It’s a Whole Newt World

Back before the People Spoke, I thought that no Newt was good news.

But ever since the second Tuesday in November, I’ve seen the light. And boy, it’s great to be a Republican!

I don’t know a single Democrat anymore. (Talk about your Jurassic Party.) Everything’s coming up Newts.

Why, look over there! There’s Gloria Steinewt, the former feminist, who now says her stint as a Playboy bunny was the most fulfilling experience of her life.

“I just didn’t realize it till now,” says Ms. Steinewt, founder of a new magazine called the Newt Republic. “Our first issue features a story on how the upper middle class is victimized by usurious tax rates on capital gains. Like I’ve always said, a Republican without a national health plan is like a fish without a bicycle. Or something.”

And there goes the noted poet, Maya Angenewt, hard at work on a poem to be delivered to the American people in January, when Congress officially swerves to the right. It’s a revised version of the poem she recited at the inauguration of That Democrat waaaaay back in 1992. The new title: “This Newt Morning Dawning.”

The first line--which might have become a classic if only English classes were not going to be replaced by Creationism Studies--is “A Rush, a Contract, a Newt.”

For inspiration, Ms. Angenewt has been eating pork rinds and jelly beans. She wears a pained expression as she writes. Indigestion, perhaps?

Say, here comes former Democratic spinmeister George Stephanoponewt!

George? Hello?

That’s odd. George has duct tape over his mouth. Oh, well.

It looks like Anewta Hill has a minute to talk.

Anewta, who was recently spotted underlining passages in the Newt Testament, experienced a dramatic conversion on Election Day.

“I think I’ve seen the light,” she says. “Those secular humanist liberals used me back in ’91 to further their godless agenda. I just hope Clarence Thomas can forgive me, because I’d really like to use him as a job reference. Say, do you have a number for the Supreme Court?”

*

The great thing about Newt Gingrich is that it’s not just Washington he’s taking by storm. He’s out to finish the job Dan Quayle started--the rescue of American culture from the forces of evil, such as unwed mothers on TV and anyone who graduated from Yale Law School.

Already, Newt’s influence is being felt on Broadway, where composer Andrew Newt Webber is creating a new musical, “Pennsylvania Boulevard” in which a sincere but misguided President invites a cooperative but uncompromising Congressman into the Oval Office for a chat that changes their lives.

I’m looking forward to the President’s big musical number, “School Prayer Shuffle (I Just Want to Be Loved.)”

*

It’s not just Newt’s agenda that is so darn appealing. Sure, he’s the best thing that’s happened to American politics since Sonny Bono took Palm Springs by storm. But it’s more than that. It’s the man himself.

Newt is cute.

He’s got twinkly little eyes--yes, I suppose some would call them beady--and a jolly round face--some might say puffy--and when he laughs, his belly . . . well, I don’t know what his belly looks like when he laughs. But I am guessing it bears a relationship to a bowlful of jelly since the man does not appear to have been in spitting distance of an abdomicizer in a long, long time--probably not since George McGovern was spewing his brand of inchoate Clintonism around the country.

I’m not really sure what Newt has against McGovern. All McGovern ever did was lose in a landslide to Richard Nixon more than two decades ago. Newt ought to be grateful.

Instead, he implied before the election that McGovern was somehow responsible for the actions of that woman in South Carolina who confessed to drowning her kids. According to Newt, it is our wanton society--as exemplified by the “McGovernick counterculture”--that leads to parents murdering their children.

Well, I don’t know about that. But Newt does, and that’s the important thing.

See, he only wants what’s best for America: mandatory school prayer and orphanages for children whose parents receive public assistance.

Who could be against orphanages, except for the children who live in them?

Fortunately, welfare orphans can’t vote. They’ll just have to pray.

Whether their prayers will be answered, well, strictly speaking, that’s not Newt’s department. Yet.

* Robin Abcarian’s column is published Wednesdays and Sundays.