Who Will Not Become President: Newt Gingrich

A look at another person wasting their time.

One day several years ago I was listening to Imus in the Morning while on the way to work. It was during the era of Bush the Younger. Imus was interviewing MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and, as usual, Matthews was hyperventilating about Bush and Iraq. Matthews said that he was tired of all of these MBA executive type Presidents. He said that we need a President that was a history major.

As you can imagine, I almost ran off the road because I majored in history in college. (It led to a great job unloading history trucks!) I could never run for President because I have the leadership skills of a cocker spaniel.

There are lot of things I’m not too crazy about the public knowing about my life, and that includes my birth in Kenya. (That’s a joke, son.) I'm pretty sure most of the articles written about me, based on interviews with my family and friends would have the phrase, “and then he pooped in his pants” in it. I would spend a lot of time explaining the story was about when I was 18 months old and then they would interview another friend who would say, “18 months? He means 18 years old. He’s not too good in math.”

After I got the Manis For America nightmare out of my head, I realized who meets Matthews' qualifications: Newt Gingrich.

A quick lesson for those of you that may not know. Newt Gingrich is the former Speaker of The House of Representatives during the Clinton Years. He engineered the almost unthinkable (at that time) take over of the House by Republicans after 40 years of domination by the Democrats in 1994.

Gingrich has a PhD in History from Tulane University and once taught history at West Georgia College (now The State University of West Georgia). He has written a ton, literally, of books. He possesses one of the biggest heads for holding one of the biggest brains in public life.

Gingrich has two problems: 1) Nobody likes him and 2) Everybody hates him. Plus he is, like our last subject, Haley Barbour, kind of chunky.

Some of this is not Gingrich’s fault. He came to power in the Clinton era, when things just didn’t seem to be all that bad. If Bill Clinton’s Presidency were a magazine, it would be Letters to Penthouse. ["As I, President Bill Clinton walked into the room, I could tell this was going to be a night I re-elected my love. Yeah, come on."] If memory serves me correctly, we spent a lot of time in the 90’s learning things about the President that never came up in the debates, if you know what I mean.

Clinton seemed like everyone’s Frat brother back then, while Gingrich seemed to act like this guy who would remind you of his SAT score at lunch, in case you forgot about his SAT score from the last time you got stuck at the same table with him.

Finally, Clinton was apparently caught in an affair with a pleasingly plump intern and Gingrich started Impeachment proceedings. Then it came out that Gingrich was getting a little something-something on the side and Gingrich resigned from the house and we were spared the Presidency of Al Gore, which obviously God had never intended.

In the past 12 or so years, Gingrich has married his girlfriend, converted to Catholicism, and deals as honestly as a cad can about his sordid past. He also, in the past few years, has offered some very specific “ideas” about solving the problems of the country, world, universe, subdivision, etc.

Still, people want to like their President and they just don’t like Gingrich. He is so 90’s and I have a feeling the current GOP just doesn’t want go back to the future.