PILING ON NEWT

and who is more deserving?

First of all, Gingrich's ethics problem when he was in the House continued even after he had promised that he would not try to politicize the issue:

Potentially Illegal Gingrich Tape Turned Over To Criminal Investigators
January 13, 1997
CNN
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Jan. 13) -- A potentially illegal recording of a cell phone conversation involving House Speaker Newt Gingrich was handed over to federal criminal investigators tonight, the House ethics committee's chief counsel said.

The conversation, held by Gingrich and other Republicans on Dec. 21, took place the same day the speaker admitted to ethical errors and promised not to organize a defensive strategy with other GOP leaders. Democrats point to the tape as evidence that Gingrich violated his promise. Republicans say it proves Gingrich was not involved in plotting strategy.

Second, Rich Galen, a former Gingrich employee, notes that Newt can generate "a reality-distortion field" that even Newt seems to take for real.

Third, even a wackjob like Rep. Peter King (R-NY) can admit that Gingrich "does not have the capacity to control himself."

Fourth, John "Pantload" Podhoretz remembers the many Gingrich failures, including these two:

We remember how he tarnished his own “Republican revolution” even before it started between the 1994 election and the swearing-in of the new Congress by getting himself a $4.5 million book deal (that would be $6.5 million today) — a PR blunder and possible ethics violation that backfired so badly that he had to forswear his advance.

We remember how that conviction led to perhaps the greatest political blunder of our time — the showdown over the budget in October 1995 that led to the three-week government shutdown and the subsequent GOP cave-in that brought the “Republican revolution” to an end only nine months after it began.

(Laura Ingraham read from Pod's column yesterday)

Finally, Pres.Gingrich would be a foreign policy disaster:

Newt Gingrich told those gathered at a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington on Wednesday that if elected president next year, he will tap former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton to be his secretary of state.

"If you will accept it, I will ask John Bolton to be secretary of state," he said to cheers during his remarks in the Ronald Reagan Building.