Someone should name a computer pest after Newt Gingrich.  The one I would suggest is ZeroAccess, a Russian made Trojan that replicates itself every time you kill it. Its job is to help other Trojans slip past your computer’s security system.

I suspect I picked it up by downloading a fake Adobe Flash update. Anyway, it kept me at the keyboard for hours on Friday.

It manifested itself in a series of alerts from McAfee, informing me that the virus protection program had detected and dealt with a Trojan. I clicked on “More” and found the intruder was the Zeroaccess bug. It had installed itself in a file in “Documents and Settings.”

Obviously, the alerts were wrong. This Trojan would not die.

After several scans failed to solve the problem, I phoned McAfee and persuaded a nice young lady in India to give me a free virus removal session. Normally, I was informed, it costs $89.

The session took the rest of the day and continued into the night.

The issue was escalated from one technician to another as the McAfee SWAT team battled the resilient bug. Several tools, each more potent than the last, were deployed. But every time a tool reported that the bug was dead, it reappeared as soon as I rebooted.

Eventually, some time after 10 p.m., the wily pest was exterminated. I think the lethal weapon that finally did the job was called Comclean. It took nearly an hour to go through 50 cleaning “stages” while I sat bleary-eyed in front of the screen.

I went to bed exhausted.

Watching the South Carolina primary results come in last night, I was reminded of the resilient ZeroAccess bug.

It became obvious early on that Newt Gingrich (above, left) was the runaway winner. And the pundits were shocked.

They had predicted a while back that Mitt Romney would win in a walk, then conceded as Gingrich surged that it would be neck-and-neck. But Gingrich had them fooled. Again.

Remember how “dead” Gingrich was back in the summer, when his staff abandoned him? And again last month in Iowa? And all those other times throughout the Republican presidential primary campaign?

Every time the pundits told us he was down for the count, Gingrich popped up again – like Freddy Kruger in “Nightmare on Elm Street” (above, right).

Now, he seems very much alive. And like ZeroAccess, he will open the door to a host of deadly infections unless someone finds the right tool to wipe him out.

The danger to America is very great.

Newt Gingrich is not a sick joke. I see him as a sociopath with bad intentions.

You might think that such a creature poses no threat to President Obama, but you would be wrong. There are more malicious people in America than you might think. And those grinches find vicarious release in Newt’s venom. They would vote for him in a heartbeat.

Brace yourself for an invasion of political malware if Newt Gingrich gets the Republican nomination.

The coming presidential campaign is shaping up as a classic contest of good versus evil. And the power of evil is not to be underestimated.