By now, many of you are familiar with the conservative backlash which met Newt Gingrich following recent comments on NBC’s Meet the Press regarding the Paul Ryan plan. As I’m sure we can all agree, this was a despicable lamestream media attack on a great American who simply wasn’t prepared for the type of tricks and traps one runs into on such a show. (I know… the more skeptical and cynical among you will try to point out that Newt has actually done MTP 35 times and, in fact, has been on the show more times than current host David Gregory. Don’t try to cloud the issue and trick us with your fancy math games, please.)

Well, Team Newt fired back, letting everyone know precisely how tough he was and that he wasn’t about to be chased off the stage by a few talking heads. The resulting press release was a marvel of modern politics. But no mere mortal could do it justice, so Sir John Lithgow took to the stage on the Colbert Report to read it for you. (Fast forward to the 3:20 mark if you wish to skip Colbert’s intro.)

For those who couldn’t sit through the performance, here’s the full text one more time.

The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. 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.

Can’t you just feel the magic?