MISSOURI WATCH: GINGRICH THE MESSENGER: RECALL CLINTON'S MESSAGE?

"Don't blame Newt, he's only the messenger." This statement was made the other day as I visited with a one-time Republican strategist, whose tactics Teflonized Ronald Reagan so expertly that the Gipper could have escaped blame for anything short of murdering Nancy in plain view on network television. Maybe even that.

Although we long ago agreed to disagree, but politely, I admire my friend for his ability to cut through the political rhetoric that traumatizes Washington and so many of its residents and stating in clear terms the elusive truth. Thoroughly partisan in his personal views, he is nevertheless a through professional who doesn't waste words while mentally seeking an answer. My friend knows what he's going to say before it's said, which makes him totally unique among the nation's political hierarchy. Furthermore, he is intelligent enough to know that real virtue is both rare and non-partisan, qualities that are hard to come by today, or any day in the past century.

The point made about the Speaker of the House of Representatives is one that my Democratic friends should take to heart. They have been eager to blame Gingrich for much of the mess that covers the federal machinery like cold maple syrup, eager to assign a face to anyone who threatens to unmask the long-standing, seemingly fatal mess in Washington. But my friend is right: Newt is really only the messenger, for it was not the congressman from Georgia who triggered today's American malaise. Nor was it Sen. Bob Dole, our neighbor to the west, who has been forced to play Second Banana to the Speaker because the latter speaks with more volume, and in a sense brings more support to the cause than the probable presidential nominee.

Regardless of how he's viewed in any household, Gingrich has become an effective spokesman of a vast constituency that feels it has been abandoned, oftentimes by both parties. Witness the spectacular takeoff just three years ago of Ross Perot's splinter-party parade, which ultimately contributed to the election of our incumbent President. Witness, too, the meteoric rise of Gen. Colin Powell, viewed by many as the answer to voters' dreams of a clear-headed, right-thinking, down-home middle-of-the-road moderate. The evidence that the retired general fits all of these qualifications is sometimes lacking, but never underestimate the ability of the American public to create heroes, if only for the nonce.

Gingrich's agenda, much of it publicly declared in the "Contract With America," was part if not parcel of the 1992 platform not of incumbent George Bush but challenger Bill Clinton. Remember, it was the Governor of Arkansas who ardently verbalized the crying need to balance the federal budget, stop the awful financial bleeding of quarter-trillion-dollar annual budget deficits, reform welfare, create new incentives to put deadbeats on payrolls, halt the staggering costs in both Medicare and Medicaid programs, attack the escalating trade deficit and end the cynical view held by millions of Americans that Washington only talks about solutions while ignoring any action that satisfactorily resolves them.

This was the Clinton-Gore platform. Even George Bush began attacking his own four-year record in office, expediently repeating the Democratic message in an attempt to match the crowd-pleasing tactics of the opposition. One was hard pressed to recall that Bush had been president the previous four years, so critical did he become of his own record.

When he squeaked through the election, the new President promised voters he would live up to his word. He was going to be different than all the others, he promised, and pay attention to what he himself had uttered during all the previous months. It was then that the President should have made his own contract with America, but he seemed to be enjoying the endless amenities of office to pay attention to much else. Those were the halcyon days of Hollywood notables sleeping in Lincoln's bedroom, pretending they had somehow inherited some portion of presidential power by virtue of their box-office prowess. So much for political science in Hollywood.

The presidential agenda, alas, was not only late in coming, it was something much worse: it was different than anything the candidate had promised on the hustings. One of the first pieces of business was the highly sensitive matter of ending the hidden bias of the Armed Services against homosexuals. It wasn't much of a grabber during the campaign, except in a few residential areas of New York and California but suddenly it was right there on the front burner. Gee, who could have predicted that?

Following in rapid measure was health care, which the candidate had said during the campaign was his "No. 1 problem" and which he then proceeded to turn over to his ever-loyal wife, who gathered her own friends into an intellectual consortium of Phi Beta Kappas to resolve the methodology of American medicine. What a fine job they did, too, confusing not only the opposition but the home campers as well. Nobody understood the plan, and the parts that were decipherable were so obtuse as to be unbelievable. Hillary's Healthcare was DOA.

Instead of turning to other promises and seeking to deliver on his lengthy agenda, the President began reshaping his image, which in polite society is called presidential politicizing. Except he did the job in full view of everyone, so even the most politically inept could see for themselves the Oval Office was trying to square itself with voters.

In defense, let it be noted that Clinton's advisers, whether starting from Little Rock or Capitol Hill, have been second rate, at best. The congressional leadership retained the same old ideological litany from the days of Lyndon Johnson and George McGovern, liberals who worried more about helping themselves than promoting effective programs at reasonable cost.

Clinton's record produced Newt's constituency, so don't kill the messenger. Just remind him it's not necessary to keep on talking.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.