I am hard pressed to come up with anyone in American History (or World History for that matter) who has a bigger head than Newt Gingrich. Subjectively all one has to do is listen to him pontificate upon himself for 30 seconds, while objectively remembering that his high school football coach could not find a helmet big enough for him until one was specially made in Chicago and shipped down to Georgia. It is now being used as a hot tub for the Atlanta Falcons.
The old news is his own party tossed Newt out of his job as Speaker of the House for various ethical and personal reasons that gave hypocrisy a bad name. They also gave him the boot because in just two years he managed to gain the lowest approval rating of any Speaker in American history at 28%, the same number he holds today. Newt is consistent. Of course Fox News had pity on the poor fellow and picked him up as a commentator so he wouldn’t end up picking cotton in Lowdown Hollar, GA.
I am not quite clear why the media gave him his own news cycle this Sunday, but it must be important. Perhaps he and Billy “Jackboot” Bennett ate someone and they want to brag about it on TV. Then I figured it was more about his most recent book, Rediscovering God in America, than conservative cannibalism. Catchy title that! What more does one need to sell a book in the US of DUH than having the words GOD and AMERICA as half the title? The new book was not mentioned in the interviews, but his older book from 2005 sure was! Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America, which is the backbone of Newt’s new Lobby/PAC, Winning the Future. The book and the organization can be summed up by it’s DO LIST:
First and foremost, Gingrich wants to tear down any real or perceived constitutional separation of church and state, by replacing our present judiciary with a new and better one who accept God as the centerpiece of American culture, politics and government.
Secondly Newt wants to personally rewrite the First Amendment more to his liking. This mostly concerns political and religious websites he doesn’t like and wants the government to ban.
Thirdly, he wants to personally rewrite the Geneva Convention rules to reduce human rights of prisoners and do more torturing.
Not to forget his idea of totally privatizing Social Security and Health Care.
Newt is singularly rabid on wanting to destroy public television, public radio and public education by handing it over to religious indoctrination.
And last but not least, Gingrich is very HOT on eliminating all regulations concerning election finance laws and removing the tax burden from corporations and the wealthy.
With all these fine revolutionary ideas, Newt is running fourth in the GOP presidential pool, and taking the top slot in some Southern states. We like him down here, he is insane, and we like that in our leaders.
Mr Gingrich made sure we understand he is not wasting his time running for president, he is after larger things: He has been called to change the world in His own image. Though he does say that he if he is drafted into the candidacy he would not refuse.
On the bright side, perhaps the media is savvy enough that it may have given him this little news cycle as a reminder to all of us (in his own words) of just what a creepy hypocritical megalomaniac Newt Gingrich is.