Why Newt Gingrich Hates the Press – Some of Them Keep Reporting What He Actually Said

And If That Catches On His Candidacy is in Trouble

The Republican Debate in South Carolina on Thursday catapulted Newt Gingrich into winning the South Carolina primary because it gave him the opportunity to blame the press for his problems.  This is a key element of modern Conservative thinking, namely that their ideas and policy prescriptions are not all that popular because the press is biased against them.  In fact if the press reports serious character defects in someone like Mr. Gingrich, it is the fault of the press for reporting them, not Mr. Gingrich’s fault for having them.

Of course, there is so much vitriolic rhetoric and hypocrisy in Mr. Gingrich’s past that it is impossible for the media to report all of it.  A good example is dredged up by the Los Angeles Times editorial pages, in reaction to a statement made by one of Mr. Gingrich’s ex-wives.

there was one tidbit in Marianne Gingrich's story that seemed particularly intriguing: The day after requesting a divorce, the former speaker of the House delivered a speech titled "The Demise of American Culture," which his wife found richly ironic. "How could he ask me for a divorce on Monday and within 48 hours give a speech on family values and talk about how people treat people?" Marianne Gingrich told the Post.

Well it turns out there is a video of the speech in the CSPAN library, and it provides huge fodder for commentary, which the Time does very nicely.  Here is Newt’s attitude toward women.

If there's a YouTube "gotcha" moment in the speech, it actually comes before Gingrich gets to the podium, when Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, one of the Republicans swept into power thanks to Gingrich's 1994 Republican revolution, introduces him by thanking him for his support. "And I must say that for the first time, when we took over, Newt was very, very open to those of us who were female," Myrick said. Given that he was having an affair at the time with a House staffer 23 years his junior, that seems like an understatement.

And here is a comment on women in Presidential politics.

From there, Gingrich goes on to crow about the fact that it was his party, not the Democrats, that had put forward a serious female candidate for the 2000 presidential nomination, little knowing that the candidacy of Elizabeth Dole would barely last longer than his speech.

Of course it was Hilary Clinton who was really the first serious woman candidate, but Mr. Gingrich, not being a historian would not be expected to know that even today.

Mr. Gingrich stated that if the country just elected a Republican in 2000 the budget would be balanced for years and years.

He predicts that if the country doesn't elect another liberal Congress or president, "we will have a generation of balanced budgets for the first time in 70 years," little knowing that a deficit crisis was about to blow up under President Bush.

And Mr. Gingrich has an explanation for the horrific tragedy at Columbine High School

"We have had a 35-year experiment in a unionized, bureaucratic, credentialed, secular assault on the core values of this country, and we should not be surprised that eventually they yield bad fruit, because they are bad seeds.... For 35 years, God has been driven out of the classroom, and we have seen the result in a secular, atheistic system in which God is not allowed to exist," Gingrich rants.

The conclusion of the piece is something that this Forum could not have said better and will probably never say as well as it is said here.

This is the world of Newt Gingrich, where self-appointed Christian mullahs decide what entertainment content is appropriate for the nation and mandate religious inculcation in schools full of children who share multiple faiths (or none at all). It is a world where, apparently, good Christian kids are never suicidally or homicidally depressed, so school shootings just don't happen. Which is a good thing, because in Newt's world, guns can be purchased by anybody at any time.

Yep, no question Mr. Gingrich has to hate a press that quotes him and links to the video of him saying this stuff.