Newt Gingrich must be making a last-ditch pitch to become Donald J. Trump’s running mate.

Or … he’s feeling frisky now that he appears to be out of the running to join the Republican presidential ticket led by the presumptive nominee.

Whatever the case, the former U.S. House speaker has gone ballistic — and flown off the rails — in the wake of the terrible attack yesterday in Nice, France, in which someone plowed his truck through crowds of people in an apparent terrorist attack.

Eighty-four people are dead. Yes, it is a horrible, despicable act. The group responsible for it must be punished with extreme prejudice.

What is Newt’s response? He wants to apply a “test” to every single Muslim living in the United States of America. If they pass the test, they’re welcome to stay. If they fail, out they go. Deported. Sent to their country of origin.

The basis for Newt’s test is whether these Muslims believe in Sharia law, which he said is “incompatible” with western civilization. Oh, and he wants to “monitor” mosques to see if they’re being used to recruit jihadists.

Holy moly, Mr. Speaker.

My third thought about Newt’s post-Nice rant is that he’s trying to show off his own anti-Muslim credentials to Trump.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gingrich-calls-for-muslim-test-says-trump-veep-is-probably-pence/ar-BBumw4I?li=BBnb7Kz

A few questions come to mind.

One concerns the logistics involved. How do we identify every single Muslim currently in this country? How do we pay for this endeavor? How does the country enlist enough security agents to fan out across more than 3.6 million square miles of American real estate to search for these individuals?

How do we devise this test? How do we establish whether its results prove beyond a doubt that someone is a Sharia-believer?

Has the ex-speaker decided that U.S. citizens who also are Muslim also should be tested in this manner? If so, well, then we have another fairly significant issue to ponder: the U.S. Constitution. That silly ol’ First Amendment says something about religious freedom and guarantees every American the right to worship as they please without government interference.

Moreover, I recall President Bush saying right after the 9/11 attacks that we weren’t going to war against Islam, which his successor, President Obama, has reiterated. Our enemies are the radical Islamists who have perverted a religious faith for political gain.

Of course Americans ought to be outraged over what has happened in Nice. Someone said last night that this attack that occurred while France was celebrating Bastille Day appears to be the costliest attack in terms of lives lost ever committed by a single terrorist. French police shot the driver of the truck to death and then apparently discovered his vehicle contained other munitions, suggesting he was operating as part of an organization.

Is it the Islamic State? Or al-Qaeda? Or some other group?

French intelligence officials are pretty good at rooting out bad guys. And they’ll have plenty of help from U.S., British, German, Israeli and other international law enforcement agencies as they seek to combat this latest attack.

As for Newt Gingrich’s proposal to go after every living Muslim in the U.S. of A., let’s not allow fear and panic to overtake us.