Seriously, This Is Their Great Newt Hope

Newt Gingrich is back. Woo hoo.

And he and the Repugs think we'll forget his asshattedness....his asshatteryness? His asshattitude? I think you get where I'm going with this.

Still, Newt is all over the place, talking, and not talking, as Repugs are wont to do now that they are irrelevant. Since they have nothing good to say and do, the Repugs are trotting out Newt, this twice-divorced, admitted adulterer, as the new hope of their party.

Huh? What? Huh?

So, Sarah is out? No kidding?

And Bobby Jindal, too? We hardly knew him.

Gingrich has managed to stay in the public eye since leaving the House, but now, like the American Express card, he is everywhere you want to be, and, so naturally, the talk turns to Newt in 2012. Grover Norquist, a prominent conservative and president of Americans for Tax Reform, says, "One of the ways you judge these guys is how hard they're working, and Newt is out there hustling."

Hustling? Not the word I'd choose to describe a man predisposed to infidelity, lying and cheating. I mean, didn't he go after Clinton for being an adulterer, and now he wants to change the rules?

Some say that, with Gingrich, a former college history professor, the ideas sometimes come so fast and furious that even supporters say they feel overwhelmed by a conversation with him. Rich Galen, a Washington-based Republican strategist and former Gingrich aide, called him the GOP's "intellect-in-chief....[h]e's always been the idea man."

Newt Gingrich and intellectual? There's a stretch.

And they, those wacky Repugs, are comparing the Gingrich movement as something like the Obama movement of the past year or so. So, Newt is the new Obama?

Or is Newt just more of the same?

He has a reputation as an angry partisan crusader who delighted in firebombing Democrats with vicious verbal assaults. Check.

He was labeled a hypocrite when it was revealed he was carrying on an extramarital affair with a Capitol Hill aide at the same time he was working to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying about his own infidelity. Check.

His temper is legendary. He once complained vehemently about the seating arrangement on Air Force One returning from a state funeral in Israel. Check.

He was blamed for shutting down the federal government in a budget dispute. Check.

Gingrich has said that it's important for Republicans not just to be seen as the party of "no" but to put forward workable alternatives, but even with this economic crisis, not one viable Repug idea has been put forward. They're a group of bullies standing in a corner trying to decide when and how to beat up the new kid in school.

He blasted Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan—which the House GOP went on to oppose unanimously, no big surprise.

He calls the Obama administration "anti-religious" in a blatant attempt to kowtow to the religious wingnutty right.

He even Twittered--because he's a twit--about Obama's early handling of the Somali pirate crisis.

See, he isn't the "new" thing; the new thing is in office right now. Newt is old guard. Old guard that says one things and does another. Says anything to get elected. Says anything and does nothing.

But keep your eye on him. He'll be out front for a while, until he stumbles.

Again.