Gingrich: God Damn Those Beltway Insiders and Establishment Types Who Will Stop At Nothing To Thwart An Outsider And Political Neophyte Like Myself

I was just looking for this, having heard about it, and oh look, it's on Hot Air.

Often people play the Race Card, the Woman Card, the Whatever Card. Some kind of Victim Card. We -- especially conservatives -- react pretty badly to that, because we see it so damn often from our opponents.

Newt Gingrich has just played the Down-Home Aw-Shucks Just-Folks Outsider Picked On By The Ruthless Connected City Elite Card.

And he dealt it, as Robert Shapiro might say, from the bottom of the deck.

Gingrich press secretary Rick Tyler fired off a response blasting the political and media elite.

“The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding,” Tyler wrote. “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.”

Is this college professor/historical novelist/professional lobbyist/former Speaker of the House/member of the permanent DC establishment/fixture on political TV shows Newt Gingrich we're talking about?

Or is there a different Newt Gingrich?

Well, let me tell you something: That guy at the hotel was not a heckler. That guy was a goddamned psychic.

But Newt did not heed this Comfort Inn Cassandra's call, and now he has made an even bigger fool of himself.

The easy glean here is that Gingrich is in fact done. All done. As Krauthammer predicted. But this is confirmatory. He's gone.

I guess a slightly less-obvious take is that this is a shot across the bow of other candidates. The party has taken to the Ryan Plan. Even those who disagree with it, I'd imagine, take him seriously and respect him for actually trying to do something.

Although I don't think candidates will rush to embrace the Ryan plan, they'll distance themselves more gently, keeping it (and all the Representatives who endorsed it) viable.

Rich Lowry wrote a piece about this affair noting that Newt Gingrich just can't help himself from deploying his silly flamethrowers when a gentle distancing would do the trick.

And so it goes.

The field continues to take shape, by both addition and subtraction.

Funny RD: I don't know what RD is riffing on exactly, but in the sidebar he makes fun of Gingrich's flack's grandiloquent poppycock:

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....

RD Brewer continues that statement thus:

...Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming, in thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove. That, if requiring fail, he will compel; and bids you, in the bowels of the Lord, deliver up the votes, and to take mercy on the poor souls for whom this hungry campaign opens his vasty jaws; and on your head turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries the dead men's blood, the pining maidens groans, for husbands, fathers and betrothed lovers, that shall be swallow'd in this controversy.

Gingrich is apparently Viggo the Destroyer.

Just a minor thing: Gingrich's flack called out those with "bylines and handles," and mentioned tweets, too. So, just a little confirmation that the media environment is different now.

Can't Catch A Break: A gay protester showered Newt in glitter.

Nothing says "Accept Me" like a camp assault.

But, again, he winds up looking foolish.

I think God is trying to tell Newt something and it's not "Keep rockin'!"

Thanks to Missy Matt.

posted by Ace at 05:35 PM

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