Newt Non Grata, Destiny of Decay

Citizen Zed - 1/9/12

It looks like a concession speech; but look out Mitt, it's a trap! You could tell Newt's midichlorian count was high. Right after saying he wouldn't go negative in response to the Romney PAC's Iowa carpet bombing, he hedges with the "right to tell the truth", and then proceeds to suggest that Romney’s behavior is unworthy of the American lives sacrificed for our way of life. Somebody tell him George Lucas hasn't issued a casting call for a new Sith Lord.

Though back in May Peggy Noonan gushed over his "compelling character", she sees him now as an "angry little attack muffin". And after a temporary surge provoked some weariness on this front, Gingrich has returned to truthy form, cloaked in the 'vapour of conceit' and terminally lost in space, veering off at sophistical warp speed. "Bad Newt is back", proclaims the Daily Beast, pointing out a Gingrich so desperate to wound that he "adopted the DNC attack line that Romney is a modern day Gordon Gekko." In a restaurant fittingly named Don Quixote, Newt is "quite frankly, very irritated" when confronted by his anti-Obama food stamp rhetoric. Who wouldn't be annoyed when it's probably "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior" that best predicts this shift of attention from a "serious conversation" about Romney and his destiny as a manager of decay!

After all, Newt didn't just secure some 20 million from a casino mogul dude to waste time with distractions like this and having to kick up dust over that Freddie Mac contract release stuff.

"I think that at least what we’re seeing right now is that Romney is starting to decay, and that could be very, very exciting."

Frankly, that's more like it; back to the courage for an "ideas oriented, Charley Rose style campaign."

Indeed it's hard to keep a cork on sarcasm. Alongside Lee Atwater and Karl Rove stands one Newton Leroy Gingrich as a triumvir of modern political pathology. The sheer amperage of destructive and cunning character assassination nearly defies parallel. And so when Newt calls the Palestinians an "invented people", one suspects he really faults them for not reinventing themselves, as he has in marketing himself as an intellectual engaged in a "serious conversation about fundamental change" and ever so ready to lift discourse to truly responsible levels in Lincoln-Douglas style debates.

Newt's wild lurch into vengance against Romney in a "mean, nasty, transparently negative attack" likely derives from Mitt threatening to derail a rebranding campaign, one Gingrich may have lapsed into believing himself. He claims he felt "Romney-boated" in Iowa, an allusion to the absurd attacks on John Kerry aired by - wait - the same group that supports Gingrich. It is, indeed, "one of countless ironies engulfing Gingrich’s outrage."

Will he snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? No, not that Newt could ever gain the nomination, much less the Presidency - but, rather, he may wipe out all gain vis-à-vis the true rubric for his campaign. Newt, Inc. will likely suffer terribly in the aftermath of this obsession with scorching Romney's earth. It's probably back to being regarded as "Fat Elvis" or worse - not only as Newt Non Grata, another comical evil villain, but as a toxic poseur unworthy of bloated speaking fees. When it comes to unmanageable decay, his destiny could be very, very exciting.