Gingrich was a force of nature. He shut down the government, griped famously about his seat on Air Force One, launched the impeachment of Bill Clinton, spurred a revolt in his own ranks and was gone, a self-described flame-out, in four years. He is now a consultant, author and public speaker.

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Gingrich claimed credit for shaking up the House, for forcing Clinton to balance the budget (''Which leads one to ask, where the hell are you now?'' former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta asked him) and for passing a landmark welfare-reform law. But he found the demands of leading the House more demanding than of plotting its takeover, he said.

No matter how much he talked about the need to listen, in the end it gave way to Gingrich's need to talk.

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He still does not appreciate the distinction between seizing power and using it. His revolution, ultimately, has changed little in Washington.

The culture is still coarse, the federal government bigger then ever. With control of Congress and the White House (not to mention the Supreme Court), the Republicans have not dismantled a single department, major agency or big federal program. In fact, they've added a new temple of bureaucracy: the Department of Homeland Security.

The Republicans have cut income taxes, especially for the wealthy, and pared dividend and capital gains taxes for investors. They justify the resultant $500 billion-a-year budget deficits by claiming to be ''starving'' the government --- but they make their old whipping boys, the ''tax-and-spend Democrats,'' look like misers when it comes to feasting on taxpayer-funded pork.

Last week's papers reported that the GOP Congress has shrugged off its ''spending caps'' and let the cost of government grow by a whopping 27 percent in the last two years.

How many spending bills has Bush vetoed? Not a one.

Gingrich ''created a revolution in politics,'' Panetta says, but failed at ''the challenge . . . to convert that revolution'' into substantive change. ''Holding power in and of itself is not . . . governing the country.''

In the end, it was about ego, perks and power. About rewarding yourself and those who got you here. About the means, not the ends. And it's still that way today.