THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 22, 1995 TAG: 9511220665
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
In the new way of announcing what one is going to announce later on, GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich let it be known Sunday, to nobody's surprise, that he will announce after Thanksgiving he's not going to run for the presidency.
Which gives many of us something to be thankful about.
Those most cast down at Gingrich's withdrawal from the race he never entered were people in the White House. They had hoped that Bill Clinton would have the luck of running against Gingrich, whose approval rating hovers at 20 percent.
True, after a candidate is nominated, his rating rises, as Clinton's did in 1992; but the White House figured Gingrich misspeaks as much as Clinton. Or more.
As Gingrich did after returning from the funeral for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
To reporters at a breakfast he whined that the president had made him and Sen. Bob Dole get off Air Force One at the rear door.
Gingrich said he was so piqued at having to go out the back way that he toughened terms for the interim spending bill that Clinton vetoed last week, triggering a partial government shutdown.
Seldom does a bruised ego demand such a price of the nation.
Next day, Gingrich denied what he had said; but the three major networks had carried his injudicious remarks. They are on tape.
Clinton might well have discussed the budget with Dole and Gingrich. Ordinarily it is difficult to get Clinton to leave off talking; but he must have wished to focus on how to comfort the Israelis at the funeral for his friend. He did well.
I watched the televised funeral with students from Israel. They found Clinton's remarks consoling. He might not have done so superbly had he been penned up with Newt nattering away. Returning, Clinton played cards (hearts) with New York Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman, winding down perhaps.
After Gingrich's tantrum, the White House released two pictures of Clinton with the GOP duo, one in a discussion with several officials about the Middle East and the other during an informal gathering that included Hillary Rodham Clinton and Marianne Gingrich, the only other wife invited on the trip.
President Clinton took a lofty tone: ``I can tell you this: If it would get the government open, I'd be glad to tell him I'm sorry.''
Dole drew on his wry sense of fun to distance himself from both Newt and Clint, saying:
``We got on at the front and got off at the back, and I figured that was the regular rotation, though I reckon maybe we had worked ourselves up at getting off at the front.''
That's Dole at his best. His wry, down-to-earth humor moved me in two previous campaigns to urge his nomination, which, alas, dour Republicans failed to do.
What a pleasure to see the old Dole still there beneath the new. by CNB