Hey, Newt? Go back to sitting on couches and discussing global warming with Nasty Pelosi. There’s no reason for a washed-up former Speaker whose efforts ultimately lost Republicans seats and cost himself the Speaker’s position to be slamming his own party in its efforts to rebuild.

I was saddened to learn that at a time of national trial, when a president-elect is preparing to take office in the midst of the worst financial crisis in over seventy years, that the Republican National Committee is engaged in the sort of negative, attack politics that the voters rejected in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles.

Really? It was the Republican “attack politics” that were rejected in ’06 and ’08? Not an anti-Iraq year in 2006 and an anti-incumbent year in 2008? Jesus Christ could’ve run as a Republican in 2008 and lost.

The recent web advertisement, “Questions Remain,” is a destructive distraction. Clearly, we should insist that all taped communications regarding the Senate seat should be made public. However, that should be a matter of public policy, not an excuse for political attack.

Grow up. The Democrats took every excuse they could to launch a political attack, regardless of the scenario. That really harmed them, huh? And “distraction”? Really? The same line Barack Obama uses to get out of tough scenarios when the question at hand is legitimate but unpleasant?

In a time when America is facing real challenges, Republicans should be working to help the incoming President succeed in meeting them, regardless of his Party.

*Puke*

From now until the inaugural, Republicans should be offering to help the President-elect prepare to take office.

Or, and I’m just thinking aloud here, they could grasp onto every scandal between now and then like a pitbull and refuse to let go. They could start chipping away at Obama’s popularity as the left successfully did during the Bush years. How much of a honeymoon did Democrats afford President-elect Bush? Oh, right, he was accused of stealing the election both times.

This ad is a terrible signal to be sending about both the goals of the Republican Party in the midst of the nation’s troubled economic times and about whether we have actually learned anything from the defeats of 2006 and 2008.

Does Gingrich really believe that it was a result of negative campaigning that lost the Republican Party its races in ’06 and ’08? A lack of “ideas”? Does the party lack new ideas? Sure. But blaming that on the losses is ridiculous. No matter how many “ideas” you offer in 2006, you’d lose due to the war’s unprecedented unpopularity. John McCain was doing fine in ’08 with the “ideas” he had until the market crashed and the blame started going (wrongly) to the Bush Administration for deregulating the subprime market.

American voters didn’t care who they were getting into office, they just knew they wanted something different than they had now. No Republican — regardless of how many new, cool ideas he or she offered — would’ve won in that environment. Obama didn’t run on “ideas”  and neither did Democrats in 2006. They ran on a “new direction” and “change”. Whatever the Bush Administration was, they were the opposite.

More: Allah asks:

Exit question: Why not just hold the ad back until we know for a fact someone’s done something wrong?

I very much doubt Obama did anything wrong. But the ad is designed to instill questions around the incoming Administration. The ad isn’t about conclusions; it’s about the questions that remain to be answered.