Fred Clark is puzzled. He doesn’t understand why Gingrich’s opponents in the Republican presidential contest aren’t hammering him to bits after he made this outrageous remark the other day:

If the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention to talk about why the African-American community should demand pay checks and not be satisfied with food stamps.

This is so blatantly racist (and wrong: 35% food stamp recipients are white; 22% are black. See Table A.21.) that even if his competitors agree with him they ought to be bashing him. As Fred says, “This is a free kick, an open goal, a hanging curveball, a giant fish in a teeny tiny barrel.”

It’s a mystery.