I am heartened by the fact that so many of my colleagues here are skeptical about Gingrich’s performance of outrage on Thursday night; I especially like Mark Steyn’s phrase “cheap manipulative ersatz indignation,” and his attack on the South Carolina audience for buying into it (“more fool the crowd for rewarding him”). But the Thursday night theatrics were entirely, sadly, predictable. Indeed, I myself entirely sadly predicted them. On Thursday morning, at 6:42, I posted the following on Facebook: “The supposed ‘bad news’ Gingrich is getting . . . is exactly the kind Newt is skilled [in] transforming into good news for himself: Look at those Nasty Media Liberals trying to destroy me, because I am a Real Conservative.” I went on to encourage South Carolinians not to fall for this, and said that if they think Romney is unelectable, or a RINO — or whatever other objection they might have to Romney — they should vote for Santorum. But now we are where we are: Gingrich is rising, Santorum is falling. Some good may eventually come of this, but it’s not quite discernible yet…

As for me, I am more than ready to forgive Newt for any harm he’s ever done, and I know that God is even more ready to forgive him than I am. (God’s boundless forgiveness is every person’s deepest, indeed only, hope; Newt and I are in the same boat.) But it’s also true that I forgive Barack Obama, for doing a lousy job in office. They get my forgiveness; my vote is another matter entirely.