Who Knows Newt?

Creepy crawly lizard man, a.k.a. Newt Gingrich, sits atop the Iowa rock. Punditry pounces and pronounces that dropout Herman Cain's 8% of GOP voters slithered to the more attractive of the reptiles available.

The corollary to chant of the predictive chorus is that Dems smirk and salivate that Gingrich's candidacy. Shift to stage right to hear, "Mighty, mighty orator Obama. Nasty, nasty goader Gingrich will lay him low!"

My take is a bit different. If the POTUS is the Prez race debate champ, it is by default. The deeply flawed GOP candidates open their mouths to let dull winds from empty minds rush out.

Newt is indeed a risible selection. It seems the same majority of Republican (as wingers insist on calling Democratic voters and the party, Democrat voters/party, should they be Republic voters/party?) voters have sudden amnesia on why they found his despicable and unacceptable as either a candidate or even dinner guest.

Another corollary to his judgment is a new meme of MSM and bloggers alike — that GOP voters will forgive his dreadful basket of sins because he admits failings and claims he has been redeemed by God. Let us pretend for the moment that wingers are not so dull-witted.

That Newt fellow not only had known affairs when each of his first two wives were dreadfully ill — MS for one and cancer for another — he traded in those wives for younger models like they were sputtering cars at the end of the lease periods. This anti-marriage stance might seem to be at odds with the professed, if you pardon the expression, pro-family values of the right. However, none of us can keep track of how many winger pols and preachers have been proven fornicators and adulterers. We know only that when caught, they and their apologists are wont to say, "Oh, it's just like Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy."

Odd too is that Gingrich bills himself as a professor and scholar, hence an authority on all subjects domestic and foreign. Of course, his high scholarship was low-brow. He joined a fourth-rate school as an assistant professor of history, transferring to geography, and quit when denied tenure. His credentials are written on water.That doesn't stop him from making Herman-Cain-level claims that he'll bring the big ideas that will save us all.

Odder still is how the GOP voters are trying mightily to forget his many non-stereotypical conservative positions, as on immigration and climate change. He wriggled himself up to House Speaker before facing 84 ethics charges, and then resigning after his leadership led to a disastrous midterm House election and majority loss. Even now as he calls for prosecution of House Dems involved in any way with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, he denies that while taking millions from them himself in what he somehow convinces no one that he was a lobbyist for them.

Any voter who supports this newt Newt can only be grotesquely ignorant or splendidly delusional.

This calls for a variation on the Star Wars line, let the Newt win. Only good can come of it for the Dems next year.