Recently, I’ve begun to worry that our politics have degraded in to the world’s most depressing chutzpah contest, with each politician competing to outdo the last by whining about a self-created problem in the most outrageous, fractionally baseless and/or entirely cynical manner possible. It looks like Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has decided to prove my concerns correct with his campaign’s absurd attempt to label him as a Washington “outsider.”

From Huffington Post:

When asked by The Huffington Post about media coverage this past week, Gingrich press secretary Rick Tyler fired off a response blasting the political and media elite.

“The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding,” Tyler wrote. “Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles.

So, apparently Newt Gingrich is a Washington outsider?!? This is the same Newt Gingrich that spent 20 years in the House of Representatives from 1979-1999. The same man who for four years, 1995-1999, served as Speaker of the House, the second most powerful political office in Washington. The guy who still lives inside the Washington, DC Beltway.

To point out the pure comedy of this absurd claim, I’ve created an venn diagram:

If I were Sen. Tom Coburn, I would be watching my back because Newt Gingrich is quickly becoming a serious contender for the chutzpah award.