Bob Wright says Gingrich "deserves to be remembered as one of America's most gifted harnessers of hatred":
I think viewing an anti-Romney holy war as the capstone of Gingrich's career gives short shrift to Newt's skills as a hatemonger. After all, Mitt Romney is only one person, and Gingrich has reason to be mad at him. The hallmark of truly vintage Gingrichian toxicity is the fomenting of hatred toward whole groups of people whom Gingrich has no personal reason to dislike. It isn't that he wishes these people ill; it's just that he would profit politically if they were hated more deeply by more people.
Take gay people. When Gingrich said that "there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us," I doubt he actually feared the coming tyranny of fascist homosexual atheists. But he knew there were voters so creeped out by homosexuality that they could be made to fear such a regime–at which point they would be indebted to the political leader who first alerted them to this peril.
Gingrich is a festering white-head of loathing. Which is why his smile looks so terrifying and false.
(Photo: Republican presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speaks to supporters after speaking at the Wakonda Club on December 30, 2011 in Des Moines, Iowa. By Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
The Dish 