(Image source: Boston.com / POLITICO)

BY ZACH TOOMBS

For Newt Gingrich, this might be one of those times a blast from the past isn’t such a good thing.

NANCY PELOSI: “We don’t always see eye-to-eye, do we, Newt?”
GINGRICH: “No.”

It’s been a few years since Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi chummed it up on Al Gore’s couch for action on Climate Change, and it turns out they’re still not seeing eye-to-eye.

A verbal feud erupted Monday between the two former Speakers of the House. The drama started when Talking Points Memo published an interview with Pelosi in which she had what some might call threatening language for the GOP presidential frontrunner.

“One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich. I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

The investigation Pelosi referenced led to a $300,000 fine for Gingrich before he stepped down as House Speaker in 1998.

Stepping out of a Monday meeting with Donald Trump in Manhattan, Gingrich wasted no time in firing back with some strong words of his own.

“First of all, I want to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift.”

“If she’s suggesting that she’s going to use material that she developed when she was on the ethics committee, that is a fundamental violation of the rules of the House, and I would hope that members would immediately file charges against her the second she does it.”

The blowback from many pundits criticized Pelosi for seeming to threaten committing a violation of her own in releasing confidential information for political purposes.

On MSNBC’s Politics Nation, the guest panel weighed in Newt’s favor.

NIA MALIKA HENDERSON: “I think the Democratic National Committee and Democrats in the House probably aren’t very satisfied with the way she’s talking about this and threatening, really, to release this information in her role on this ethics investigation. So, I think in some ways, he’s got a point here. And I’m sure that in some ways, over the next couple of days, you’re going to see Democrats walk away from this idea that Nancy Pelosi’s going to be leaking information on Newt Gingrich.”

But a Pelosi spokesman was quick to clarify the House Minority leader’s comments, telling CBS she never intended to release confidential dirt on Gingrich.

“In a statement Monday, Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill told Hotsheet the minority leader was ‘clearly referring to the extensive amount of information that is in the public record,’ when she made the statement - ‘including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware.’”

And on CNN, a debate between Democratic strategist Donna Brazile and Republican strategist Mary Matalin focused on how this feud fits into an ugly picture of mudslinging in the 2012 race.

BRAZILE: “Newt Gingrich would love to pick a fight with a woman. He would love to pick a fight with Nancy, because then he won’t have to answer the real charges that the House reprimanded him for and fined him $300,000.”

MATALIN: “Nobody wants to take a trip down memory lane. Every voter wants to look to the future. And all the Democrats dumping and trashing and garbage-mouthing all the Republicans are exactly what the voters don’t like.”

The latest NBC/Marist poll has Gingrich taking the lead in first-caucus Iowa, with 26 percent support. Mitt Romney and Ron Paul follow less than 10 points behind.