Paul Begala Makes Generous Offer to Newt Gingrich

Besides basking in the glory of having served in one of the more successful presidential administrations in recent memory, Paul Begala also teaches at Georgetown; appears on CNN; and spars with the I-Man, who, on more than one occasion, has called Begala a Communist.
 
Today, he also called him irrelevant, since the Democratic strategist and native Texan was not familiar with crooner Hayes Carll, whose music video for the song “Another Like You” features Begala’s buddies Mary Matalin and James Carville.
 
“This is what I need you for—to keep me relevant,” Begala told Imus. “It’s pathetic if you need a 98-year old man to make you more relevant, but here I am.”
 
Yet in an entirely different way, Begala is inserting himself directly into the national conversation by advising a new group called Priorities USA, an independent effort, he explained, to put out messages about issues primarily affecting the middle class. The unstated goal of the organization is to counter Republican spin monster Karl Rove.
 
“Rove has been out there raising unlimited amounts of money and playing the politics of fear and smear, attacking our president, and you know, somebody’s gotta have his back,” Begala said of Obama. “And that’s gonna be me.”
 
Since Begala was lucky enough to work for President Clinton during the tumultuous Monica Lewinsky situation, Imus wondered what advice Begala would dispense to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor-turned-governor of California who recently split with wife Maria Shriver and revealed he fathered his housekeeper’s ten-year old son.
 
“You can’t un-ring the bell, you can’t change this terrible thing you’ve done,” he said, and suggested Arnie get a new job, and quick. “He needs to run the CIA. If he can keep that secret for ten years and we can’t keep the operational details of the Bin Laden mission secret for ten minutes, put him in charge of the CIA.”
 
Though he believes way too much has been revealed about the raid in Pakistan that killed Osama Bin Laden, Begala is thrilled to death (no pun intended) that Obama had the guts to make the call that he did. “I’d have advised dropping a bomb—that was less risky, but less reward,” he said. “We wouldn’t have been able to shoot him in the face, which I think has huge psychological benefits for us in the message war against Al-Qaeda.”
 
As the Republicans gear up for their own message war next year against the President, Begala laughed at the current roster of prospective candidates, namely former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “If he needs somebody to pay his filing fee, I’ll be there,” Begala offered, then marveled at Gingrich saying recently that the current Republican plan to essentially end Medicare was “too radical,” even for him.
 
“Is that like Charlie Sheen saying, ‘That party’s a little too wild for me, I’m not going in there?’” Begala wondered. “Like Paris Hilton saying, ‘She’s nice, but she’s a little too slutty for me?’”
 
Sadly, as much as Begala is praying Gingrich will be the Republican nominee, Imus reported that it will be his “boy” Mitt Romney, whose money-raising abilities Begala admitted are impressive.
 
“He can appeal to the millionaires and the billionaires, and really unite that wing of the Party,” he said. “The oil companies and the gas companies!”
 
Hater.
 
-Julie Kanfer