Newt's intellectual firepower

In an effort to stand out from the Republican pack, imaginary president Newt Gingrich spoke to members of the American Enterprise Institute this week, making an intentional effort to hurt the feelings of George W Bush by criticizing his half-assed attempt to rid the planet of malevolence. "I believe he was right but in fact could not operationalize what he said. That is, there was an Axis of Evil, Iran, Iraq, North Korea. Well we’re one out of three," said the pugnacious windbag, ignoring the fact that the U.S. is still bogged down in fighting one of the countries that wasn't even evil enough to make the list. "Why is it that the other two parts of the Axis of Evil are still visibly, cheerfully making nuclear weapons?" he continued, really rubbing it in before delivering the coup de grace. "It’s because we’ve stood at brink, looked over and thought, 'Too big a problem'." Ignoring the gasping crowd and not knowing when to leave well enough alone, Gingrich proceeded to kick the wounded former president while he was down by implicitly contrasting Bush with the most hated of all Democratic Commanders in Chief. "If Franklin Roosevelt had done that in '41, either the Japanese or the Germans would have won. The U.S. has to over-match the problem. That’s what Americans are all about." The only thing left unspoken was the question 'Why does George Bush hate America?" Stung by the criticism but unable to twitter, Bush was forced to respond by telephone but failed when he could not find the phone number for the typist at Politico. Undeterred, he hopped onto his bike and pedaled the eleven miles to the headquarters of the Dallas Morning News, where he gave an exclusive interview to Jimmy Rodriguez, who was manning the night desk. "It was a pretty exciting event for my first week here," reported Rodriguez. "The president was mad, very mad. I didn't get the name of the individual that he was angry with, but it probably wasn't important since Mr Bush said he had been kicked out of office a long time ago, before he was ever president... That is a long time ago. I'm only twenty-two, so I was only in the fifth grade back then. Anyway, apparently the person he was angry with was a nincompoop. Is that a real word?" Reaction was swift from Gingrich's potential 2012 rivals. Mitt Romney told the Boston Globe that the former Speaker's comments were an example of fiscal recklessness, saying that further tax cuts "might be impossible if we're embroiled in a third world war". Mike Huckabee quipped on his weekend FOX News show that "I thought I was as eager for the rapture as anyone running, but I guess I was mistaken". Most damning of all was Sarah Palin's tweet, "And they say I'm the intellectual lightweight of this group. LOL."