"In last night's [November 9th, 2011] hallucinatory GOP presidential debate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich did his usual blustery free-associative word-barrage routine that for years convinced numerous reporters and pundits that he was somehow an intellectual statesman. The highlight was probably when Gingrich was asked what he'd done to earn his consulting firm a $300,000 contract from Freddie Mac. Gingrich insisted the money was for history lectures. That is not really the case."