Gingrich No Longer Taking Media Questions, Mauling Faulkner Quotes Instead

Stripped of any media handlers, Newt Gingrich’s new press relations strategy is to stand silently and stare at the press when they corner him and shout questions at him. Come on, Newt, at least make jokes. But no, Newt is the saddest marshmallow clown alive, and he will instead offer tragic incoherent literary perspectives about himself and his candidacy during policy speeches, and then tell the press to go cover that. Very well, Newt! Speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Newt ventured a Faulknerian perspective on his flagging candidacy:

[Gingrich] said, “As someone who has been in public life for nearly 40 years, I know full well the rigors of campaigning for public office. In fact, I’ve had some recent reminders. If I could paraphrase Faulker’s Nobel Prize speech: I will endure the challenges. I will carry the message of American renewal to every part of this great land, no matter what it takes. And with the help of every American who wants to change Washington, we will prevail.”

That is exactly what Faulkner was discussing in his speech about the importance of poetry in preserving human civilization. He was saying that Newt Gingrich will rise from the ashes of his self-implosion to change the cynical political system he helped create.

Here is the section from Faulkner’s Nobel speech that Gingrich mauled:

I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

Yes, there are a lot of things in there about traveling the country alone blathering into the wind after all your friends have deserted you, to save humanity. [ABC News]