It has long been joked that the shortest books in the world are The Great Chefs of Ireland and Italian War Heroes, but The Humility of Newt Gingrich would surely be shorter. The Romney campaign has put out an amusing list of some of Newt’s more grandiose pronouncements about himself.
Newt, you see, is a “transformational figure” and a “revolutionary” in the process of “shift[ing] the entire planet.” He started “talking about saving civilization” in 1958. And he’s compared himself to, among others, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Henry Clay, Charles De Gaulle, Pericles, Thomas Edison and Moses.
The whole thing is really quite funny to read. If he gets elected, they would have to build a new wing at the White House to hold his ego. He’s a poster boy for narcissism.
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Ramel
January 25, 2012 at 9:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Unless it was written by the Newt himself…
Phillip IV
January 25, 2012 at 9:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, he can appear humble when it suits him, for example when he said to James Dobson:
That’s crazy humble, isn’t it? I mean, in reality there were actually only two such times in his life: The 20th century, and the 21st.
Mr Ed
January 25, 2012 at 9:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
newt is either a comic book villain or a politician willing to do something about global warming.
matty1
January 25, 2012 at 9:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Newt Gingrich was apparently born in 1943*, which means he started talking about saving civilization at 15. Why did’t his parents or teachers talk him out of this?
*Although he claims to have been present for creation since God needed someone smarter to talk him through it.
Artor
January 25, 2012 at 9:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Little known fact; Newticle’s ghastly pompadour is actually pretty thin. It’s his swollen head that makes his hair look so big.
Didaktylos
January 25, 2012 at 9:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I dunno – I think “The Humility of Newt Gingrich” has the potential to be the most verbose work of fiction of all time …
ArtK
January 25, 2012 at 10:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A legend in his own mind.
Stevarious
January 25, 2012 at 10:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Humility? Of course! Obviously he doesn’t suffer from any undue pride… that would be a flaw!
Mr Ed
January 25, 2012 at 10:11 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
#5
Do I sense a Newt internet meme similar to the tired Chuck Norris one.
Michael Heath
January 25, 2012 at 10:27 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Imrryr, a regular commenter in Ed’s blog had a winner about Newt several months ago. Riffing off of Newt Gingrich’s dishonest and insincere “repentence” for being a serial adulterer and abandoner of spouses when they most needed their significant other, Imrryr states:
lordshipmayhem
January 25, 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Now to fall short of an imaginary being’s standards, that’s one Epic Fail.
JoeKaistoe
January 25, 2012 at 10:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@9
“If Newt Gingrich ever revealed his true greatness, he would instantly be elected president, regardless of whether it is an election year. Only his unsurpassed humility keeps him from doing this.”
We came up with my favourite Chuck Norris joke recently, when watching an infomercial on the Total Gym.
“Chuck Norris only knows 4 major muscle groups.”
dingojack
January 25, 2012 at 11:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Newtie memes could be something like these.
Dingo
cp3honingcomplex
January 25, 2012 at 11:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Lol and let’s not forget that bizarre press release from his campaign over the summer, about how the “literati sent out their minions” to attack Gingrich.
“But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.”
Azkyroth
January 25, 2012 at 12:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Weird; I have an Irish cookbook with some decent recipes in it. O.o Of course, most of them are full of flesh…
thelatinone
January 25, 2012 at 1:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@cp3honingcomplex
I still laugh when I remember William Shatner’s recitation of that letter…
Reginald Selkirk
January 25, 2012 at 1:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Obama: I want you to go in and ki- er, neutralize Osama bin Laden.
Seal Team 6: No problem, SIR!
Obama: I want you to go in and rescue hostages from Somali pirates – in Somalia.
Seal Team 6: Sir yes Sir!
Obama: I want you to go in and find New Gingrich’s humility.
Seal Team 6: Sir, some things are just not possible.
lpetrich
January 25, 2012 at 1:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’d posted in an earlier thread about how in his childhood Newt Gingrich had liked Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy and how he now thinks of himself as a present-day Hari Seldon. In the Trilogy, Hari Seldon worked out that the Galactic Empire would someday fall and he worked out a plan for rebuilding civilization: the Foundation outposts. Newt Gingrich’s version of the Foundations are organizations that he founded like GOPAC.
Source: Newt Gingrich the Galactic Historian | History News Network
Marcus Ranum
January 25, 2012 at 3:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Italian war heroes – I’ll take the victor at Alesia for $100, Bob…
MikeMa
January 25, 2012 at 3:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Marcus,
Caesar was good for more than Alesia but that was an impressive win over staggering odds. In more modern encounters the joke I always remember has the punchline, “Adjutant, bring me my brown pants.”
Scott Hanley
January 25, 2012 at 4:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Gingrich will get a strong bit part in historical studies of the Clinton presidency, but other than that — I can’t see any reason to even mention him in a US history textbook. None at all. Not even remotely as significant as Rush Limbaugh.
Reginald Selkirk
January 25, 2012 at 5:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He led congressional Republicans in a shutdown of the federal government in a Tea Party prequel.
ambulocetacean
January 25, 2012 at 5:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Charles de Gaulle? Sounds a bit, you know, French…
The Newt memes don’t really seem to have taken off yet.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/newt-gingrich/photos
exdrone
January 25, 2012 at 8:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Donald Trump not moderating that one debate is a missed opportunity, then, for an ego-a-ego match against Newt. That Mixed Mental Arts match would have sorted out who the saviour of civilization really is.
lpetrich
January 25, 2012 at 9:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Donald Trump? I’ll give him credit for not being as deliberately divisive as Newt Gingrich has been. It’s NG who wrote Language: A Key Mechanism of Control back in the 1990′s, giving a list of “good” words for the Republican Party and “bad” words for the Democratic Party.
Rip Steakface
January 26, 2012 at 12:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A damn shame that he didn’t continue reading more Asimov. Maybe he wouldn’t believe he’s on a mission from god.