Ya gotta do both, Mr. Gingrich.

You're fooling yourself if you actually believe that voters will accept you as anything other than an astute historian and analyst. 

You had your turn at the podium, Mr. Gingrich.  You did a fine job as Speaker in orchestrating the House into a "contract" with America, Mr. Gingrich.  But you lost that position by buckling to some questionable ethical charge about a book deal or speaking fees or something like that. 

End of political career, Mr. Gingrich. 

And criticizing the presidential debate format as an "undeclared" wanting to play it your way won't pan out with voters.  No more than it will pan out for Mr. Thompson.  Both of you chose to leave the very career you supposedly seek and now you want America to "beg" you to please run for the highest office in the land?  Without jumping through the proverbial hoops -- without being subjected to the criticism, the inquiries and the rebuttal that other candidates are facing?

Ut uh. 

Won't fly, Mr. Gingrich.  No matter how much "above" the process you and Fred place yourselves, the public and the political process mandate that you face your opponents head-on.  Sorry -- you can't call the shots and expect voters to fall in line behind you.

Oh, you and Fred can skillfully talk the talk, Mr. Gingrich:

"We have shrunk our political process to this pathetic dance in which people spend an entire year raising money in order to offer nonanswers, so they can memorize what their consultants and focus groups said would work," Gingrich said.

In a speech to the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank, the prospective Republican candidate said he will not consider running until he has created a wave of reform.

He plans to spend the next several months preparing for a series of workshops that he will coordinate. They begin Sept. 27, exactly 13 years after he and other GOP leaders released the "Contract With America" that helped their party regain control of the House.

"This idea of demeaning the presidency by reducing it to being a game show contest ... is wrong for America, and I would never participate in it," he said.

Gingrich told reporters there is room for a him in the race.

"There's a tremendous vacuum of leadership willing to stand up and talk to the country in clear ways about what we have to get done to create a generation of opportunity and what we have to do to avoid a generation for bureaucracy and problems," Gingrich said.

You don't have to hold hands, Mr. Gingrich.   You can even do your own shuffle and soft-shoe routines.  But to walk the walk you first have to "stand up" to talk the talk, Mr. former-Speaker.