The Disgraced Former Speaker of the House: an update

From the Department of Hate To Say I Told You So, But I Frickin' Told You So:

Newt Gingrich is preparing to make the transition from forgotten-but-not-gone to gone-and-hopefully-forgotten by dropping his presidential campaign next week. And he’s doing it in good Reagan-and-Bush-era Republican fashion – carrying on about fiscal responsibility while piling up a nice fat budget deficit.

Mr. Gingrich currently has $4.3 million in debt, according to TPM Muckraker – about 20 percent of his Gross Campaign Product, which puts him in Greece territory. He has more debt than any other failed Republican presidential candidate since 1992.

Emph. added. Not that you needed it.

[Added] Interesting tidbit from the quoted TPM Muckraker link:

Tim Pawlenty closed out with $435,542 in debts which was paid off by Mitt Romney affiliates.

Hmmm! There aren't many people blander than ol' Wonder Bread Willard, but that guy who is known only for having a mullet longer than anyone else on the planet, who (Some would say) was scared out of the race by whispers that Mr. Mitch Charisma Daniels might jump in, is certainly on the short list.

Developing ...

"A Farewell to Newt"

It’s not easy letting him go. Not easy at all. Sort of like swearing off bedtime Ben & Jerry’s: there’s valor and the promise of self-improvement in the sacrifice, but also the sad awareness that the world just got a little less naughty. A little less fun.

No matter. It’s time to cut Newt out of our diets.

He has no nutritional value, certainly not at this point, as he peddles his ludicrous guarantee of $2.50-a-gallon gasoline, a promise that would be made only by someone with his own bottomless strategic reserve of crude.

!!!

I disagree with Frank Bruni's latest column slightly. Later in the piece, he recites the tired old saw beloved by self-flagellating journalists nationwide, that they somehow did wrong by covering the Republican primaries:

If he refuses to quit, we in the news media must quit him. Starve him of his very sustenance: attention. Exert a kind of willpower that we’ve lacked in this primary, which we turned into too much of a circus by encouraging too many clowns.

This is wrong in two ways. First, if only FoxNews and the Moonie Times were reporting on the early GOP campaigns and debates, there'd be no end of howling from the perpetually aggrieved that Teh Liebrul Media wasn't covering their people.

Second, and much more importantly, one of the ways we keep America safe from a President Bachmann, President Cain, President Perry, President Trump, or a President Gingrich is precisely by shining the spotlight on them.

Actually, it's wrong in a third way. The real problem with Teh Media covering the clown show is not that they gave exposure to clowns. It's that they spent months contorting themselves trying to present them as Serious Candidates, With Important Ideas.

But as to the rest, it's a funny column, worth reading.

Wingnut fight!

Probably you already heard about this, but just in case not:

The National Review Online called on Monday for Newt Gingrich to quit the Republican presidential contest and endorse Rick Santorum.

The editors of the conservative magazine said it would be a mistake for Republican voters to nominate someone with “such poor judgment and persistent unpopularity” to be the party’s standard bearer.

But wait. That's not the weird part. Here's the weird part:

“On his own arguments the proper course for him now is to endorse Santorum and exit,” the editors wrote.

Endorse Santorum? What about "poor judgment" and "persistent unpopularity?" On the NRO's editors' own arguments …

"... the malignant narcissim of malicious politicians ..."

Why, yes. That does pretty well sum up Newt Gingrich, doesn't it?

Here is a nice old southern gentleman taking Newt to school, courtesy of a nice young western gentleman.

(alt. video link)

(previously)

P.S. Far be it from me to tell you I told you so, but told ya.

Line of the Day: 2012-02-05

So now the Hairpiece has endorsed the Haircut, and not the Harebrained. Sweetheart, get me rewrite!
    -- Charles P. Pierce

Bonus at the link: outstanding caricatures by Donkey Hotey. Lots more on Flickr.

The One True

From Brian McFadden's "How to Have a Highbrow Halftime:"

And don't fail to click on the arrow at the side of the page when you've finished reading that one. Five more pages of goodness, featuring Newt, SOPA, and other reprehensibilities.

Triptych of the the Day

The Biased Librul Media seems to have forgotten the title, which, as any RealAmerican™ will tell you, must be
The Disgrace of Bill Clinton

(pic. source)

Screenshot of the week

Swiped from Roy's latest wingnut wrap-up, "Rightbloggers Explain How Newt Gingrich's Big Win Can Help Someone Other Than Newt Gingrich Become President."

Attention: All Members of the VLWC

Henceforth, we will be referring to Newt Gingrich as the "mayonnaise-based life form."

(h/t: @EdgeofSports, via RT)

I hate to say I told you so, BUT

When the best you can say about your current status is, hey, at least I did better than Michele Bachmann, I think you don't even have Joementum.

 ← An ad accompanying the article just added to the lulz. If you've spent any time reading political websites this past decade, you'll recognize it as an obvious piece of Newsmax (slogan: "We are 1%! (less wingnutty than WorldNewsDaily)" clickbait. However, I think for once we can all agree on choice (c).

George Will is sucking something

Extra-sour lemons, I think.

Gingrich, who would have made a marvelous Marxist, …

Sweet! But how does he really feel?

Gingrich … embodies the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive. … There is almost artistic vulgarity in Gingrich’s unrepented role as a hired larynx … Olympian sense of exemption from standards and logic … His temperament — intellectual hubris distilled — … grotesque opportunism — tarted up as sociology — … (as Churchill said of John Foster Dulles) a bull who carries his own china shop around with him.

Much as it discourages me to contemplate the downward trajectory which today's GOP is bent upon pushing this country, at least there's the entertainment of watching guys like George Eff Will have to face what they helped bring about. And who knows? Maybe some decade, they'll even admit their complicity. Know hope!

(h/t: Substance McGravitas, in Comments under the previous post about GOP2012)

(pic. sources: Faith Trust and Pixie Dust, Northern Insights / Perceptivity)

Shorter Republican Campaign For President

1.

Mr. Romney’s strategy, in short, is to pretend that he shares the ignorance and misconceptions of the Republican base.

2.

Newt Gingrich is Sad That Politics Has Gotten So Nasty

In conclusion:

Newt Already Magnanimous in Victory

Okay then! Let's link to a portrait of the new First Couple!

(h/t: thouartgob || pic. sources: 1 | 2 | 3)

Why Newt Gingrich Keeps Winning Republican Debates

(embiggen)

(pic. source: Swampland | h/t: Jim Newell)

Line of the Day: 2011-11-07

This is the "philosopher-politician" demonstrating his "mastery of policy matters." I'm sorry, would you like to super-size your colonoscopy? Some day, volumes will be written about how Gingrich managed to get everyone in the Washington smart set to believe he is a public intellectual with actual ideas, and not just the guy at the club whose life gets changed for him every time he reads a new book.

My god, Caligula died centuries too soon. Today, if he'd brought his horse into the Senate, some careerist Beltway journo would find that the horse had whinnied some "interesting new approaches" to our "entitlement crisis." The horse would be on Meet the Press the following Sunday with David Gregory, who would ignore the fact that there is a fking horse sitting across the table from him and concentrate instead on something the horse had whinnied five years ago that seems to have been contradicted by something the horse whinnied the day before. And then Tom Brokaw would come on to mumble something about how horses were more politically savvy back in his day.
    -- Charles P. Pierce, "The 2012 Election Field …"

Also.

Newt Gingrich still doesn't know how the Internet works

The disgraced former Speaker of the House is now for the Ryan "plan." Though he was against it yesterday, and for it before that.

Maybe his candidacy is being funded by Romney?

[Added] Ah, good. Noted Internet personality Rick Santorum is coming to stepping up to clarify matters.

(pic. source)

Newt Gingrich's apparent new campaign strategy: Out-flip-flop Mitt Romney

We laughed when Roy Edroso gathered up the wealth of examples from Greater Wingnuttia earlier this week, which he summarized thus:

The message was clear: The United States should deal with Qaddafi unless Obama is President and actually does it, in which case it's ridiculous.

But no one outdoes the disgraced former Speaker of the House!

(h/t: Dave Weigel | x-posted)

Update: "any month now" is the new "any day now" for Newt

Griftin' the night awa-aay:

In a conference call Wednesday with former staffers and supporters former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said "we are leaning toward a yes" on a presidential run, CNN has learned.

Leaning heavily.

He revealed he hopes to announce a presidential bid in late May …

"Leaning toward." "He hopes."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You win this one, TC!

But wait, it gets better:

He revealed he hopes to announce a presidential bid in late May at noon …

So, we don't know a date, but we have picked out a time!

He revealed he hopes to announce a presidential bid in late May at noon in front of Philadelphia's Independence Hall.

And a location!

But wait, there's more!

He asked the group for help building a national audience for that event on the internet and through local media.

In response to a question, Gingrich told the group "corporate PACs can give $5,000 and obviously we'd be thrilled to have as many of them sign up as early as possible."

Yes, you idiots. Keep giving him your money. Really. I mean, this is the guy who now says he had affairs because he loved America so much! What's not to trust?

(h/t: Taegan Goddard via @allisonkilkenny | x-posted)

Big time, baby!

OR. Perhaps it is just a measure of the amount of attention Newt isn't getting.

(Some scrolling required.)

Not that I'm in any hurry, Newt, but ...

... SOME are wondering whether this latest week-long stretch of "I'm going to announce my candidacy for realz any day now" might indicate something else of a more sordid nature. (If being more sordid than running for president as a Republican is possible, I mean.) Certainly the transcript from the latest Hannity Job you received has a bit of a stench to it.

In Comments under the previous Newt item, for example, TC expresses this feeling that you'll never actually declare, and that you'll keep hope (?) alive for as long as possible, all to keep those "donations" rolling in. I find it hard to believe that a skilled grifter such as yourself would go for the quick killing when the money's been rolling in nicely for years. However, TC recommended the following bit from Maddow, which, I have to say, surprised even a cynic like me.

(alt. video link)

Thanks to David Neiwert for the best two of the above words.

Newt Gingrich unable to fake sincerity

Have you heard about that fabulous new website, Newt Explore 2012? (This is the "explore" website, not the exploratory committee website, due to shadiness.) Anyway, did you wonder about the crowd in the background? Looked a little young and diverse for a bunch of people supposedly looking up and smiling at the Newt, didn't it?

Behold:

(alt. video link)

And now those kids on the Tumblr are running with it!

You think the Republicans will ever figure out how this series of tubes works?

(h/t: Betty Cracker/Rumproast)