Dole's loan to Newt looks like sweetheart deal

In last year's election, Newt Gingrich carried an ice bucket on his cross-country campaign swing - a symbol of the old congressional order his troops had overthrown.

Gone, he said, were the free ice deliveries to congressional offices, the insider privileges and the sweetheart deals of which average Americans could only dream.

The ice deliveries are gone, but the sweetheart deals appear to remain, as evidenced by Gingrich's acceptance of Bob Dole's payment-deferred, interest-deferred loan of $300,000.

Gingrich deserves credit for taking his penalty - actually a reimbursement for committee expenses - seriously and declining to take the money from campaign funds.

And no one should think Dole did this to "buy" influence. Not only does he have more integrity than that, he has far more savvy. He's all too aware of Gingrich's limitations as a legislative leader; if he wanted to curry favor with someone, certainly he'd look elsewhere.

But the crux of the Dole deal allows Gingrich to postpone any payment until after he leaves office, which could be post-millennium. Stroll to your bank right now and ask for such a juicy arrangement and you'd be laughed out of the lobby.

Frankly, like most Americans we're just glad to have this matter behind us. Now, perhaps, the House can begin doing something. But we wish legislative leaders would be more sensitive to the appearances of these transactions and choose the kinds of deals everybody else must accept.

"Newt could have received a better deal from a bank," Dole said awkwardly last week. Which only raises the question: Why didn't he?