With this latest bit of information - Sarah Palin has been disinvited (again) to a big Republican fundraiser out of deference to Newt Gingrich - we see another plot point in the on-going story of Newt Gingrich's sudden appearance as Republican spokesman. He was on one of the Sunday Chat-fests yesterday. Again. He seems to be all over the place, really, calling Judge Sotomayor first a racist, then a racialist (not quite sure what that second construction means), Twittering from a Nazi Death Camp, and praising Catholic doctrine on marriage, without any sense of irony at all.
I have to wonder what the producers who book him on television are thinking. Institutional memory in Washington is indeed quite short, but it should be long enough to remember that Gingrich quit the Speakership after the public turned against Congressional Republicans for pursuing impeachment against Pres. Clinton (in a huff, he also quit the House as well). It became public knowledge that even as he pursued Pres. Clinton without any remorse for the President's lie about receiving oral gratification from Monica Lewinsky, Gingrich was involved in an extra-marital affair (hardly his first). He managed to turn public opinion against Congressional Republicans with his childish hissy-fit over seating arrangements on a flight with the President, which led to his shutting down the federal government in a contrived budget battle in the fall of 1995.
Gingrich's entire career is a case study in hubris, overreach, and the public display of seriously poor judgment and its results. I find it hysterically funny that he is offered to the public as a serious alternative voice to President Obama's when he really has nothing to say. If he becomes de facto leader of the Republican Party, my guess is he will become their Presidential nominee in 2012. My fervent hope is this occurs, because Newt's long history of making crap up, calling the Susan Smith murder case in South Carolina and the Columbine HS shootings in Colorado examples of Democratic policy in action would be funny if the situations weren't so horrific. While I doubt anyone will ever bring those statements up, at least as Newt continues his romance with a swooning Washington press corps, they are out there, and there is enough of a memory outside the hallowed halls to keep those quotes alive.
In all, while I consider him completely irrelevant to our current situation, and wonder what, exactly, the people who book him think he has to offer, for the most part I am quite happy that he keeps his face and voice out there. He has a tendency to insert his loafers deep in his mouth - calling Sotomayor a racist is hardly the worse - and much worse, precisely because he has such an elevated sense of his own genius and role. He thinks no one is laughing at him, when in fact while most people are ignoring him, those who are paying attention are providing a laugh track for a future Newt run for President.
