Look out, doves — you’re under the gun.

In a courageous move in these tough economic times, the Iowa Legislature, dominated by Republicans in the House, has approved a dove-hunting bill.

I know; I couldn’t wait myself. BAM — nest in my gutters, will you, damn pigeon look-alikes? Shame about the roof, though.

Yep, we’re going to solve our economic problems by having people kill cooing birds.

Think about that for a second.

Or, on the other hand, don’t.

I mean, killing cooing birds will somehow save Iowa? Why not have a bill allowing Iowans to fire shotguns at the Sun to stop global warming?

The dove-killing law will do wonders for those who sell shotgun shells, and you have to admit, Hey, they have families to feed, too. Have a heart.

And Republicans, wimps that they are, feel their pain.

Which is not quite so nutty as Newt Gingrich, who appears as though he’s running for the GOP nomination for president. Or at least hiking the Appalachian Trail in that direction.

His last major political act — after overseeing the GOP shutdown of the federal government in 1995 that resulted in the political resurgence of President Clinton and his crushing re-election victory in 1996 — was to oversee the Republican electoral debacle in 1998; he then resigned both the House speakership and his Congressional seat. All that, of course, makes him a prime candidate for the GOP nomination this electoral season.

Republicans are nothing if not forgiving of failure, at least among their own. See Richard Nixon.

The best thing about Newt is his consistency. Early in March, he told anyone who would listen that if he were president, he would put a no-fly zone over Libya right this moment, if not a whole lot sooner. (“This evening,” he told Fox News back when March was still young, there were no NCAA hoops brackets, and no one outside of Richmond, Va., had heard of VCU.)

You got the idea that, if he had had his druthers, he would have stuck a no-fly zone over Libya in 1998, back when he was in charge of the Republican debacle.

So when President Obama, after weeks of dithering followed by dithering and accented by some more dithering, finally joined the international force to establish a no-fly zone over Libya (a no-fly zone on steroids), Newt was understandably elated.

Not exactly. “I would not have intervened” were his words on national TV.

So, let’s see. A Libyan no-fly zone is good if President Gingrich does it but bad if President Obama does it.

Newt famously worked to impeach former President Clinton because of the president’s dalliance with an intern while he himself was carrying on an affair with the woman who is now is third wife.

(You just gotta love these social conservatives who protect the institution of marriage by marrying a lot. See Bob Barr, author of the Defense of Marriage Act.)

Newt famously divorced his first wife, also his high-school math teacher, while she was recovering from uterine cancer (he once said, according to a New Yorker profile, that she was not pretty enough to be the first lady), and he divorced his second wife while she was dealing with multiple sclerosis.

Newt is obviously very much against disease. He is not, it seems, so much for health care for all Americans. You want health care, win a Congressional seat, is probably his motto.

It’s enough to make you consider killing cooing birds.

Or consider Bob Dylan again: “And failure’s no success at all.”

If you see life as absurd, it seems more rational.

Just ask the doves.