Let’s consult the literature — all 21 books by the self-proclaimed ideas man of politics. (Gingrich cites 23 books on his Web site. We are not counting the Contract With America or the coffee-table book “Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny.”) When his top campaign staff abandoned him not long ago, Newt Gingrich didn’t seem terribly surprised. “Philosophically, I am very different from normal politicians,” he said. “We have big ideas.” The “we,” as Gingrich uses it here, is akin to the royal we — it’s what might be called the professorial we, employed when the intellectual and the ideas he...