Newt Nicked

By a penguin!

There were other stories that intrigued me.  Like Mitt's overheard remarks behind closed doors to some of his wealthy donors, complete with his promise to eliminate the mortgage deduction for wealthy second home owners, to get rid of HUD, and to shrink the Education department; then there was former Executive Editor and present Times columnist Bill Keller's "impassioned" call for President Obama to move to the center based on a poll done by an organization whose whole goal is to move politics to the center;  and I was very moved by Mama Romney's recollection, in an interview with Diane Sawyer, of Seamus the Dog going "crazy" whenever he saw his crate being mounted on the family van.

But no, the irresistible item to top them all was one I missed over the weekend.  Candidate Gingrich, an animal lover, was in St. Louis for the NRA convention.  I don't know what Newt said to the gun toters, but it probably didn't make for a comfortable match with animal loving.  Yet Gingrich is a zoo aficionado, so he was treated to a behind the scenes visit at the Forest Park Zoo.  There the animal-loving candidate was introduced to a couple of Magellanic penguins.  It's a very cute breed that happens to threatened by oil spills and has been forced to wander far from its nests due to climate change.  Maybe that's why one of the St. Louis penguins took a tiny bite out of Speaker Gingrich's finger.  If not revenge, at least poetic justice.