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You are here: Home / The End of Laughter and Soft Lies

The End of Laughter and Soft Lies

by @heymistermix.com|  March 28, 20128:28 am| 62 Comments

This post is in: Schadenfreude

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Newt is charging $50 for photos and firing staff. Adelson’s written his last check, and Callista won’t fly coach, so it’s about time for the credits to roll.

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Reader Interactions

62Comments

  1. 1.

    Gin & Tonic

    March 28, 2012 at 8:33 am

    I shed a quiet tear.

  2. 2.

    xian

    March 28, 2012 at 8:44 am

    will civilization survive?

  3. 3.

    debit

    March 28, 2012 at 8:49 am

    Wasn’t McCain down to flying coach at some point? I remember my boss at the time going to pick him up at the airport when he came to Minneapolis. I was sure he was done at that point, but I guess I was wrong and being out of campaign money was good news for John McCain.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    March 28, 2012 at 8:49 am

    He’s still got that credit line at Tiffany’s to draw on. Can they produce campaign ads?

  5. 5.

    Ash Can

    March 28, 2012 at 8:52 am

    Guess he’ll have to walk to Tampa.

  6. 6.

    SteveinSC

    March 28, 2012 at 8:52 am

    “From your wallet to Tiffany’s.” But, but, but, the Colony on the Moon. How will we ever get those people back down? And what of the enduring truths of de Tocqueville? The horror. “Qualis artifex pereo!”

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    March 28, 2012 at 8:52 am

    @debit: Yes, but that nadir happened the summer before the first primaries, giving him time to recover. In Newt’s case, a large swath of states have already voted, and there are only a couple of months to go before the bitter end. I fear this is the Twilight Of the Newt (cue the overwrought Wagnerian soundtrack…).

  8. 8.

    gorillagogo

    March 28, 2012 at 8:52 am

    Newt is charging $50 for photos and firing staff

    When I saw this in my RSS feed, I thought “I can fire somebody and get a photo for just fifty bucks?”

  9. 9.

    c u n d gulag

    March 28, 2012 at 8:57 am

    He’s charging the $50 to help cover the cost of the wide-angle lens needed to photograph him.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    March 28, 2012 at 9:02 am

    Guess that’s the post-modern equivalent of biting the heads off chickens since carnival sideshows have gone the way of the dodo.

    Next, maybe for $100 maybe he’ll burn a Saul Alinsky tome on camera while whistling Dixie?

  11. 11.

    debit

    March 28, 2012 at 9:02 am

    @dmsilev: Ah, okay. I (obviously) didn’t remember the timeline.

  12. 12.

    Jay in Oregon

    March 28, 2012 at 9:02 am

    @debit:

    I guess I was wrong and being out of campaign money was good news for John McCain.

    He’s had a pretty good run on the Sunday talk shows as the Villagers’ President-in-Exile.

  13. 13.

    beltane

    March 28, 2012 at 9:07 am

    @Ash Can: The exercise will be good for him. Or maybe he can devise some kind of hot-air powered form of transportation to carry him to Tampa.

  14. 14.

    Tone In DC

    March 28, 2012 at 9:08 am

    @c u n d gulag:

    LULz.

    With Newt’s girth, folks on that moon colony may be able to see him on earth with the naked eye.

  15. 15.

    JGabriel

    March 28, 2012 at 9:08 am

    Newt ran as a historian, and soon his campaign will be history.
    __
    Someday another historian will write Newt’s biography, and that historian will be rich, rich I tell you, when that biography ends up being the best-selling humor book for six months straight.
    __
    .

  16. 16.

    Shandi Hade

    March 28, 2012 at 9:10 am

    I was hoping someone here could be able to support me , we just moved here and rented a place that requires the carpets cleaned does any one know of a enterprise that has as good as costs on carpet cleaning as Alpha Steam Cleaners and Carpet Cleaning 3000 windy hill rd, marietta, GA 30006 (770) 374-7915

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    March 28, 2012 at 9:13 am

    Also, as Gingrich is collecting credit card info from suckers — er, um, fans — who buy into this claptrap, it shouldn’t be too long after he formally ascends — er, um, drops out — that the database is reported compromised and the credit card numbers filched.

  18. 18.

    JGabriel

    March 28, 2012 at 9:14 am

    mistermix @ top:

    Newt is charging $50 for photos …

    __
    Awesome. What does he charge for weddings?
    __
    .

  19. 19.

    rlrr

    March 28, 2012 at 9:16 am

    Who is going to constantly remind us of the monstrous Saul Alinsky’s influence on Obama?

  20. 20.

    bemused

    March 28, 2012 at 9:17 am

    I won’t miss Newt but there were moments of hilarity. The sight of a campaign staffer whose job was to dress in an elephant costume to help hawk Callista’s book was priceless.

  21. 21.

    rlrr

    March 28, 2012 at 9:21 am

    @JGabriel:

    Awesome. What does he charge for weddings?

    There’s an obvious setup for a joke…

  22. 22.

    Raven

    March 28, 2012 at 9:22 am

    @JGabriel: He’s got plenty of practice!

  23. 23.

    Ash Can

    March 28, 2012 at 9:24 am

    @beltane: Now you’ve given me the picture in my mind of Callista standing next to a highway, holding a rope in one hand, the end of which is tethered to a rotund, floating Newt, and a sign in the other reading “TAMPA OR BUST.” And a kid in the back of a passing station wagon pointing at them and yelling “Look! Clowns!”

  24. 24.

    Raven

    March 28, 2012 at 9:24 am

    I know ya’ll hate huff post but this headline is a killer!

    Arlen Specter: ‘Mitt Romney Has Changed Positions More Often Than A Pornographic Movie Queen’

  25. 25.

    quannlace

    March 28, 2012 at 9:25 am

    Awwwww. It’s so hard choosing who to play the tiniest violin for, these days.
    But Newt is still spewing the nonsense (and even he sounds like he’s just going thru the motions) that he WILL be the Republican nominee and he’s the best to debate Obama.
    Please.
    That would be the easiest debate for Prez. Obama. He’d only need two phrases thru the entire thing.
    “That’s an outright lie.” And.
    “Excuse me, Mr. Gingrich, but are you nuts?”

  26. 26.

    Mark S.

    March 28, 2012 at 9:25 am

    Rand Paul:

    We as a society need to glorify those who make a profit

    I sometimes wonder if these people take their worship of money a little too far.

  27. 27.

    Marcellus Shale, Public Dick

    March 28, 2012 at 9:25 am

    no, no, the firing people is a genius plan to appeal to republican undecideds. the charging of 50 bucks a picture is good campaigning, everybody who’s ever sold anything, would love a list of people who would pay 50 bucks to be photographed with newt gingrich.

    either that or the gop race for the nomination has become cancerous.

    so who here is from out of town?

  28. 28.

    4tehlulz

    March 28, 2012 at 9:26 am

    It looks like Ricky has won the prime-time speech primary.

    I guarantee that it will do more for Obama than Buchanan’s ’92 speech did for Clinton.

  29. 29.

    Face

    March 28, 2012 at 9:30 am

    And we never got to see his Lincoln Douglas debate.

  30. 30.

    Dr. Loveless

    March 28, 2012 at 9:32 am

    Look for him in the autograph booths at Comic-Con, right next to Elvira, Dirk Benedict, and the guy who played “Klingon #3” in the Star Trek episode, “The Trouble with Tribbles.”

  31. 31.

    Raven

    March 28, 2012 at 9:34 am

    @Dr. Loveless: He’ll be on the Big Bang Theory next!

  32. 32.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    March 28, 2012 at 9:35 am

    Well Newt’s photo-grift was supposed to be in northern Delaware, so I suppose you could set up a photo-op with him and Christ.O’Dumbbell.

    Why, it would be like a family reunion, O’Dumbbell being the daughter of a Bozo-clone and everything.

  33. 33.

    peach flavored shampoo

    March 28, 2012 at 9:36 am

    A Pornographic Movie Queen’

    This is funny b/c this is EXACTLY how I picture a septagenerian (octo?) refering to a porn star.

    Old people are hilarious.

  34. 34.

    Raven

    March 28, 2012 at 9:39 am

    @peach flavored shampoo: Go to the post and read the Dale Bumpers joke!

  35. 35.

    jibeaux

    March 28, 2012 at 9:39 am

    @peach flavored shampoo: Only way it could’ve been funnier would be “pornographic cinema queen.”

    As for Newt, I want to know if he’d take $75 to bounce a quarter off Callista’s hair.

  36. 36.

    RossInDetroit

    March 28, 2012 at 9:39 am

    This is (slightly) bad for Mitt. The more NotMitts there are splitting the MotMitt vote the stronger Mitt looks. With Newt losing his attractive power, Rih gets more votes and it looks like Mitt has a real challenger (he doesn’t).
    I’ll miss The Professor. He added a sort of nutty vitality to the proceedings.

  37. 37.

    Raven

    March 28, 2012 at 9:42 am

    @jibeaux: What about the golf ball and 100 yards of garden hose?

  38. 38.

    Tone In DC

    March 28, 2012 at 9:45 am

    @jibeaux:

    I am extremely wary of Callista’s hair. I think I may have spotted it in an old Kurt Russell movie.

  39. 39.

    scuffletuffle

    March 28, 2012 at 9:46 am

    The only way this could get better is if Callista sues him for divorce…

  40. 40.

    gocart mozart

    March 28, 2012 at 9:46 am

    “Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
    Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
    Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
    Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,–
    For a charm of powerful trouble,
    Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”

    I was going to change some of the words to spoof it, but it seems perfectly apt as is.

  41. 41.

    dedc79

    March 28, 2012 at 9:51 am

    I hear that providing “historian services” can be quite lucrative….

  42. 42.

    rlrr

    March 28, 2012 at 9:53 am

    @RossInDetroit:

    I wonder if Callista and Mitt occasionally run into each other at the android service center. If so, I bet it can be awkward…

  43. 43.

    gocart mozart

    March 28, 2012 at 9:54 am

    How much does he charge to not have your photo taken with him?

  44. 44.

    Amir Khalid

    March 28, 2012 at 9:55 am

    It will be a sad moment when Noot gets out of the Clown Car. He had an absolutely brilliant early 2011 with the most wacked-out Republican campaign. But I wonder, just how is Ron Paul staying in? As a perennial fringe candidate, he’s never had a sugar daddy like Noot, or Establishment connections like Mitt? How are his young libertarian followers keeping him in the game without big money?

  45. 45.

    gocart mozart

    March 28, 2012 at 9:56 am

    @rlrr:
    Speaking of which, when is someone going to ask Mitt to produce the original copy of his long form owners’ manual?

  46. 46.

    SteveinSC

    March 28, 2012 at 10:06 am

    @peach flavored shampoo: “Porongraphic Movie Queen.” Does that mean a girl or a guy? Also if Specter actually ever saw a porn movie, he’d realize the “Pornographic Movie Queens” spend too much time in one position. Causes one to lose interest, if you know what I mean.

  47. 47.

    redshirt

    March 28, 2012 at 10:07 am

    @gocart mozart: Not available in print any longer. Download only. Sorry though, the site is having technical issues and will be back online shortly.

  48. 48.

    RossInDetroit

    March 28, 2012 at 10:31 am

    @gocart mozart:

    I’d pay real money for a copy of the logical dataflow diagrams of Mittbot’s software. Gotta be a lot of unresolvable loops in there.

  49. 49.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    March 28, 2012 at 10:36 am

    I wouldn’t count him out just yet. None of the clown car bunch has actually ended their campaign, have they? Any one of them is ready to reconstitute after their dry spell, just add a few drops of wingnut tears or tyrants’ blood or something.

    Basically, none of these goobers will EVER SHUT UP.

  50. 50.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    March 28, 2012 at 10:36 am

    @RossInDetroit: Interesting thought, but I’m not expecting anything more complex than ELIZA.

  51. 51.

    RossInDetroit

    March 28, 2012 at 10:42 am

    Ron Paul seems to be running his operation on a shoestring. Considering he has 6% – 10% of the vote where he runs he certainly has enough support in small donations to keep the show on the road. Not to win anything. Not by several orders of magnitude and not in this dimension of reality, but he’s out there making speeches and pressing the flesh. Which seems to be the point of the exercise, and why not?

  52. 52.

    RossInDetroit

    March 28, 2012 at 10:45 am

    @Xecky Gilchrist:

    I was thinking PASCAL, with a defective stack that keeps his reentrant routines from terminating.

    Or maybe if you popped his panel there’d just be a Steampunk Etch-A-Sketch with an Arduino drawing dollar signs over and over.

  53. 53.

    JGabriel

    March 28, 2012 at 11:18 am

    @Xecky Gilchrist:

    Interesting thought, but I’m not expecting anything more complex than ELIZA.

    Well, that can be written in LISP.

    .

  54. 54.

    Jay in Oregon

    March 28, 2012 at 11:26 am

    @Face:
    Who is Lincoln Douglas and why does Newt want to debate him?

    /rimshot

  55. 55.

    Jay in Oregon

    March 28, 2012 at 11:31 am

    @RossInDetroit:

    I remember reading an article, around the 2000 election time period, about Harry Browne (the Libertarian candidate) and Ralph Nader and third-party candidates in general. One part that stood out to me was something to the effect of “Browne saw Nader’s campaign as proof that there’s a lot of money to be made as the head of a minority party.”

    Ron Paul doesn’t need to win; as long as he keeps placing he can keep the money flowing in. Sarah Palin should take notes…

  56. 56.

    RossInDetroit

    March 28, 2012 at 11:31 am

    Newt is an active process that generates random stuff with a lot of energy. Callista is a feedback network that normalizes his output toward the maximization of cash.

  57. 57.

    Dave

    March 28, 2012 at 11:40 am

    @dedc79:

    I hear that providing “historian services” can be quite lucrative….

    Callista reminds of the related moneymaker: “servicing historians”.

    Here’s a free gallon of brain bleach, it’s the least I can do.

  58. 58.

    LanceThruster

    March 28, 2012 at 11:43 am

    Keep runnin’, Newt. Leave Callista at home. How good of a wingman could she be? You’ll do better flying solo.

  59. 59.

    Uncle Cosmo

    March 28, 2012 at 1:17 pm

    @JGabriel: And the obvious title for said tome would be “N Weddings & A Political Funeral”…N=3 at the moment but you wonder how long the current “I of Newt” will stick around after that Tiffany LOC dries up like a river in Oz…

  60. 60.

    shortstop

    March 28, 2012 at 1:33 pm

    @Raven: I was unaware that Specter is now working as a standup comedian. Now that I am aware, I can’t seem to put together a coherent response.
    __
    @RossInDetroit: Best thing I’ve heard all week.

  61. 61.

    priscianusjr

    March 29, 2012 at 12:42 am

    @RossInDetroit: but he’s out there making speeches and pressing the flesh. Which seems to be the point of the exercise, and why not?

    But it doesn’t seem to have been the point of Newt’s exercise. By the way, what was the point? Ask Shelly Adelson what he shelled out $16 1/2 million for.

  62. 62.

    bjacques

    March 29, 2012 at 2:47 am

    Truly a sad day. One must have the heart of stone not to collapse into tears…of laughter!

    And while we’re on the theme of androids…

    The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long – and you have burned so very, very brightly, Newt.

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