Jonah, I was actually thinking about Bob Michel, the pre-Newt leader of the minority Republicans in the House of Representatives, when I said it had long been Washington practice to accept defeat gracefully and quietly in order to seem less loser-y. Michel didn’t tilt at windmills. He accepted his minority position by being almost cheerful in acceding to the desires of the majority. Most conservative Republicans in D.C. thought Michel was all too quick to give up the fight. That sentiment helped Newt in his climb upward — because when House members had to choose between the “firebrand” Gingrich and the more Michel-like Jerry Lewis of California, they went with the firebrand because they had had enough of the smiling and the backslapping.