Above is the excerpt from The Washington Times article that you presented in this thread as being representative of what Newt said at his appearance on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley, 04 Mar 2012.
You are either deliberately or unknowingly passing along The Washington Times’ mischaracterization of Newt's remarks by misquoting him and insinuating that Newt was being snarky.
I watched that interview (twice) and I have attached the exact portion of the transcript w/link below. Newt actually hesitated and interjected for emphasis that Rick had used a clever strategy ...note the difference between the actual CNN transcript:
“Suddenly, he went — very cleverly went to three states nobody else went to, and he became the media darling and bounced back.”
...and what you quoted from the Washington Times:
“He stayed in, he was running fourth in every single primary, suddenly he very cleverly went to three states nobody else went to, and he became the media darling and bounced back.”
(Also, it is pertinent to note that Newt's statement was in response to a question Crowley directed at Newt asking him what he thought about Santorum’s top adviser calling for Newt to drop out of the race.)
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Excerpt from CNN Transcript, 04 Mar 2012; State of the Union with Candy Crowley:
CROWLEY: We are now at a point where Rick Santorum has more delegates than you do in the delegate forecast. He's leading in the national polls. I wonder if you think it's — and, by the way, his top adviser is asking you to get out so you can consolidate the conservative vote.
GINGRICH: Sure.
CROWLEY: What's your reaction? GINGRICH: Well, you can tell his top adviser — tell his top adviser I'm taking Rick Santorum’s advice. He stayed in. He was running fourth in every single primary. Suddenly, he went — very cleverly went to three states nobody else went to, and he became the media darling and bounced back.
Link: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1203/04/sotu.01.html
I obviously didn’t watch the actual interview, so I can’t say what Gingrich was inflecting. I do of course see the difference in quotes, but don’t see why you think they are important. The Washington Times seems to have removed a verbal tick; CNN trasncript doesn’t. But I don’t see how Gingrich stumbling on his words itself changes the meaning.
In fact, without hearing the actual interview, I would have preferred to use the CNN transcript over the Washington Times one to make my point, because it sounds MORE snarky when it looks like gingrich stopped to go back and insert “cleverly”.
The Washington Times isn’t one of the papers were generally have to worry about. And I presumed that they had heard the interview, and the reporter was conveying his opinion of how Gingrich said what he said.
Clearly, you took a different interpretation of what he said, and I can’t judge between them, as I didn’t hear it myself.
But yes, the entirety of the statement did suggest to me that Gingrich was being dismissive of Santorum’s resurgence — especially since it goes along with other suggestions by the campaign that Santorum isn’t really doing all that well.