Newt Kapewt

Well, not that this was a huge surprise, but:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ending months of speculation, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Saturday he would not run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, citing campaign finance law restrictions.

Gingrich, who previously said he was considering joining the race, told Fox News the McCain-Feingold campaign law would have forced him to leave his American Solutions political organization if he declared his candidacy.

"I wasn't prepared to abandon American Solutions, even to explore whether a campaign was realistic," he said.

Damned ehtical Republicans and their damned ethical campaign finance laws that can be circumvented by a twelve year-old with a tin can and ball of twine.

C'mon, Newt, who you kidding? You couldn't have caused even the barest splash in the fountain with your entrance. Look what happened when "Mr. Law And Order" Thompson jumped in.

Nothing. Not even the hint of momentum towards a rolling up of the Giuliani juggernaut. Even Mitt yawned, and it takes a lot to make Mitt publicly bored.

And yet, Thompson was the closest thing you have to a Reagan Republican running, which means even most Republicans realize the failed policies of that era, including the ill-starred coup to take over Congress, was a bad idea who's time should never have come.

Face it, Newt, you and your ilk ruined this country and may even have destroyed the entire planet with your self-righteous greed and hatred. "Anything for a buck" should have been the subtitle to the Contract On With America. The best thing you can do, Newt, to periphrase William Wallace in Braveheart is to "Lower your flags and march straight back to the Confederation of Southern States, stopping at every home to beg forgiveness for a dozen years of theft, rape, and murder."

We are on the brink of a great progressive evolution in this country. You can sense it in the desperation on the right to battle any perceived foible or alleged miscue of the left, yet try to scrape off the dog crap of a thousand worse insults. Each time they criticize Democrats or the left, they find themselves with four fingers pointing right back at themselves.

And not all the money in the world will reverse the tide. The people, long silenced by those who felt their positions gave them power over people, will no longer consent to be ruled rather than governed, as power truly rests with the people.

It's merely on loan because we don't have the time to live our lives and govern ourselves. The Democrats ought to remember that as well.

So Newt? Don't let the door hit you on the way out. And I'll be waiting for my apology.

Not Sure This Will Help, Newt...

...or that you should choose to remind them of it:

Gingrich cited the Iraq war, the failed federal response to Hurricane Katrina two years ago and the inability to control U.S. borders and illegal immigration as evidence of a need for a complete overhaul of the U.S. system of governing.

"Now that may or may not make the White House happy. But I think that's the whole point about making a clean break," Gingrich told a group of reporters over breakfast.

He added: "I believe for any Republican to win in 2008 they have to ... offer a dramatic, bold change. If we nominate somebody who has not done that, they get to be the nominee but there is very, very little likelihood that they can win."

Gingrich echoed the view of many political analysts who believe voters are looking for a big change in 2008 and that Democrats hold a natural advantage after eight years with Bush in the White House.

It behooves us, Newt, to point out that in fact, you're responsible for an awful lot of the corruption and partisan political maneuvering that Republicans have done for the past 16 years and, in point of fact, much of Bush's legacy can be traced to how you handcuffed the GOP in the 90s with the continuous pursuit of a neoconservative agenda of destruction at the expense of real progress in this country.

Take "The Contract With America," more appropriately called The Contract ON America. Although proposed as "governmental reform" in the run up to the 1994, when the Contract proposals were introduced in the House of Representatives, they tackled entitlement and tax programs.

One can assume that this dubious substitution was instituted because Gingrich knew damned well that proposing a tax cut on the heels of a very successful tax increase in 1993 would be rejected out of hand by voters in 1994, not to mention tackling the then-third rail of American politics, Social Security reform.

Partisan politics reared its ugly head long before he was even Speaker, you see.

Gingrich, like Bush, squandered a golden opportunity to bring a nation together to move forward and progress into a new milennium. Instead, he tried dragging us back into the dark ages of postwar Republicanism, and tried even to undo the advances made under Roosevelt, advances that are unquestionably the most important advances made in this nation. Period. Including the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Keep in mind that Gingrich's term as Speaker was so toxic that, in 1997, before the Lewinski scandal really heated up, some of his own soldiers attempted coup on his Speakership!

So on the one hand, for Gingrich to speak about a "clean break" from Bush is, well, like an armed robber advising us to lock OJ Simpson up.

On the other hand, he should know from where he speaks, being the mentor to all the hatred and anger from the right wing.

After all, these are not the words of a conciliatory man...