House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hinted that she has tons of oppo research on Newt Gingrich from his days when he was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee back in the 1990’s. She’s just biding her time until Mr. Gingrich is ripe for the taking.

“One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi said. “I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

Pressed for more detail she wouldn’t go further.

“Not right here,” Pelosi joked. “When the time’s right.”

Mr. Gingrich fired back, basically saying “Bring it on.”

“I would like to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift,” Gingrich told reporters in New York today. Gingrich said that if Pelosi does release information from the ethics committee, she’s risking ethics charges of her own.

“That’s a fundamental violation of the rules of the House and I would hope that members would immediately file charges against her the second she does it,” Gingrich said.

But Ms. Pelosi’s office said she wasn’t talking about private records; all her dirt was in the public domain and has been for years.

“Leader Pelosi was clearly referring to the extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware,” Pelosi spokesperson Karina Newton said.

This little schoolyard back-and-forth is mildly entertaining, but whatever it is that would be revealed about Mr. Gingrich from his heady and tantrum-filled days in the House will be ignored by the average GOP voter. They know Mr. Gingrich’s quirks and have already taken them into account. His past is past, and besides, when you’re running against a Kenyan Mooslim Soshulist, a little red-blooded straight-sex hanky-panky and backroom book dealing is reassuringly normal.

Also, when you’ve already run the gamut of out-there candidates from Michele Bachmann, who puts the “sugar” in meshuggeneh, to Rick Perry who was 19 before he learned to wave bye-bye, Newt Gingrich is nostalgia. Or, as Chuck Todd re-tweeted, “Madonna to perform at Super Bowl halftime. Billy Crystal hosting Oscars. Gingrich leading GOP. #hottubtimemachine“.