Proof of God's Existence, coming -- we pray -- Oct. 21

As I write this, we have only ascendant signs of an activist god in heaven, as reflected in Newt's pondering of a presidential run. But if, by Oct. 21, he has raised $30 million in pledges, then he will in fact run, says he, and we'll finally have that long-sought confirmation of a Divine presence and His direct intervention in human affairs.

Oh Lord, if You're there and listening, I beseech Thee: Please, God, let the phone banks crank and the cash whirl. Please, God, instruct Newt's minions to say, simply, "Yes, I shall give." Please, God, in the name of Your Heaven and our secular hell, see that Newt runs.

If You've been following the current crop of presidential weeds, Lord, You know why I ask. Things here are bleak. If we suffer one more "debate," one more 90-minute collection of focus-grouped non-answers and carefully threaded evasions, we're sure to go mad. And yet, we've another year of this bland, factory-line crappola.

Newt could change all that, in a blessed Georgia minute. In no time at all he would "fundamentally transform" this "grotesque" system of presidential dating, and go right on fundamentally transforming other national grotesqueries, one grotesquery fundamentally transformed after another. We'd never have to wonder where Newt stood. He's for transforming the grotesque, fundamentally. Just listen to him. He'll tell you.

The official "maybe" for Newt's official entry is scheduled for this Monday; zero hour, fifteen-hundred thirty. That's when J. Randolph Evans, "a longtime advisor," "will hold a press briefing ... in Atlanta to describe plans for what Gingrich aides are calling a 'feasibility assessment.'" Others might call such a thing, "calculating the odds." But that would be grotesque -- fundamentally grotesque, and in need of transformation; fundamental transformation.

Aides have gussied it up -- this "calculating the odds" thing -- most likely because they've spent so much time around Newt. But the gussying betrays Newt's famous observation that he's "not a natural leader. I'm too intellectual; I'm too abstract; I think too much." For heaven's sake, Newt, you already have them talking like you. What other proof of natural leadership do you --we -- need?

If all goes well -- that is, should 30 million in pledges drop like manna from heaven -- the invasion is set for Oct. 21. The challenge then is what Newt has portrayed in epic, even biblical proportions. "He thinks Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) will be the Democratic nominee, and he said the Republican nominee has only about a 20 percent chance of winning." Grotesque odds, you say? Did David quiver before Goliath? Nay, he laughed at the godless giant's seismic blows.

With a slingshot. And that, as far as I can tell, is all that Newt has up his sleeve -- mere slingshots.

Newt, I took a look at your Web site, American Solutions for Winning the Future. And I have to tell you, David, you've got to come up with something better than this. Your "solutions" so far are a curious mixture ranging from simplistic gobbledygook to political impossibilities to downright yawners. There's the stale Forbesian claptrap: "The Flat Tax: What It Will Do for You, Your Country, and Your Pocketbook" (thanks, we already know). There's the Bush-tried, got-zapped, propagandistic stunner that the "Social Security system is simply outdated." And there are others, written in mind-numbing bureaucratese -- all we need is some "implementation" here and "implementation" there -- that could effectively substitute for narcotic sleeping aids.

The most hopeful, however, is your traveling workshop: "Rediscovering God in America." For that is precisely what we'd do if your candidacy gets off the ground. Because we know you can do better and would. And finally, at long last, we'd have some proof positive that there is indeed a god in heaven, looking down, orchestrating the absurd and laughing at the circus clowns.

***

News Flash, 11:53PM CST: "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) decided Saturday morning not to run for president just as his staff was preparing to launch a website to seek $30 million in pledges, his spokesman told Politico."

So it seems there is no God. Damn.

Comments

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Lord! Lord? We just, we just ask yew to please ,Lord, think about it some more. Lord? We beseech you? Let our Newt run? We know you love us here in Georgia? But take our Newt Lord and you put him where he'll do the most good. We don't mind lending him to You to do Your work to be your smiting hand!.

{pause}
{aside}
{God Awlmitie, Newt Gingrich, one of the world's most unattractive homo sapiens. The man who served his wife with divorce papers while she was in hospital recovering from cancer surgery. Smug, cruel, vicious -- has been honing his stand up act out here in the sticks before he takes it on the road. What is it about the South that gives birth to such malformed men? And I don't mean the physical, know what I mean? I mean metaphysically malformed. AND the fact that the Republicans have machines to manufacture these guys - what a bunch of dwarves. (no offense to dwarves).

Grotesque? Hey this is Georgia. Home of Flannery O'Connor who wrote it as she heard it.

Newt "Big Thinker" Gingrich.

What is it about these guys that screams "the new Republican Party"?}

{pause}
{sigh}

Thank you P.M.

Amen and thank You God for a great laugh.