Newt Gingrich explains it all for you

I'm one of the biggest news junkies I know - but lately I can't seem to bring myself to watch or read much news. It feels like the End of Days with the devastation in Japan especially unbearable to watch. And Libya - goodness gracious, Libya! Yesterday my husband wanted to engage me in conversation about the new UN sanctioned no-fly zones there: "what was the military strategy? Didn't it seem like this was too late to be effective? What is the long term strategy?"

I found myself staring at him, and thinking: "I'm lack the strength to form an intelligent opinion about this." (Fortunately, Matthew Yglesias has some good ones to keep you going.)

But it's all become a bit too much. When I have these moments, I give myself leave to cocoon into "comfort thinking" for a little while - I re-read Jane Austen novels, have a bath. With lavendar bath gel. Play my guitar. Slowly, and badly.

And in these moments, it's sometimes nice to revisit a trashy old classic from your youth - you know, the kind of thing that you didn't really like at the time, and you still think is pretty crappy, but you have a certain fondness for it that is born of remembering that when you first heard it you were young, and that you survived the things that worried you then (and they didn't turn out to be such a big deal) and isn't it nice that you're older and wiser now?

So it's in that spirit, that somehow Newt Gingrich's comments yesterday really made me smile. Asked about the situation in Libya, the conversation went as follows:

QUESTION: What would have been the steps you would have taken early on?
GINGRICH: I would have studied Eisenhower and Reagan and studied the things they did. I mean there are lots of -- there are lots of ways to not necessarily use American troops and have an enormous impact on a country the size of Libya.
STAFFER: We have to go.
QUESTION: Can you list one or two?
GINGRICH: Take -- take a look at Eisenhower and Reagan.

Aww.... bless. Newt Gingrich randomly shouting out Reagan's name as if he has Tourettes. Republicans threatening to shut down the government. It's like 1995 all over again!