I have felt, since the early 1990s, the principal reason we have so much overt, visceral . . . . . [View all]

[Stinky The Clown]

. . . . . hatred between the parties, and particularly by repubicans for liberals of any stripe, is embodied in one man's temperament. And that one man is Newton Leroy Gingrich. As Minority Whip and then Speaker, he was at the forefront of the bloodletting that was the Contract on America. He created the climate in which an American president was called a "scumbag" and that remark was cheered by repubican electees. He shut the government down and led the march to impeach a president for little more than the political equivalent of a temper tantrum.

No other man has done more to raise the temperature and lower the collegiality within the legislative branch than this man.

I despised him then and I despise him even more today.

I wish him a long life followed by a funeral attended by no one.