Newt Gingrich Thinks He is King of the Friggin' World

A few days after declaring himself the Republican nominee for president (despite, you know, not one single vote being cast yet), Newt Gingrich has doubled down on his oversized ego. This time, the portly presidential pretender pontificated on assassinating dictators.

Gingrich said Wednesday that if he were president, he would unilaterally replace Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because he is running a "bad dictatorship." The thrice-married former House speaker was asked to offer a "30-second" solution for Syria, where anti-government protesters have been dealt with harshly and violently. Gingrich, who fancies himself king of the world, said, "I can give you a three-second answer. Replace Assad. I mean Assad is our enemy. He is an ally of Iran. It is a bad dictatorship. It is to our interest to get rid of dictators of this kind." Are there good dictatorships? You know, ones in which the leader would not be deposed by American CIA/army/special ops forces? (Other than, of course, the dictatorship that Gingrich hopes to install here in America — assuming he runs the country as poorly and unwisely as he ran the House of Representatives.) You think the comparison is unfair? Gingrich had an actual coup d'état against him, and he later resigned to live the life of a former Banana Republic dictator. He had an army of loyalists and he ruled with an iron fist. He took on mistresses like he was a mafioso. He also took on

donations from any and all takers, before finally resigning in disgrace amid a flurry of ethics charges. A normal man in such a circumstance would be glad he's around and still alive. His first wife ought to have killed him for leaving her mid-cancer-treatment for his mistress. That mistress became wife #2, and she almost certainly should have taken him on a Fredo Fishing Cruise right around the time he started playing "Staff Meets Staffer" with another mistress, this time a Congressional aide (who became yet another wife). Yet here he is, waving his bravado around like he's Eva Peron without Rex Ryan's shoe fetish. Of course Gingrich would argue that he had the right to remove another country's leader, with or without their permission; he's been flipping wives since the late 70s. Why shouldn't he feel empowered to help Syria do the same? Gingrich did not say how he would remove Assad, but it's pretty obvious he wouldn't just waltz over and ask Assad to step down. Clearly he means some sort of military action against Syria. Naturally, Gingrich is another Republican who is a big talker on wars but who, when faced with the prospect of actually fighting in one, ran squealing like a pig for any and all deferments. He even took a family deferment, which wouldn't be so funny if he actually took any of his familial or marriage responsibilities seriously. He does at least acknowledge that there would be consequences to doing something as illegal and stupid as removing another country's leader. "Now that means you have consequences and have to be much better at managing the consequences than this administration has been," he said on the Don Wade & Roma radio show. "But I think none the less getting rid of Assad will lead to a better future than keeping him there." Ah, yes. King Gingrich says it will be a better world without Assad, and that alone justifies removing Assad. It's good to know we're not only the Global Police and the Global Army, we're also the Global Decision Makers. We get to decide who lives, who dies, who rules and who is deposed. Who knows — maybe Gingrich doesn't mean violence for Assad. Maybe he'll just dip into that million dollar Blingrich Tiffany's fund and buy the dictator something really nice to go away. I wish we could do the same for the man whose main contribution to these debates is to make Bill Clinton look like a doting husband and family man.