Gerlich Gunn Art

Gingrich plan for poor kids: Let them clean toilets It is a rare day when Al Sharpton emerges as the voice of sagacity, but when Newt Gingrich has the microphone, all things are possible. Just four weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, and swinging like a trapeze artist over the heads of his fellow Republican contenders, Gingrich has done what everyone knew he would — said something mind-blowingly wrong. Not just wrong as in incorrect, but off-the-charts insensitive, insulting and, most important, Out. Of. Touch. He might as well have wrapped his remarks in a Tiffany’s box and handed them to Mitt Romney, who could exhale for a moment. Or to Sharpton, who finally had a justifiable excuse for outrage and scorched the earth beneath Gingrich’s feet on his MSNBC show. Gingrich’s big idea was that kids from poor neighborhoods should work janitorial jobs at school in order to learn a work ethic. His argument was that poor kids who live in housing projects don’t see people working and therefore “literally have no habit of showing up on Monday.” Instead, they gravitate toward, you know, pimping and prostitution. So much for the big tent. So much for diversity. Sayonara, African-American vote. Hasta la vista, Paco y Maria. In one flick of the tongue, Gingrich managed to alienate all those undocumented workers he winked at a couple of weeks ago when he telegraphed during a debate that 11 million illegal immigrants would not be deported during a Gingrich presidency. The former speaker’s …