Humorless much?

Presumably there is a cold front moving over hell, because I find myself in the headache-inducing predicament of defending Newt Gingrich.

Apparently, per Andy Borowitz over at HuffPo, the Newt made some comments about Sonia Sotomayor faking a broken ankle to garner sympathy.

"She's only wearing that fake cast to help her rack up votes," Mr. Gingrich said. "The minute she's confirmed, she'll whip it off and start dancing a jig."

While Ms. Sotomayor reportedly broke her ankle while rushing to catch a plane, the former House Speaker said, "The fake-ankle-cast thing is the oldest trick in the book."

Mr. Gingrich said that if Ms. Sotomayor was counting on arousing the empathy of Republican senators by faking a broken ankle, she was "sorely mistaken."

To my mind, there are two explanations for these comments. The first is that Newt Gingrich has taken a total and irrevocable leave of his senses (which is a possibility I am, at least, willing to consider). However, I think it is far more plausible that the man is joking.

In a post about the whole Publius-outing brouhaha (which I will assume you've all read about elsewhere, and about which I have nothing new to add), Mark at Ordinary Gentlemen suggests that we give our opponents the benefit of the doubt and assume they are writing in good faith. While I think ol' Newt has worn any benefit of the doubt down to its very last threads, even in his case I'm willing to ascribe comments that certainly look like a joke to me to his sense of humor. And, if I'm wrong, then someone needs to slip some thorazine into his coffee.

Update:  Per comment #3 below (from, it seems, the communications director for Gingrich Communications), it seems that the post at HuffPo I am quoting is satire, and that Gingrich never made those statements.  Which makes sense, since they seemed pretty over-the-top, even for him.  I will have further thoughts on this in a bit, but per the request of Mr. DeSantis, I am updating this post.