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Newt's handpicked Ethics Committee chair, Congresswoman Nancy "Stonewall" Johnson, failed to question many of the most obvious witnesses until a frontpage story in The New York Times in late June pushed her to open the hearings on Newt's $4.5 million offer from publisher Rupert Murdoch. Privately, even some G.O.P leaders have expressed distaste at the spectacle of the new Speaker rushing into a commercial book deal with one of the barons of the telecommunications revolution, namely Murdoch, whose interests are at the fore of the Gingrich legislative agenda.

"The volume of published evidence clearly calls for investigation...It is vital that the Ethics Committee hire outside counsel and pursue these questions thoroughly. The trust of the public and the integrity of the House will accept no lower standard."

That statement was not issued by Congressman David Bonior or the Democratic National Committee's NewtGram. These were the sentiments of Newt Gingrich himself, issued in a 1988 press release where he demanded an outside counsel --with no restrictions--to investigate the activities of then Speaker Jim Wright.

Since Newt Gingrich helped set many of the snares that brought down his fellow congressmen, the ultimate enigma in his character is this: Why would he court disaster by stepping anywhere near the very same snares? "It's easy to tiptoe through the perils of Washington by reading history," points out Stan Brand, a former counsel to the House now known as "an ethics doctor." Continues Brand, "As the facts begin to come out, the parallels between Newt and Wright become more consistent."

The rap on Jim Wright's book deal was that it was an elaborate ruse to allow a friend to funnel him money by publishing a book of prepackaged anecdotes and excerpts from speeches. Newt Gingrich's book To Renew America is based partially on repackaged material from Gingrich's course at Kennesaw State College in Georgia, material allegedly generated by the tax-exempt Progress & Freedom Foundation and GOPAC. "What does that look like?" asks Stan Brand. "Jim Wright with more zeros."

I ask Gingrich himself, "A person as brilliant as you obviously knows what the trip wires are in Washington."

"I'm probably the leading expert in the House on it," he boasts.

"So why would you step anywhere near close to the perils that brought Jim Wright down, like the controversial book deal? You yourself have said, 'I might have been crazy.'"

"I made a public-relations mistake," he replies.

Shouldn't you be suspicious if Rupert Murdoch asks to meet with you?

"Rupert Murdoch is a leading right-wing conservative who was very close to the Reagan administration...I've been on Rupert's side ideologically from day one."

"Do you see anything obscene about Rupert's publications?"

"Not particularly."

Tits and ass as a formula? That's what he's known for all over the world.

"I don't particularly like Fox Broadcasting, some of their shows. But I can tell you that in the Reagan years he was very helpful editorially."

So because he's helpful politically to you, you can overlook the fact that he contributes to the moral decay of America?

"No. I don't overlook that fact. I'm saying that I meet with everybody who comes by me."

Will the quest of the hero be cut short by the posse because of this blind spot --his faith in his own powers? If he does fall, Newt Gingrich would not be the first politician to get what he's always wanted, only to self-destruct.

Perhaps Gingrich doesn't quite believe the mythology in which he has cloaked his long, unglamorous march to the top of the Hill. As was the case with Gary Hart before him, one part of Newt is truly confident that he would make a magnificent national leader. But there may be an inner voice of doubt --the voice of the past, Big Newt and Bob Gingrich-- which is silenced only by the attempt to prove he is so worthy, so tough, so heroic that he is above the rules that apply to ordinary mortals.

But what happens to the country while Newt Gingrich immerses his insecurities in a cause meant to justify himself?