Gingrich derides Obama speech as “shallow” in Fla.

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is deriding President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address as “shallow and lacking in seriousness.”

The potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate said during a visit today to Bethesda Memorial Hospital that he didn’t find humor in Obama’s joke about federal salmon laws illustrating the massive government bureaucracy.

Gingrich says the federal government’s size is “not a joke. ... It’s too big.”

Gingrich is fresh off a trip this week to early presidential caucus-state Iowa where he met with lawmakers. He says he’ll decide on a presidential run in late February. He and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush argued in an op-ed column published Thursday in The Los Angeles Times that cash-strapped states should be allowed to declare bankruptcy.