IS THIS HOW WE FINALLY GET NEWT GINGRICH OFF TV?

We're all familiar with the extreme pro-Republican bias of Sunday political talk show bookers, and we know, in particular, that Newt Gingrich is a favorite repeat guest.

But now that Gingrich has taken issue with the Paul Ryan budget -- and has been attacked for doing so by everyone from South Carolina governor Nikki Haley to Charles Krauthammer and Rush Limbaugh to some random pissed-off guy in Iowa -- he's become a GOP pariah. His president campaign is imploding. I won't be surprised if he drops out of the race well before Iowa, probably after his next appearance in a Republican candidate forum, where I'm sure he'll be roundly booed. He's toast. (By the way, are we allowed to describe what's happening to Newt Gingrich right now as a Stalinist purge?)

So I wonder if that means he'll finally stop being booked every couple of weeks on Sunday -- I mean, I'm sure he'll want to stay in that spotlight, but now that he's an unperson in the GOP, I wonder if newsworthy Republicans will suddenly start refusing to show up if Gingrich is also booked. I wonder if Fox will simply dump Gingrich. I wonder if the GOP-media complex will just disappear him -- or demonize him the way Democrats are demonized. Or both.

After all, I see right-wingers discussing the impact of Gingrich's remarks on the 2012 elections:

Conservatives are already openly dreading seeing Gingrich's remarks pop up in Democratic messaging as they head into an election cycle likely centered on the Republican budget.

"I think every one of these Republican candidates running for the House is going to have a Democratic opponent who's going to run an ad that you can write today," columnist Charles Krauthammer told FOX News. "It's going to start: 'Even the conservative Newt Gingrich, the former leader of the Republicans in the House, says it's 'radical,' it's 'social engineering.'"

That won't work if Republicans, with the help of their Sunday booker pals, make him invisible -- or if, with the help of the right-wing media, they turn him into a liberal. (They're going to start calling him that any minute, just you wait.)

Either way, maybe we'll finally be through with him.