a load of what I’ve got….

As I watched, it occurred to me that this creature—with its inexplicable annoyance that you are noticing it, even as it draws further attention to itself—was nothing if not Nature’s counterpart to a certain media-baiting, media-centric, now former Presidential candidate. Turning to The New York Times the other day, I saw that at least one columnist, Frank Bruni, felt the same way I did: “Gingrich shuffled pointlessly through a zoo in Asheboro, N.C., a peacock with faded plumage, still preening and still campaigning, though the attentions of most reporters and the affections of most voters had moved on.”

Listen: unlike many pundits and late-night comics, I had no problem with Newt Gingrich’s advocacy of a space colony. Advocating an unusual idea should not be discouraged.

No, it was Gingrich’s vast shamelessness—his willingness to pander to the worst elements of his party, to say nearly anything in pursuit of a dying dream—his boundless hypocrisy, and his feigned rage—over the media, over the president he continually derides as “the most leftist” in our history--that got to me.

In his piece, Bruni linked Gingrich to fellow narcissist John Edwards. The columnist missed the obvious implication of Gingrich for Edwards’ future, however. In the wake of Gingrich's withdrawal from the Presidential race, the most obvious legacy of the former Speaker of the House was his demonstration of the electorate’s startling amnesia about the huge mistakes and character flaws that led him to withdraw from elective office in the first place. You can believe that the former Senator from North Carolina and would-be Vice President (but for some votes in Ohio in '04) has been observing it all breathlessly. 

If Edwards's lawyers can throw enough fairy dust in the eyes of those jurors, he has to believe that people’s current fury will fade and his debts can be ignored, and there’s a President looking back from the mirror that long ago became his best friend and (no, not deceased wife Elizabeth or much-too-live mistress Rielle) the true love of his life.