Catch of the Day

Conor Friedersdorf has been watching the (wonderful) C-SPAN archives, and stumbled into a great one.

The part that give me the biggest kick is when Newt Gingrich, a guest at the meeting, lists what he regards as the GOP's values and behaviors. "I though I'd list three to be a little bit controversial," he said. "Free enterprise -- clearly our solution to jobs. Anti-communism -- in a sense, that's an extension of the Lincoln tradition of being in favor of freedom. And third, we're afraid of the news media."
He added, "Those are real characteristics of our party."
And so they remain.

Beautiful.

Of course, it's also not exactly hard to go back through Newt's career and find all sorts of nonsense, including various versions of the Three Values of Civilization or the Five Key Points to American Virtue or the Six Visions of a Better World or whatever he's calling it this week. Note: those are all made up ones. I think. Each of them comes with various grandiose claims and assertions and whatnot, mostly inconsistent with the last version. Oh well; it's good fun while it lasts, and really he's not going to be the nominee. Meanwhile, if you want some fun Newt links, try a very nice one by Joe Conason, and another excellent one by Linda Killian.

Mostly, though, just listen to the snake oil salesman himself, as Friedersdorf did.

Great catch!