As much shiat as there is on Newt, why go for this? Lazy dick writer.

......the aristocrats?

Here's the thing: Newt may be fat, but Newt isn't so fat that he took a helicopter to a baseball game, got out, and then stepped into a limo that took him 200 feet to the stands.

That's not just fat, that's f*cking fat.

Newt Gingrich is kinda fat. But it's not the first thing I think of when I see him. I think soulless abomination or horrifying sociopath - then I think fat.

thomps: IrateShadow: Here's the thing: Newt may be fat, but Newt isn't so fat that he took a helicopter to a baseball game, got out, and then stepped into a limo that took him 200 feet to the stands.

That's not just fat, that's f*cking fat.

i'm a sprightly 150lbs, but if i had the means to travel like that, i would do it at every opportunity.

Even if you were a politician cutting public sector jobs like it was your job during a recession?

Did this writer owe Salon a certain number of words?

thomps: i'm a sprightly 150lbs, but if i had the means to travel like that, i would do it at every opportunity.

It's hard to explain, but there's a difference between being fat and being fat. A fat guy goes to Mcdonalds and gets the biggest thing on the menu and a sandwich or two on the side. A fat guy buys mayo at costco while riding around in a scooter.

So, I never really paid much attention to the Chris Christie phenomenon, but I notice he never actually announced he was going to run and the complaint seems to be that he was being treated as a joke candidate. While the press has a problem doing that, and was recorded doing so numerous times to democrats in 2004, this instance doesn't compel me. On the other hand, whining about a Republican getting snubbed and a fat one at that may be the only way to make the media and media consumers CARE about that particular problem, so perhaps we should pretend to care about this.

In other news, the headline got me thinking; maybe it's just my bad memories but Newt Gingrich also appears to have lost weight since the 90s. Thoughts?

IrateShadow: thomps: i'm a sprightly 150lbs, but if i had the means to travel like that, i would do it at every opportunity.

It's hard to explain, but there's a difference between being fat and being fat. A fat guy goes to Mcdonalds and gets the biggest thing on the menu and a sandwich or two on the side. A fat guy buys mayo at costco while riding around in a scooter.

A fat guy might not be able to see his wang when he pisses. A fat guy uses his folds of fat to rub one off.

TheBigJerk: So, I never really paid much attention to the Chris Christie phenomenon, but I notice he never actually announced he was going to run and the complaint seems to be that he was being treated as a joke candidate. While the press has a problem doing that, and was recorded doing so numerous times to democrats in 2004, this instance doesn't compel me. On the other hand, whining about a Republican getting snubbed and a fat one at that may be the only way to make the media and media consumers CARE about that particular problem, so perhaps we should pretend to care about this.

In other news, the headline got me thinking; maybe it's just my bad memories but Newt Gingrich also appears to have lost weight since the 90s. Thoughts?

I don't think the media treated Christie like a joke candidate, unless you interpret their incessant asking if he was going to run as literal.

The article isn't about Newt being a fatass, it's asking why it's a pressworthy issue with guys like Christie and Huckabee, but not guys like Gingrich and Barbour (you'd have to read the whole article to realize that's the point the author was trying to make).

A presidential campaign is nothing but a popularity contest/beauty pageant, and when 90% aren't going to absorb a word of what's said in the debates anyway, it's really going to make a difference if the republican candidate is a corpulent, abrasive little troll while Obama is a healthy, well spoken, and at least reasonably good looking (unless your knee-jerk hatred of him and/or black people is so intense that you've convinced yourself he's ugly in addition to being the antichrist).

To be fair, though, Christie is a comically fat circus freak who rides in limousines instead of walking a few dozen yards. Gingrich is just your run-of-the-mill obese, rich "fatcat".

abb3w: [2.bp.blogspot.com image 249x320]

LOL! yours?

It's funny coz it's true.

abb3w: [2.bp.blogspot.com image 249x320]

Actually, Taft never served an office in the legislative branch. His achievements include being the only person to head both the Judicial and Executive branches. James Polk is the only person to do something similar, being both Speaker of the House and President.

Correct that shiat.

RevCarter: The article isn't about Newt being a fatass, it's asking why it's a pressworthy issue with guys like Christie and Huckabee, but not guys like Gingrich and Barbour (you'd have to read the whole article to realize that's the point the author was trying to make).

And our argument is because Huckabee and Christie are serious candidates who were or are incredibly fat. Barbour is fat but also a bumpkin not to be taken seriously. Gingrich's weight never seemed to be bordering on thunderously horrendous like Christie and Hickabee.

RevCarter: The article isn't about Newt being a fatass, it's asking why it's a pressworthy issue with guys like Christie and Huckabee, but not guys like Gingrich and Barbour (you'd have to read the whole article to realize that's the point the author was trying to make).

Yup, they didn't quite make it to this:

"None of this, of course, is to argue that a presidential candidate's weight should be a monumental issue (as should be obvious from this essay, I personally believe that while policy criticism of Huckabee and Christie's conservative records were more than justified, criticism of their weight was highly offensive)"

"The fact that it isn't - the fact that such standards are so selectively applied - tells us a deeper and more disturbing truth about bias in our political news. It tells us that that in many cases, the most powerful kind of media bias is not the much-lambasted, much-publicized partisan slant of Republican-loving Fox News or Democrat-glorifying MSNBC. It is instead most often a stealth cultural, geographic and class bias - a bias for those who seem to represent the Washington aristocracy and against those who seem to represent the commoner."

This was the take away for me...

Christie - 334 pounds

Gingich - 300 pounds

So Christie has an extra 10%

MrSpacemanSpiff: Christie - 334 pounds

Gingich - 300 pounds

So Christie has an extra 10%

Where did you find that info? The article? I only read part of it.

MrSpacemanSpiff: Christie - 334 pounds

No freaking way Christie is only 334

hs fat is only exceeded by his arrogance.

From the Atlantic wire

While Newt Gingrich has many opinions on many things, a running theme of his record of provocative public has been his opinion of himself and how he stacks up against other great -- and not so great -- minds. He is as unconventional as Margaret Thatcher, as great a compromiser as Henry Clay, as tough as Ho Chi Minh and definitely smarter than Michele Bachmann and the entire on-air staff of Fox News. On Wednesday, we learned that as his campaign was barely surviving this summer, Gingrich never doubted himself, according to Politico's new e-book, The Right Fights Back. 'I told somebody at one point, "This is like watching [Sam] Walton or [Ray] Kroc develop Walmart and McDonald's,'" he said. The history-loving Gingrich has a long history of making such comparisons.

People Gingrich thinks he's like:

French President Charles de Gaulle

Gingrich said his long absence from elected office could actually work in his favor, as he explained to The New York Times Magazine in 2009. Gingrich siad he buys into the theory of English writer Arnold J. Toynbee that leaders have to go away for a while before they can come back and lead. "I believe in the sense that, you know, De Gaulle had to go to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises for 11 years ... Departure and return. And someone once said to me, if you don't leave, you can't come back, because you've never left."

Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

"Because I am much like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, I'm such an unconventional political figure that you really need to design a unique campaign that fits the way I operate and what I'm trying to do," Gingrich told CNN's Jim Acosta October 16.

Abraham Lincoln

Gingrich told South Carolinians this month that this election, voters had to make "choice comparable, I think, to 1860 and it may be comparable in some ways to 1788," the Times reports.

The Duke of Wellington

"In a more reflective mood, Gingrich compared himself to the Duke of Wellington, who had defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Before that famous victory, Wellington had been criticized for not taking the offensive and then, when he did attack, for taking too many casualties. Like Wellington, Gingrich just had to hang on to survive; ultimately his cause would triumph," Newsweek reported in 1996.

19th Century House Speaker Henry Clay

"I was not a presider, I was the leader ," Gingrich told USA Today in August 1999, for a story headlined "Gingrich: I'll go down as leader, Clinton as tragedy." Gingrich explained, "I think Henry Clay's probably the only other speaker to have been a national leader and a speaker of the House simultaneously." The comparison shocked the editors of the Toledo Blade.

Washington Mayor Marion Barry

In a joint even in August 1995, Gingrich said he, like Barry, is a "revolutionary" trying to "liberate" people from drugs and poverty, the Washington Post reported.

Ho Chi Minh 

Gingrich saw a little of the communist in himself -- "not in ideology, of course, but in commitment and fervor," Richard Reeves explained January 8, 1995. The congressman said, "They can crush me. But they can't outlast me."

Celebrities

Gingrich told the Associated Press' Philip Elliott Tuesday that he didn't have to become a lobbyist because his speeches made him so much money, "I'm going to be really direct, OK? I was charging $60,000 a speech. And the number of speeches was going up, not down. Normally, celebrities leave and they gradually sell fewer speeches every year. We were selling more.''

Newt *is* fat and extremely ugly, but the real fat ugliness is in his heart and soul.

Um, tardmitter, it's actually an interesting article. It's asking why no one cares about Newt Gingrich's weight when he's the same weight as Chris Christie and yet his weight was all anyone would talk about.

Can anyone on the inside tell me? Is Newt just acting like an idiot for his constituents or has his brain really started to deteriorate since the 90s?

That reminds me. Isn't he almost 80 now? It's been almost 20 years since he's been in the spotlight.

thomps: people made fat jokes about christie because it was easier to do that than learn anything else about the guy to make fun of him for. newt has been supplying joke fodder for decades, all of which is easier to make fun of him for than his weight.

You forgot about the literal LOLcopter.

Gyrfalcon: colithian: Um, tardmitter, it's actually an interesting article. It's asking why no one cares about Newt Gingrich's weight when he's the same weight as Chris Christie and yet his weight was all anyone would talk about.

Can anyone on the inside tell me? Is Newt just acting like an idiot for his constituents or has his brain really started to deteriorate since the 90s?

That reminds me. Isn't he almost 80 now? It's been almost 20 years since he's been in the spotlight.

OK, you really want to know?

Because Christie, despite being fat and a dork, is not really a bad politician or a bad person. There's really not much else to make fun of him for, because policy-wise he's not overly bad.

There are SO MANY other things about Newt to go after, who cares if he's fat or skinny as a rail? He's like the number-two Sith Lord right now.

That's interesting. Yeah, compared to the other, Chris Christie is pretty moderate. But I don't like the fact that he was elected solely because he's a "normal guy" and "not a politician". I don't care how slimy they usually are, I prefer a politician with at least some experience in law. THEN I'll worry about their policies. But if their sole qualification is "I'm not a 'Washington insider', I know fark all about politics, so therefore I'm the better choice", then they can go fark themselves.

Hang on a sec. I read your profile and you sound suspiciously like someone i used to go to high school with (he was obsessed with serial killers). He moved to LA after high school. Except I know you're a girl and I don't think he ever pursued a career as an EMT. Did you once live in the DC area?

Gyrfalcon: Newt isn't unusually fat.

Yeah, but neither was Huckabee. What the author fails to mention is that Huckabee was working on his weight, which is why it became part of the story. I'm still not sure why the picked on Christie and not Gingrich, though, since they are both in the same ballpark.