This afternoon, the top aides on Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign have announced that they’re leaving the Gingrich for President campaign – every single one of them. Gingrich is trying to blame the problem on the “literati” – because literate Americans are not in his constituency, apparently.

What’s actually going on is the standard Rats Leaving The Sinking Ship scenario. In this case, the sinking ship has been cruising the Greek islands. Yes, Newt Gingrich’s idea of campaigning for President is to take a vacation, thousands of miles away from the United States.

Gingrich’s aides just couldn’t take it any more, apparently driven to distraction by the odd Gingrich combination of idiocy and egomania. “We just had a different direction in which we wanted to take the campaign,” said one of the aides who quit. Translation: The aides wanted to take the campaign in the direction of victory, and Gingrich wanted to run the campaign into the ground.

If I hear one more person describe Gingrich as the Republican Party’s “idea man”, I’m going to have to take a long vacation in the Greek islands myself.