No Newt is Good Newt

David Brooks laments how the Tea Party movement has corrupted poor Newt Gingrich,

The Tea Party style is beginning to replicate itself in parts of the conservative world. Dinesh D’Souza’s Forbes cover article, “How Obama Thinks,” contained the sort of untethered assertions that have become the lingua franca of this movement. Obama got his subversive radicalism from his father’s grave, D’Souza postulated: “He adopted his father’s position that capitalism and freedom are code words for economic plunder.” The fact that Newt Gingrich embraced this offensive theory is a sign of how severely the normal intellectual standards have been weakened.

Another version of this, from Jim Lindgren at the Volokh Conspiracy.

While the Democratic attack on Boehner may or may not work this year, contrary to some Republican commentary, such attacks CAN work. I remember 1995–96, when Dick Morris’s campaign on behalf of Bill Clinton against Newt Gingrich destroyed Gingrich’s credibility, an attack from which Gingrich has still not fully recovered.

Oh, right, poor little Newt - the "intellectual" star of the Republican Party who for some completely unexplainable reason can't stop himself from saying and doing anything that he believes will advance his political aspirations or line his pockets. (No small wonder Lindgren turned comments off for that post.)

Nobody has done a better job of damaging Newt's undeserved reputation as an "intellectual leader" than Newt.