Ultimate Irony: Newt Gingrich’s Bus Breaks Down in West Hollywood

Sometimes a headline is too good to be true, and too good for just a Today’s Headlines.

Yesterday, KPCC reported that the campaign bus for Newton Leroy Gingrich broke down on it’s way out of a major fundraising event on the streets of West Hollywood. KPCC correctly noted that there are few places on earth where Mr. Gingrich would feel less comfortable than  a city with such a sizeable gay population.  The former Speaker of the House has said many ugly things demonizing gay Americans, my personal favorite is that gay marriage is a “fundamental violation of our civilization.”

But here at Streetsblog, we see things more optimistically than the our friends at KPCC.  It was just earlier this month that Gingrich was bashing transit riders who live in dense developments as “elites” who don’t understand America.  The irony here isn’t that his bus broke down in Gomorrah, it’s that he was riding a bus at all.  The favored paper for ordinary Americans, The Wall Street Journal quotes Gingrich:

“Those who, you know, live in high-rise apartment buildings writing for fancy newspapers in the middle of town after they ride the metro, who don’t understand that for most Americans the ability to buy a home, to have their own property, to have a sense of belonging is one of the greatest achievements of their life, and it makes them feel like they are good solid citizens,”

If nothing else, at least the former front-runner for the Republican nomination for the Presidency had an authentic Los Angeles experience while he was here.  There’s nothing that says “Los Angeles bus rider” more than a flat tire and a late arrival.