Who would’ve thought it was going to be Peggy Noonan who would coin the single most hilarious, funny-because-it’s-true nickname for what candidate Newt Gingrich has become in the sunset of the complimentary Republican primary surge every candidate (except Jon Huntsman) appears to be entitled to? Noonan’s campaign roundup in today’s Wall Street Journal takes a brutal look at all the candidates’ flaws– Mitt Romney‘s bland inevitability, Gingrich’s muffinness, Rick Perry‘s assumed privilege– and goes, somewhat surprisingly, softest on Rick Santorum.

Unlikely GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich has tried to explain away the fact that he practically invented the health insurance mandate as a practical response to the evil Hillary Clinton push for universal health care in the early 90s, but The Wall Street Journal has uncovered a 2006 newsletter that vaporizes that claim. The April 2006 edition of “Newt Notes,” which the Gingrich campaign says their candidate didn’t write, contains high praise for mandated health insurance.

After a string of qualified “successes” in the game of legislative chicken, congressional Republicans may have finally met their Dead Man’s Curve. With time running out on the payroll tax cut extension that will affect 160 million Americans, Republicans in the House rejected a bipartisan Senate compromise to extend the payroll tax cut for two months in transparently cynical fashion. Now, the conservative Wall Street Journal is calling their strategy a “fiasco,” and questioning the GOP’s chances at taking back the Senate in 2012.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz lays out a surprisingly strong argument on how Newt Gingrich could work his way up to the top of the polls and grab the Republican nomination. At the heart of her argument? “No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection,” Rabinowitz writes. “There’s no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential election ahead. His rise in the polls suggests that more and more Republicans are absorbing that fact.”

With all the talk of the 99%, the 53%, 47%, and 1%, does anyone know where they fall, exactly?
In a fun, yet informative, little time-waster, we give you The Wall Street Journal’s “What Percent Are You?” tool. Enter your household income, hit the “Rank Me” button, and see where you end up. It’s simple, it’s kind of hokey, and it probably has some flaws that critics on both sides will certainly bring up. But it’s got its charms.

Warren Buffett has challenged Rupert Murdoch to tax return disclosure-off. Last week the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal ran an editorial asking Buffet, the namesake of a proposed guideline that would ensure that those who make more than $1 million pay proportional tax rates, to make public his tax returns. “No doubt the millions of Americans who could end up paying more because of this claim would love to see the details,” they wrote, urging the Berkshire Hathaway CEO to consider the disclosure an “opportunity to educate the public” on “his secret of tax avoidance.”

Handicapping tonight’s debate for the Wall Street Journal, the sage Republican strategist Karl Rove suggests that the otherwise “competent and capable” Mitt Romney “needs to light a spark among GOP voters” if he hopes to be chosen as nominee. Rove also offered his assessment to current GOP front runner Rick Perry, and a few words of advice for Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum as well, but seemed most ready to heap praise on Romney. He’s just a little worried the former Massachusetts governor might be a little boring.

Rev. Al Sharpton got a new job, and so far his first week as host of MSNBC’s PoliticsNation has gone off with — well, maybe a few hitches. Quick-witted and charismatic as a public figure, Sharpton has struggled with rendering his “reverent” style to the smaller screen in this first week. And while time might right some of those issues, an interview with him in the Wall Street Journal today raises concern as to whether or not he actually knew what he was getting himself into. Sharpton, it seems, did not know that as an MSNBC host, he is not allowed to make political endorsements.

n a momentous meeting of female Tea Party power, Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell were scheduled to appear together at a “Restoring America” tea party rally this weekend outside Des Moines, Iowa. But after O’Donnell was invited, dis-invited, and then re-invited, Sarah Palin is now deciding that she might just not want to go either.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has stepped down from the top position at his corporation in a resignation letter to its board of directors today. While not giving a reason for stepping down, it is widely rumored it is related to the mogul’s ailing health, though he is expected to remain as chairman of the board of directors. Jobs will be succeeded by Apple COO Tim Cook.

What good is being a guy people want to have a beer with, if you’re not allowed to have a beer with them? According to pool reports, President Obama had to scuttle plans to drink with White House reporters and staffers Tuesday night, during the Iowa leg of his bus tour, when the Secret Service got wind of the idea. The President apologized to reporters on Air Force One, and joked that he hoped Press Secretary Jay Carney picked up the tab, or at least paid for his own drinks.

A film about the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden has prompted New York Rep. Peter King to call for an investigation, suggesting cooperation between the film’s director and the Pentagon could represent a leak of “classified information regarding sensitive military operations” and that the decision serves a “cinematographic view of history.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, the filmmakers will not be receiving any classified information in their briefings:

For Piers Morgan–and his bosses at CNN–the recent interest in his time as a tabloid newspaper editor in London (including, for a time, at the now-closed News of the World) has made for some fascinating television, most notably an on-air debate with a British MP who’d mistakenly accused Morgan of “bragging” about printing stories based on phone hacking (she’s since conceded she “mis-read” Morgan’s book, and has apologized). But as The Wall Street Journal reports this morning, Morgan’s time in the tabloid trenches was carefully explored before he was hired to replace Larry King–including a “careful reading” of the very memoir that MP Louise Mensch seemed to have skimmed. “Before signing him,” The WSJ‘s Lauren Schuker writes, “CNN executives carefully read his books and thoroughly questioned him about his journalistic habits and ethics, a person close to the network said.”

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Friday morning, conservative columnist Peggy Noonan channeled her inner middle-schooler, calling President Obama a “loser,” and likening White House Press Secretary Jay Carney to a “ferret with flop sweat.”

While there are people on both sides who might foresee the inside of a gym locker in the President’s future, Noonan’s current conclusions about the debt ceiling negotiations are based on complete nonsense. Noonan appeared on Morning Joe to defend her comments.

Norway’s confessed murderer Anders Breivik is a blond, blue-eyed Norwegian-born anti-Muslim crusader, but in the esteem of Stephen Colbert, that doesn’t mean he’s not a swarthy, ululating madman. You see, in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy that unfolded last Friday, a number of media types–of both journalistic and opinion stripe–quickly adjudged his actions to be that of Islamic extremists. And while the admitted assailant’s actions are without question extreme, he is a self-identified Christian Conservative. Oops!

Newt Gingrich has finally put an end to one of the many reasons his campaign is no longer taken seriously. According to the financial disclosure forms his campaign recently submitted to the Federal Election Commission, Gingrich has shut down his Tiffany’s credit account. The account was the source of much mockery several months ago as it was first reported that he owed the store half a million dollars, with Gingrich refusing to answer any questions about it.

In a clear sign the U.K. hacking scandal has indeed landed on this side of the Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal reports Friday the Justice Department “is preparing subpoenas as part of preliminary investigations into News Corp. relating to alleged foreign bribery and alleged hacking of voicemail of Sept. 11 victims, according to a government official.” The WSJ‘s source says subpoenas “would broadly seek relevant information from the company,” which owns the Journal.

With the investigation into News Corporation heating up as Parliament began hearings this week, the threat has surfaced to other UK tabloids of investigation into their practices, as well. On tonight’s In the Arena, Mediaite founder and ABC legal analyst Dan Abrams argued that a more extensive investigation “has to be good” for New Corp, as any findings would widen the scope to the tabloid culture, and not just News Corp.

As Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corporation appears to veer closer and closer to being entirely engulfed by its corruption scandal in the UK, the defenses have risen in volume, with Wall Street Journal leading the charge in America with a scathing editorial this morning. But the odds are high that the tactic may backfire, argued Mediaite founder Dan Abrams to Don Lemon this evening, as the offensive defense could be interpreted as downplaying a scandal that, according to many in the media, has achieved Watergate proportions.

One of the more fascinating secondary narratives that has arisen from the phone hacking and corruption scandal that has enmeshed News Corp. is the way in which the many media properties under Rupert Murdoch‘s purview have covered this story. Perhaps because the story is still very much in a fluid state, the critiques of the reporting have been both up and down. But the recent defense penned by the Wall Street Journal editorial board is the most full-throated defense yet, and takes the unique approach of actually attacking News Corp. critics.

As the News of the World phone hacking scandal continues to claim scalps, the coverage– or lack thereof– of the story on its sister organization Fox News continues to claim headlines. On today’s Reliable Sources, host Howard Kurtz, admitting he felt “very strongly” about the issue, chided Fox News for keeping quiet, noting that “when CNN has controversy, we always do it” and that, by not covering the scandal, the network “undermines its credibility.”

Right after having a an unpleasant discussion about angrily having sex with Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann because his guests hated her so much, Maher later took issue with his critics calling him “sexist” for regularly attacking Bachmann and Sarah Palin. Plenty would label Maher presiding over such a conversation to be enough evidence to consider Maher sexist. Even though I personally don’t agree with the sexist attack, after his argument here, I think it’s very hard for him to claim he’s not a hypocrite.

We can finally count the first physical injury in the aftermath of the scandal known as “Weinergate.” During the taping of tonight’s Daily Show, host Jon Stewart broke a glass in the middle of a segment about embattled Congressman (and old friend) Anthony Weiner and bled visibly onstage, halting the filming temporarily. Stewart bandaged his hand, finished the show, and Comedy Central says the show will air in its entirety tonight.

Sarah Palin‘s “One Nation” bus tour has many speculating that she is ready to launch a presidential bid, but she has yet to convince everyone. On Fox News today, Wall Street Journal writer John Fund told anchor Gregg Jarrett that he sees her even less likely to run than Rudy Giuliani and Michele Bachmann, though at least more viable than Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Today likely Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is giving a speech in Michigan to address his albatross: Romneycare. The universal healthcare bill he signed into law in Massachusetts and which served as a model for President Obama‘s similar plan, has long been believed to be a major hurdle for Romney in his bid to win the Republican nomination. And now an editorial from The Wall Street Journal suggests that hurdle is insurmountable.