Newt, The Galactic Historian

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish for discovering the wonderful article by Ray Smock "Newt Gingrich,the Galactic Historian" at www.hnn @us.com . With bin Laden gone, very few writers mention that Al Qaeda was inspired by Isaac Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy,which was translated into Arabic about the time bin Laden began fighting in Afghanistan. While the term "Al Qaeda" has been given all types of meaning, one of the earliest commentators noted that it was Arabic for "the Foundation" after the sci-fi novel. At a minimum,bin Laden and Newt Gingrich were both--to use Newt's favorite word--fundamentally influenced and inspired by Isaac Asimov. And the sci-fi trilogy influences both men's messianic tendencies.

Newt is an avid reader of history and a sci-fi buff. Unlike Mitt Romney ,who says he likes sci-fi and can only name Battleship Earth, the potboiler written by L. Ron Hubbard, the creator of scientology, Newt really does read sci-fi and you can read his reviews on Amazon. com, where he far outnumbers the average reviewer.

Ray Smock points out in his piece that after reading historians like Gibbons,Newt has a special identification with a fictional historian, Asimov's character Hari Seldon, who invented psychohistory. As Newt described Seldon's mystique, he created a "probabilistic foerecasting of the future of whole civilizations". Seldon maintained that you needed a small cadre of 100,000 trained in the ways of civilization to change the whole galaxy. A messianic belief that appealed to bin Laden and his first followers.

Smock maintains that this idea of a Foundation pervades Gingrich's political life and his subsequent career creating numerous think tanks and fronts for causes. He notes that within the ethics probe of Gingrich stands a personal note where Gingrich defines himself as "an advocate of civilization", a "definer of civilization" and says that his mission is "universal, not national". You can see how this meglomania erupts during the campaign when he likens himself, without irony, to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. This was to explain why he lost all his campaign staff at the beginning because he "was an unconventional politician".

While Hari Seldon can analyze and predict the decline of civilizations, he can not reverse the trend. Newt believes he is an historical figure who can reverse the entropy in civilizations and believes he can lead an American renaissance called the "Opportunity Society". As I've written about his fixation on a "secular" America, Newt believes that America's decline began with Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Great Society, a belief shared by many conservatives. But Newt is the self-appointed leader to reverse that trend.

Now you know why David Frum is writing about the GOP Freakout about Gingrich. Professionals think Newt can't keep his inner Hari Sheldon under control the entire campaign and will self-ignite.

Personally I always found these digressions when talking to Newt interesting. One time he was obsessed with dinosaurs and another with Robert Kaplan's writings about the Balkans.