No Newt

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Alas, some sad news. Newt Gingrich will not -- repeat, not -- be running for president. I know, I know. You had your hopes up. You were all looking forward to it. Hey, so was I. I can admit that. I'm not ashamed. I really, really, really wanted Newt to run.

Bummer.

Why was I so excited? Me -- a liberal, a Democrat, the embodiment of all that is anathema to Newt. What had me so turned on to him, to his prospective candidacy?

Well, allow me, briefly, to look back through the mists of time, back to some of the Newt-related posts I've written, way back when, well in the past. The explanation lies there, somewhere.

Yes, here it is -- May 15, 2007:

Sure, there's Tancredo (crazy on immigration), Brownback (crazy on abortion), Romney (crazy clean image) McCain (crazy for war), Giuliani, (just plain crazy), and so on, but there's always room for more craziness on the Republican side. Remember back in '00, for example, when Bauer and Keyes were running and Bush was widely seen as the class clown? Good times.

Gingrich would bring to the show not only his massive and shameless ego but some genuine partisan zeal, unironic self-righteousness, ugly arrogance, and a whole lot of hypocrisy and personal baggage. Plus, he's proven his dangerous idiocy time and time again.

I think an apologist for the Confederacy is just what the GOP needs, and it'd be sincerely edifying to have him defend his linguistic bigotry, not to mention his understanding of the word "ghetto," on the national stage. Oh, and he'd be the James Dobson candidate -- he has already confessed his sins to that evangelical maniac and, "mistakes" and all, he could very well turn out to be the darling of the religious right.

Yes, this is sounding better and better.

Run, Newt, run!

But... no. It is not to be. No runnng. Nor for Newt.

Which means that all we have to look forward to is more of Newt's man-crush on Fred Thompson, so common to so many on the GOP side.

That -- and more of the same from the ever-so-crazy bunch seeking the GOP nomination: Giuliani, Romney, McCain, Huckabee (fundamentally crazy), Keyes (utterly insane), and, yes, Freddie T. and his on-screen personae (delusionally crazy).

Yes, good times. But they could have been so much better.

Thanks for nothin', Newt. (2012, anyone?)