Newt Would Make a Great Show

On May 20, 2007, Tim Russert had a quirky segment on "Meet the Press." His guests were Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), who's running for president even though nobody knows it, and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who isn't running but everyone knows he really is. In the middle of the back and forth, Gingrich was in the midst of rattling off one mistake after another made by the Democrat Congress in particular and Democrat Party in general, with regard to Iraq and national security. Russert stepped in with what is normally the best weapon a journalist has against a typical politician on a rant: "But specifically, what would you do differently?"

Without missing a beat, Gingrich quickly rattled off an eight-sentence, 165-word, perfectly constructed paragraph detailing six specific presidential policy initiatives, dropping in along the way references to Iraqi force capacity, economic diplomacy, a naval blockade of Iran, biometrics and Abraham Lincoln.

Whatever else can be said of Newt Gingrich, he is not a typical politician............