Nuked Gingrich, Part 2

And it gets even worse for Newtie after the events of Sunday and Monday.  Yesterday the Gingrich campaign completely came unglued as Newt went after that "notorious gotcha show", Meet The Press.  It's gotten so bad that even Republicans are now acting like he just died, starting with House GOP leader Eric Cantor.

Cantor went so far as to hint Gingrich may have ended his nascent campaign entirely.

"I think that many have said now he's finished," Cantor said. "I haven't had a chance to really dissect what in the world he's thinking ... so I probably would reserve judgment on that."

Paul Ryan, the architect of the House GOP budget, lit into Gingrich as well. "With allies like that, who needs the left?" he told radio host Laura Ingraham on Monday.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, considered one of the party's most important endorsements because of her state's early primary, held nothing back in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.

"What he said was absolutely unfortunate," Haley said. "Here you've got Representative Ryan trying to bring common sense to this world of insanity, and Newt absolutely cut him off at the knees."

Dick Armey, who had a legendarily tempestuous relationship with Gingrich when they were in the House leadership together and is now a Tea Party organizer, told Politico that Newt was "confused and conflicted" on policy.

"We always say: Newt always has so many great ideas," Armey said. "Well yeah, but then he shifts between them at such a rate it's pretty hard to track it let alone keep up with it." 

At this point I'm fairly sure that Gingrich's 2012 campaign has set some sort of record for fastest flameout, except that he had no lofty heights to burn down through to reach to surly bonds of earth, more like he stuck his head up out of his hole and hit himself with a giant cartoon mallet.

In all seriousness however if there was any doubt that Gingrich was done before yesterday, the absolute disemboweling he got from the right pretty much seals the deal.

Meanwhile, Democrats are more than happy to have the GOP plan to kill Medicare as the new litmus test for all the 2012 candidates, not just Newtie.

Conservatives are already openly dreading seeing Gingrich's remarks pop up in Democratic messaging as they head into an election cycle likely centered on the Republican budget.

"I think every one of these Republican candidates running for the House is going to have a Democratic opponent who's going to run an ad that you can write today," columnist Charles Krauthammer told FOX News. "It's going to start: 'Even the conservative Newt Gingrich, the former leader of the Republicans in the House, says it's 'radical,' it's 'social engineering.'"

And this explains why Republicans are treating Newt like he's dog poop on a Manolo Blahnik at a wedding reception.  They want him gone as fast as possible to get the GOP Medicare disaster out of the news cycle, and that's not going to be possible as long as he runs.  Of course, the Dems are going to do everything they can to keep America's attention on the fact that 96% of Republicans voted to end Medicare and replace it with a coupon, too.

This should be good.