Here we go again.  The Washington Times is reporting a behind-the-scenes power struggle in the Republican National Committee to oust the current chairman and replace him with either former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele and everyone’s best pal from the ’90s, Newt Gingrich.  The paper says supporters of the ouster want “a leader who can formulate a counter-agenda to President-elect Barack Obama’s administration and articulate it on the national stage.”  There’s no doubt Gingrich is skilled at psychological warfare and right-wing insurrection, and he (a co-architect of an impeachment, don’t forget) has been articulating Obama counter-strategies in recent months.

Publicly he’s been playing it cool, but Gingrich is now letting it be known (apparently at least, from the mouth of his Georgian friend Randy Evans to the ear of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter) that “If a majority of the RNC thought he was needed, he would accept that appointment.”  It remains to be seen who will be thrown into which briar patch, especially since it all has to be done in stage whisper thanks to the official “smooth transition” party line coming out of the White House.

Update – Jan 5, 2009:  It has developed that Gingrich is not, in fact, one of the (currently) six men running for head of the RNC.  As reported in the Jan. 3, 2008 edition of the Washington Post, that distinction goes to:

• Chip Saltsman — now famous for sending the song “Barak the Magic Negro” to all his pals in the RNC,
• Michael Steele — current chairman of Gingrich’s GOPAC (follow their money),
• Ken Blackwell — the African-American former Ohio Secretary of State who has defended Saltsman and his racist DJing…oh yeah, and during the 2004 was caught in a corruption and conflict-of-interest scandal involving Diebold and their voting machines that malfunctioned so interestingly that year in Ohio in particular,
• Katon Dawson — chairman of the South Carolina party,
• Saul Anuziz — chairman of the Michigan party,
• and current RNC Chairman Mike Duncan.

While the “draft Gingrich” effort obviously went nowhere, he remains an active voice in the power struggle.

In the cold winter of 1998, when he retired under a damning cloud from both the Speakership and the House, some went so far as to predict Gingrich was politically finished.  But after his obligatory quiet and contrite period, Gingrich has been rehabilitated within Republican inner circles and, while not a member of the RNC itself, has been playing an increasingly prominent role within what I fondly refer to as the Junta — the kinda guys that meet Cheney after work for scotch, or periodically visit him at an undisclosed location for a round of ping pong.  Ultimately, whether this is all just parlor gossip and footsie or not, the fact that Newt Gingrich is being discussed in that kind of light at all is noteworthy, both in terms of the arc of the Gingrich Sagaâ„¢ (will he be another Nixon?) and not least as a read on the latest Kremlin-ology.

Where has he been?  Well you may ask.  After he resigned from Congress, Gingrich landed in 1999 at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University, rubbing elbows with the likes of National Security Advisor-to-be Condoleezza Rice. In 2000, during the lead-up to the first Bush campaign, Gingrich became a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the right-wing think tank of choice for the Bush administration.  He even started appearing as a pundit on conservative TV, and during the latest election got to where he could even show his face openly in the mainstream media again.  Most recently, the day after the presidential election, he published an op-ed piece entitled “Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley”, arguing that the post-Enron accounting reforms should be wiped away because they haven’t “been enough” to stop the collapse of the housing and credit bubbles simultaneously, despite a complete lack of enforcement by the Bush administration.  This, from a guy who probably went hot tubbing in the Caribbean with the dudes from Enron.

Aw yeah, the good times are back. Keep an eye over your right shoulder, folks.  It’s gonna get weird out there.