VICE: 'Really? Newt Gingrich?'

Bad historian, worse novelist, wife-and-idea recycler and generally insufferable fatlord Newt Gingrich took the lead in the race for the Republican presidential nominee this weekend. Finding Newt in the lead in this horrific contest despite all the pragmatic assumptions about his chances and his sincerity is like overhearing someone start to tell a mortifyingly inappropriate joke at a cocktail party and then realizing that there is no punchline — someone actually means this.

Of course, Gingrich's surge comes on the same weekend that Mitt Romney was supposed to hit people with a gangbusters announcement that would reward them for spending 48 hours walking around with iPhones in front of their faces and frantically hitting REFRESH on social media. Naturally there was no announcement. At all. What can it possibly mean?

For more, click on the smilin' Newt and the Manson-eyed mantis below to be taken to Vice:


Also, last Friday, I anticipated that Mitt's big announcement would not be very big or even noticeable. It's a shame that I was right, but it does increase the utility of all the unreleased "major announcements" from Team Romney that I took the liberty of revealing on Twitter to tide us over until the day Romney decides to stop blowing it.

Play us out, Mitt:

• Vaccination Causes Mormonism.

• If we eliminate all capital gains taxes, you can put 2 dollars in a brown bag & they'll have sex & make a 3rd dollar.

• Now I have a machine gun. Ho, ho, ho.

• I met a boy wearing Vans, 501s & a dope Beastie t, nipple rings & new tattoos that claimed that he was OGT From '92.

• I signed a contract with the Marlins to be their starting catcher for 5 years. I'm taking my talents to South Beach.

• There are 12 other tribes of humanity out in space, and I know the way to find them. I'm also a robot. Let's roll!

• I never said I had an announcement. I said that, if I had an announcement, it should be made on a state-by-state basis.

• I have always been at war with Eastasia.