A kinder, gentler Newt?

Having just spent the Labor Day weekend with family in deeply conservative Paulding County, Georgia -- just west of Cobb County and Atlanta -- I wasn't surprised to read of this exchange involving Newt Gingrich, who famously launched his political career in these Atlanta exurbs:

COLMES: We were just talking about [House Democratic Leader] Nancy Pelosi [CA] and what she wants to do in this effort to perhaps get Rumsfeld removed. He recently made some very controversial comments, basically suggesting that critics of the Iraq war are tantamount to Hitler's appeasers. Do you agree with him on those comments?

GINGRICH: Essentially, sure. I mean, I think you've got to say that --

COLMES: You're calling appeasers people who disagree with the Bush policy administration --

GINGRICH: Look --

COLMES: -- comparing them to those who enabled Hitler?

GINGRICH: Yes.

COLMES: That's an astounding comment --

GINGRICH: GINGRICH: What's your -- what's your -- why? Why is it astounding?

COLMES: -- that's a very insulting comment --

GINGRICH: It's not an insulting comment.

Insulting and surprising to most, but perhaps not to those in the far-right enclaves of the rural white South, the people Gingrich is trying to stir to action as we move closer to the 2008 presidential primaries.

At the funeral I attended in Gingrich land, roughly 15% of the service related to our departed aunt; the remaining 85% focused on the hellfire that awaited those who had yet to accept Christ into their hearts. Extreme either/or thinking -- and an almost nonchallant willingness to verbally lynch those who see things differently -- are just part of the scene.

You think Newt would learn from history, including his own history. His shock-politics approach was essential to the Republican Congressional sweep of 1994, and the Contract with America was key to the GOP's definition in opposition to the Democrats.

But personally it cost him dearly -- by 1996 he was the villain, blamed for shutting down government (a "temper tantrum") and hurt by his own admission that his zealous pursuit of the Lewinsky affair was largely a personal anti-Clinton vendetta.

After the attack-dog style failed him, bets were that a kinder, gentler Gingrich would emerge as he pursued loftier political ambitions. Indeed, Newt is again trying to stake out territory as a national agenda-setter with a Contract-esque 11-point agenda for Republicans to win Congressional races this November. Surprisingly, nine of the 11 of the "center-right populist" agenda items are domestic issues, from declaring English the official language to sealing off our borders and eliminating taxes on millionaire estates (a position that the vast majority of Southerners don't agree with).

But his potential to be a national leader is questionable at best if, when it comes to the attack-dog style, he's still the same old Newt.

[Updated 11:56 a.m.]