Check out Bob Wenzel’s brief but very sharp analysis of Newt Gingrich’s weasel platform that avoids discussing spending cuts on the grounds that first we have to get things moving again, etc.  All I would add to Bob’s analysis is what I wrote about Gingrich in Rollback: his record is horrendous.  Of course, the media portrays him as some kind of strict free-marketeer, since that’s the media’s job: define the range of opinion in such a way as to exclude genuine friends of freedom.  For if you are to the right of Newt Gingrich — and, citizen, we have already told you Newt is as free market as they come! — you must be some kind of “extremist”!  In fact, you probably don’t exist.