Newt Gingrich is such a target rich candidate that his fellow GOP primary candidates don’t seem to know where to begin harming him politically.  They hit him with a quip on one thing and then move to another — before any real damage is done to his candidacy. What needs to be performed is a sustained assault on one crack in the armor at a time.

George Will points the way today in a single paragraph in his syndicated column:

“In the service of Washington’s bipartisan certitude that too few people owned houses, Freddie Mac helped produce the housing bubble and subsequent crash. It did so even though it paid Gingrich $30,000 an hour. That is about what he received if, as he says, he worked for Freddie Mac about an hour a month, telling it that what it was doing was “insane.”  

I know we’ve gone over this before, but have we really? Let’s slow down for a minute. Has Mr. Gingrich really explained what he did for Freddie Mac?  The historian line was absolute nonsense, but he has almost gotten away with it. Historians aren’t paid $30,000 per hour.  

So why was Mr. Gingrich paid hourly what it takes the median American worker a full year to make? What did he do for that money?  Who hired him?  What meetings took place?  Where are Mr. Gingrich’s files and memos on the account?  If he won’t release them, why won’t he release them? What about his emails? (It’s a legitimate public question. Freddie Mac cost U.S. homeowners trillions in lost market value.) What did Mr. Gingrich actually do for the $1.6 million he was paid?  Seriously. What did he do? Mr. Gingrich…?

If the other Republican candidates in this race want to stop the  former Georgia congressman in his tracks — and they all do, save maybe Rick Santorum who may be eyeing a VP slot —  this is where they need to go. Mr. Gingrich’s explanation of his lucrative involvement with Freddie is so preposterous that they should never have allowed the spotlight to get off of it.  

Americans hate to be lied to by politicians. And they despise Washington insiders.  Mr. Gingrich’s “historian” hubris  did the former and proves he is the latter. 

It’s not too late on Freddie Mac. Surely there must be a taker.  Anyone?