The Donald-Newt Show, reality it is not

SMARTING FROM the attacks on his monstrous views on child labor, Newt Gingrich, with plenty of help from Donald Trump, has moved into an audacious level of damage control. "Let me help," Trump tells Gingrich. "I will put 10 good kids on my reality show to let everybody know that you and I want to help kids learn a work ethic to become school janitors."

"That's a good number," Newt purrs. "Even Bo Derek didn't get any higher than 10."

Leave it to The Donald to come up with a solution. And why not? He boasts that he has the most famous reality TV show in the world, with the biggest audience in the world, with the most successful business in the world, with the strongest hold on the tattered remains of the Republican Party. And he is mystically irresistible. "They all want my endorsement," he says of the GOP dead-enders, "and come to see me." He airily threatens. "If they choose somebody that doesn't please me, I will endorse somebody else." That, dear reader, sends shivers across his plantation.

His thing is audience. For the few stalwarts like Gingrich and Michele who have agreed to kneel before him in the Dec. 27 debate, he boasts they will have the biggest audience of any debate. That isn't to say he's not creating that audience for himself. As for his merit as an interrogator, he insists he knows all of the issues and will be eminently prepared to ask the right questions. Why would you ask? .

Meantime, Newt is well into appearance these days. . He says the Occupiers ought to first take baths and then look for a job. To be fair and balanced, Newt should also tell his sponsor Donald to get a decent haircut and go away.