Some TV show yesterday—was it Jon Stewart?—pointed out that some sharp-eyed researcher looked up Newt's doctoral thesis and found that its bibliography included many books written in French--which implies that he can read French, n'est-ce pas? Or else he lied by listing the books in the bibliography.

Actually, it's probably true that he can read French. His thesis was on Belgian policy in the Congo, a topic that couldn't be researched properly without reading French. (I don't know whether Flemish would also be relevant.)

You can see Newt's thesis here.