Saturday, May 21, 2011

Newt Gingrich Joins the Wet Raccoon Club


John Lithgow channels Newt Gingrich into oblivion. You know it's over when the comedians are reading directly from your press releases:

"The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment's cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won't be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces."
Illustrator Jon White had some fun with Newt too.

Well, count me a minion of the literati if you must, but I say Newt Gingrich has officially joined the Wet Raccoon Club of would-be Presidential candidates who have made themselves into laughingstocks.

This is three strikes for Newt. The first was his "Together We Will Win the Future" campaign slogan that channeled one part Deval Patrick ("Together We Can") and one part Barack Obama ("We Will Win the Future"). The second was calling Republican Congresman Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare "right wing social engineering" and not meaning that in a good way (this from Mr. Contract with America). With this third strike, I think Newt has killed himself off, again.

Whenever you think fondly of the 1990s, remember that this guy Newt was two heartbeats away from being President. That's right, as Speaker of the House he followed Vice President Al Gore in the succession order. When Newt tried to move up by impeaching President Clinton, it was he who was forced to resign in scandal.

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