Ron Paul Ain't Nothin' to Fuck With:
Batshit insane Ron Paul, who, it should be noted, voted against the Martin Luther King holiday, voted for Bill Clinton's impeachment, and was the sole member of the House of Representatives to vote against giving the Congressional Gold Medal to Charles Schulz, is a man who can hold a motherfuckin' grudge. The one he's been nursing with his man-nipples against Newt Gingrich goes back to at least 1996. And that's the reason why he has decided to use the waning days of his ongoing quixotic campaign for president to savage Gingrich with an online and TV ad that paints the former Speaker of the House as a pathetic hypocrite who profited off his position in government.

See, back in 1996, when the Republican-turned-Libertarian-turned-Republican Dr. Paul ran for the House seat from the 14th District in Texas he had given up in 1984, he was in a primary against three other Republicans. One of them was incumbent Congressman Greg Laughlin, who had switched from Democrat to Republican in 1995. Laughlin had been enticed by Speaker Gingrich, who was trying to get a bunch of Democrats to jump ship. He promised Laughlin a seat on the House Ways and Means Committee, which was deliciously tempting.

Newtie was the top of his hubristic, mad power in 1996, spinning out visions of Republican dominance that usually involved him. He punished Republican representatives who hadn't supported his government shutdown by refusing to campaign for them and holding back on NRCC funds. Laughlin had voted with Gingrich, so El Newter decided to double down on Laughlin as a way to show Democrats that they would be safe in their seats if they became turncoats. He campaigned for Laughlin in person, and he got GOP bigwigs like Phil Gramm and various Bushes to do the same. The NRCC, fearing an embarrassing loss for Gingrich, conducted push polls that attacked Paul.

Paul still got into a run-off with Laughlin. And because people in Paul's district are Texans, they were suspicious of Laughlin's party switch (yet, again, being Texans, not Paul's) and all the support from outsiders. Paul won despite more campaigning against him and for Laughlin by Gingrich. Usually, the leadership of a party remains neutral in primaries. Instead, Gingrich stuck his big head in and Paul shoved it up his ass. He used Newt's own words against Laughlin. See, Newt had attacked Laughlin in 1994 for being Bill Clinton's lackey.

So it's payback time. And you can bet that Paul's been waiting a long damn time to throw "hypocrisy" in Gingrich's face again.

They're both nuts. They're just different flavors of nuts. For Paul, there's one guiding principle: "Don't spend any fucking money." That's why he opposes wars. That's why he opposes almost everything, including programs to get teenagers off drugs. For Newt, it's all about centering as much power as possible in himself because he is so right in his rightness. It's a shit fight in a monkey house. And all you can do is watch the feces fly.

(Note: An earlier version of this post said "Congressional Medal of Honor." It was corrected because, as several rude readers pointed out, it was wrong.)