Festering politico Newt Gingrich has one talent: rhetorical provocation. (All right, two, if you include "hair helmetage.") If you need an idea stripped down to its ugly, ugly core, Newt's your stripper. (Ew...)
In Newtworld -- as seen on Fox "News," of course -- Connecticut voters who prefer not to have Americans slaughtered for Bush's arrogant mistakes are "insurgents."
So if I understand Newt's new lexicon, an "insurgent" is someone who exercises their right to vote, who advocates peace and diplomacy, and who rejects a candidate who has refused to represent them. Sounds like my kind of insurgency! How do I sign up?
"Insurgent..." "Insurgent..." Rings a bell, that word. Aren't our troops ostensibly fighting "insurgents" somewhere? Quashing and repelling and playing whack-a-mole with an "insurgency?" Surely Newt wouldn't imply that the baddies in our war drama are simply people with different political opinions, using representative democracy to, you know, democratically elect representatives. Would he? Because I've seen The Iraq Show -- it's in reruns; has been for years -- and the insurgents in it seem less like "voters" and more like "explosive device improvisers."
Or, wait a second... Is Newt our new Paul Revere, warning us that the insurgents have left Iraq, landed in Connecticut, and are marching toward Greenwich to 'splode whatever Hummers they can find?
But there's more. Just when you thought Newt had spent all his rhetorical thrusting energy, he hammers home the money shot. (EW!) Here's the platinum-haired bombshell on Connecticut's no-mo-war Democrats (or possibly the insurgents; it's hard to tell): "[they want to say the Iraq conflict] is so hard, it is so frightening, it's so painful, can't we come home and hide?"
This hateful-but-quotable line says nothing about Connecticut Dems or any anti-war Americans. It's about the America Newt wants, i.e. the opposite of all those traits. One in which the Iraq debacle is "so easy, so inviting, so comforting, can't we just stay there forever, regardless of how many Americans, Iraqis, or ideals get snuffed?" "Come home and hide" is one way to look at peace, but you need a soulless, calculating politico's eyes to do it.
Thankfully, Newt's not running for anything. Yet. In 2008, however, having exiled himself for a decade -- long enough for even hard-core politix watchers to forget how arrogantly and evilly he acts when he has power -- look for him at the Bisquick Pancake Presidential Primary Flip-off (I love whoever invented that name) in New Hampshire, grinningly jostling a frying pan, sandwiched between Giuliani and Rice. With any luck, the American-style insurgents will have made their way to New Hampshire by then, and we can disappoint him once again.