Newt for President!

One of the funniest bumper stickers I ever saw was actually a joke at Richard Nixon's expense. It was a play on his famous years-long campaign to regain respectability after resigning the presidency in shame. It read: "He's tanned. He's rested. He's ready. Nixon in '88"

The former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, is apparently taking a page from the Nixon playbook. Only he's going further, sending up trial balloons about actually running for the White House. I'm only glad my mouth wasn't full of drink or food when I came across this Washington Post report a few moments ago, because I would have either ejected it or choked from laughing so hard. I can just see the opposition's 30-second spots. A look back at Newt's ex-wife, with the voice-over explaining how her one-time family values husband divorced her to take up with his young assistant while she was on the verge of death from cancer. Then again, I suppose the Republicans needed some comic relief on the day that Gingrich's successor, Tom Delay, formally stepped down (but not before giving earnest interviews to the TV networks about how proud he was of the K Street Project).