The Bard of Gingrich: the best send-ups of Rick Tyler, poet-spokesman

He may not have much in the way of a presidential campaign, but I think we can all agree that Newt Gingrich has the best … spokesman … ever …

His name is Rick Tyler, and this week, he delivered an elegiac defense of his boss, following the epic campaign meltdown of all time after trashing Paul Ryan’s vouchercare plan — which pretty much every Republican in Washington just happens to be lashed to.

The email to the Huffpo’s Michael Calderone will forever live in literary and campaign history:

“Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.”

And here are some of the best tributes to it.

#3. Lord of the Bling

First up: one of the Rachel Maddow show’s producers turns elegy into epic:

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#2. The Saturday Evening Roast

Ullustrator Jon White whips up a classic cartoon version of Tyler’s opus (click on the image below to get the full effect):

(Hat tip to Mother Jones)

#1. Theatah!

It gets no better than this. Last night, the Colbert Report brought in the great Sir John Lithgow to turn Rick Tyler’s poetry … into theatah:

Begin!

Freakin … genius.

Know of any other good Rick Tyler send-ups? Post them in comments or email them to TRR.