From the New York Times:

Newt Gingrich is taking steps toward a potential presidential bid in 2008 with a book criticizing President Bush’s policies on Iraq and a tour of early campaign states.

The former House speaker who led Republicans to power a decade ago said he soon will visit Iowa and New Hampshire to promote his book, try to influence public policy and keep his political options alive.

“Anything seems possible,” including a White House race, Gingrich told The Associated Press.

The quotable and controversial former Georgia congressman, who now runs a consulting firm in Washington, is promoting, “Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America.” He seemed to welcome the thought that a book tour will increase speculation about his political aspirations.

“It never hurts to maximize opportunities. That’s the American tradition,” Gingrich said. “If I can influence the reporters and political activists in Iowa and New Hampshire, they will influence the candidates.”

Newt Gingrich is the one Republican that can raise money faster for the Democrats than Tom DeLay. Just as Hillary is the Pavlov bell for the Right, Newt’s our boy to ensure a new Democratic majority. Just to remind you, he was the architect of the downfall of Speaker Jim Wright for an ethics lapse (accepting a book advance) that today wouldn’t get Tom DeLay ten minutes in the time-out corner. Mr. Gingrich forged the “Contract With America” that conned the voters into the Republican take-over of the House in 1994 and set himself up as Speaker of the House with the sole intention of bringing down the presidency of Bill Clinton. This thrice-married harbinger of Moral Values left his first wife while she was in the hospital for cancer treatment, married his high school math teacher, then left her for a House intern while at the same time setting up the impeachment of President Clinton, reminding his colleagues never to mention the President without including the words “criminal conduct” in the same sentence. He has a very thin skin and is given to such petty rants that it is widely believed that he forced the shutdown of the government in November 1995 because he got bumped to the back of Air Force One on a long flight back from a funeral.

It’s ironic that Mr. Gingrich, who claims to be a lover of history, didn’t see the parallels between his rise to power and that of another historic revolutionary figure, Maximilien Robespierre, and that of the two, Mr. Gingrich was the lucky one. He was forced out as Speaker in 1998 not for his monumental lapses in his own behavior but because the Republicans lost seats in the mid-term elections. Robespierre got the guillotine.