Newt Gingrich is an interesting case. Sometimes he's so candid, you sit there and say, "Did he really say that?", and other times, he's such a skilled and gifted liar that he reminds you of a cold-blooded criminal. Today on This Week was one of the latter occasions:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's look at the closing arguments from President Obama. He was in New Hampshire yesterday taking aim at Mitt Romney's record in Massachusetts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Once he took office, he pushed through a tax cut that overwhelming benefited 278 of the wealthiest families in the state, and then he raised taxes and fees on middle-class families to the tune of $750 million. Does that sound familiar to you?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: His argument, of course, that's exactly what Governor Romney is going to do if he's president.

GINGRICH: Look, wait a second. The fact is, Barack Obama would trade the job creation of Romney as governor in a heartbeat. He would trade the unemployment rate of -- of Massachusetts under Romney in a heartbeat. He'd love to have had the bipartisan ability -- Romney worked with an 85 percent Democratic legislature. Obama would love to have been able to work with people as well as Romney did.

Where to begin? How many jobs were created depends on when you ask Mittens, and which time period. The most useful info is that the state was ranked fourth from the bottom in job creation. And bipartisan? He vetoed over 800 pieces of legislation or line-item vetoes. That's twice what predecessor Bill Weld did.

You look at Romney's record, and it makes, frankly, Obama's presidency look pretty thin and remarkably ineffective. Longest period of high unemployment in American history since the Great Depression. Every person who buys gasoline today is paying $2 a gallon more because of Obama's energy policies. I think Obama, if he had a chance, would love to have Romney's record in Massachusetts.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The price of gas is going down in these final weeks, isn't it?

GINGRICH: Sure, because it goes down every fall when the summer travel goes in. It is still the most expensive for this time of year in American history. It is still $2 a gallon more than it was when Obama became president. And we're learning more and more about how much bankruptcies there are in the solar power industry he was taking care of.

So you have a president who badly invested your tax money to distort energy policies, while making you pay $2 a gallon more. That's a pretty tough record to go into Ohio or Florida, or anywhere, and say to folks, "Why don't you keep voting for $2 more on gasoline, because you like Obama so much, you don't mind paying for it?"

Funny, I don't remember Newt complaining when gas went through the roof during Shrub's reign. And we're going to blame Obama for "distorting energy policies"? You can tell Newt is a convert and not a born-and-breed Catholic, because the nuns would have trained him better. He'd be terrified God would strike him dead for what they would call "bold, brazen lies."