IF TEAM ROMNEY IS DOING THIS TO NEWT, WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO OBAMA? (And maybe to the country?)

Well, I have a few minutes here, and this is happening, so I'll just throw in my two cents (warning: links to Drudge and AP via Breitbart):

NEWT EX-WIFE UNLOADS ON CAMERA; NETWORK DEBATES 'ETHICS' OF AIRING BEFORE SC PRIMARY

Marianne Gingrich has said she could end her ex-husband's career with a single interview.

Earlier this week, she sat before ABCNEWS cameras, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

She spoke to ABCNEWS reporter Brian Ross for two hours, and her explosive revelations are set to rock the trail.

But now a "civil war" has erupted inside of the network, an insider claims, on exactly when the confession will air! ...

UPDATE: The AP reports ABC is now likely to air the segment Thursday on NIGHTLINE.

Mitt Romney himself may be Thurston Howell III at times, but Team Romney is really good at this thug stuff. Team Romney (which I'm defining as the insiders and outsiders on Mitt's side) got this to happen at just the right time.

Team Romney is better at this than Team McCain. The GOP primaries this year are much uglier than the 2008 edition.

And as nasty as McCain and his surrogates were in the general election, mostly, after the Jeremiah Wright moment, it was McCarthyism and insinuations -- there was less digging up of actual dirt than you'd have expected.

With Gingrich, of course (and with Herman Cain before him), there was a lot to dig up, obviously. In a general election, things would be different. Right-wingers make crazy insinuations about Obama's college transcripts and birth certificate fakery; they talk of multiple Social Security numbers and drug-fueled gay liaisons. But in reality, there's no there there.

However, if there's anything anywhere, Team Romney's going to use it. Team Romney's not going to leave any ammunition unused. One thing that is sincere about Mitt Romney is that he has genuinely angry moments -- and I think this kind of campaigning really appeals to the angry side of him.

I don't think he's merely Poppy Bush, who sicced Lee Atwater on Michael Dukakis because he grew up the kind of preppy who played everything, including horseshoes, to win, but then governed with relative mildness by Republican standards (at least if you weren't a dictator overseas who looked at him crosswise).

I think Romney is a bit Nixonian -- he's got some of the same social awkwardness and some of the same anger. But he has the elite scion's desire to be (or at least seem) above the fray; he's not going to mire himself in the dirty work.

So he won't be Nixon if he wins, but he won't be Obama, either. If he gets that much power and you stand in his way, things might get ugly.

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(And now I'll see you this evening or tomorrow....)