Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

"I will bet you, for most of you, you go home in the next two weeks when your members of Congress are home, and you look them in the eye and you say, 'What is your positive replacement for Obamacare?' They will have zero answer."
—Newt Gingrich to Republican National Committee meeting

We were going to attend a town hall meeting in Las Cruces next week that surely would have devolved to this topic, but my list of things changed and now it's not possible. Newt is not an idiot, he's a very savvy operator, it was kinda sad to see him reduce himself to the lowest common Teabagger denominator for the last election cycle.

"I know that you have to shelter under the cross to have any hope of having a full life."
— Newt Gingrich

All you have to do is shelter there? You don't have to, like, actually DO what the book says you should? That would make things much easier. None of that inconvenient 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' stuff.

Couldn't happen to a better guy. He spoke out against SOPA/PIPA during debate #417 saying that copyright and patent laws are good enough and that current protections allow rights holders to sue, then he goes and uses Eye of the Tiger without permission, and the man who wrote that song doesn't like that and is suing.

Irony: quite delicious.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-survivor-eye-of-the-tiger-composer-lawsuit-newt-gingrich-rocky-iii-20120130,0,6165205.story

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/01/31/1513230/eye-of-tiger-composer-sues-gingrich-to-stop-campaign-from-using-song

"I believe if we had a Republican House, Republican Senate and a Gingrich presidency, we'd get amazing things done...We can create a majority that will shock the country."
— Newt Gingrich

Probably right in to a true depression. It would also shock the world, probably in similar fashion. I seem to recall a previous Republican President/House/Senate that exploited some laws that were taken off the books during a Democratic President with a Republican House and Senate that enjoyed a margin that could override a Presidential veto. That worked really well.

Maybe I should start taking French, is Canada hiring?

"I am going to be the nominee."
— Newt Gingrich

And how many sexual indiscretions have you had, Newt? Let's see: divorcing your wife while she was in the hospital being treated for cancer, having sex with an intern while simultaneously supervising the trial for President Clinton for having sex with an intern?

You can't exactly claim to hold the moral high ground.

"The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding...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 intimidated by the political elite."
— Gingrich press secretary Rick Tyler, on media criticism of the former House Speaker

I saw clips of The Newt on Meet The Press, and he thoroughly stuck his foot in it re: the rest of the RNC. It wasn't a trick question, it was quite straightforward and he answered it truthfully, but I don't think American politics have room anymore for truth. And then The Newt went back on the same show the following week! What was that phrase about insanity and doing the same thing over again?

I love the "won't be intimidated by the political elite" when they're mostly talking about the RNC.

I think it's time for "Stick a fork in him, he's done."

Gotta love The Newt!

"There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate."
— Newt Gingrich, on his multiple affairs and marriages

His Newtiness went on to say: "And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God's forgiveness. Not God's understanding, but God's forgiveness."

He said this while talking to the Christian Broadcasting Network. It immediately started getting parodied. Two that I easily found were from Vanity Fair, which has an excellent Top 10 list, and from HuffPo, in which Lawrence O'Donnell mocked him by speaking a (perhaps) more accurate subtext along with The Newt's explanation.