When You Look Upon

the naked face of the GOP, it isn't hard to understand why a disgraced, unrepentant, twice-divorced, serial-adulterer who hasn't held elected office for over a decade is still treated as the Genius Elder Stateman of the party when he slings around outlandishly inflammatory lies like this:

Gingrich: Obama is 'most radical president ever'
By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press Writer Ron Fournier, Associated Press Writer Thu Apr 8, 10:47 pm ET

NEW ORLEANS – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a potential presidential candidate in 2012, called Barack Obama on Thursday "the most radical president in American history" who oversees a "secular, socialist machine."

Gingrich reminded conservative activists why he was one of the nation's most polarizing leaders in the 1990s, opening the Southern Republican Leadership Conference with a biting assessment of Obama's policies.

"The most radical president in American history has now thrown down the gauntlet to the American people: 'I run a machine. I own Washington and there's nothing you can do about it,'" Gingrich said. He urged his fellow Republicans to stop what he called Obama's "secular, socialist machine."

Highly charged words, for sure. But that's standard fare at the three-day GOP gathering that is drawing several presidential hopefuls. Friday's headliner is former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
...

What is slightly more mysterious is the exact size and shape of the Secret Leverage that this gassy farce of a human being possesses that compels the media

to continue to treat him with such reflexively fawning deference.

But they do.

They were doing it a year ago...

Who cares what Newt Gingrich thinks?
May 19, 2009 8:24 am ET

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And as often happens when I read breaking, this-is-what-Newt-said dispatches, I couldn't help thinking, "Who cares what Newt Gingrich thinks?" And I don't mean that in the partisan sense. I mean it in the journalistic sense: How do Gingrich's daily pronouncements about the fundamental dishonesty of Democrats (Newt's favorite phrase) translate into news? Why does the press, 10 years after Gingrich was forced out of office, still treat his every partisan utterance as a newsworthy occurrence? In other words, why does the press still treat him like he's speaker of the House?

It's unprecedented.

If you don't think the press' treatment of Gingrich is bizarre, then please point out the prominent Democrat who was driven from office during the 1990s, suffers from dreadful public approval numbers, has no actual base of political support, hasn't been elected to office in more than a decade, hasn't had his hands on the levers of powers since before the iPod was invented, and yet is treated like a Beltway big shot. Who is the wildly partisan '90s Democrat who spits out falsehoods with stunning regularity, wallows in sophomoric name-calling, and yet the press corps obediently follows around, making sure to report his or her every utterance as news?

...

And they'll be doing it a year from now.

Y'know...it's almost like there is some sort of a club.

And you're not in it.