Newt Gingrich
You have now read about the fascinating life, or lives, of the man who has looked like our next president more often — but also more briefly — than any other American. And in the last two days, two things have happened. Newt has released his tax returns, while his main opponent, Mitt Romney, has continued to refuse to release his.
On the other hand Newt’s ex-wife, the one he asked for a divorce while she was in her hospital bed, gave a widely viewed interview in which she said that what Newt really asked for was an open marriage, that is one in which the partners are free to have sexual relations with all the outsiders they like.
Newt answered questioning on that with a furious blast at the liberal media who, he said, slandered conservatives like himself and let other politicians go free.
This is not statistically true — it’s the conservatives, not the liberals, who own their own major periodicals and television networks which all read from the same right-wing page, but he got applause. He’s a star-class orator when the chips are down.
One more time he may again be beginning — temporarily — to look like our next president.
Related posts:
H. E. Parmer says:
Newt answered questioning on that with a furious blast at the liberal media who, he said, slandered conservatives like himself and let other politicians go free.
Just plain gob-smacking. That this man, this man above all, can say that with a straight face and get applauded for it proves there is literally no lie too obvious and no hypocrisy too blatant for their audience. And these, mind you, are the people with the down-home, simple, patriotic “values” to which we’re supposed to genuflect on a daily basis.
Intercourse them.
January 21, 2012, 3:01 amRobert Nowall says:
It varies, but the last time I saw a survey, eighty-nine percent of the reporters and editors who write the stories and decide what gets on the air or in the papers considered themselves “Democrats” or “liberals”—and didn’t vote for Republicans or conservatives.
I suppose those biases matter less than those of the owners who don’t interfere with them…
January 21, 2012, 9:30 amEric says:
Just to correct an entirely understandable factual error: the ex-wife Gingrich asked for an “open marriage” with was Marianne Gingrich, i.e. the woman he cheated with and left his first wife in the cancer ward for. After serving divorce papers on his first wife in the hospital (allegedly), he married Marianne, and then some time later started cheating on Marianne with the woman who became his current wife (Callista Gingrich). It was after he’d already started cheating on Marianne (who he’d previously cheated on his first wife with) with Callista (#3) that he asked for the “open marriage”; while proponents of open marriages say the secret is communications and consent, technically you’re suppose to ask for the consent before you start schtupping out.
I know, I know. It’s hard to keep it all straight. There are daytime soap operas with simpler sexual entanglements. But I mainly felt the need to offer the correction because really, it’s sort of worse than you imply: the dude running as a moral crusader has cheated on two previous wives, and goodness knows if Newt divorces Callista because he’s seeing someone else, she’ll have less-than-no reason to be the least bit surprised. And I feel I ought to say: I could care less if Newt Gingrich had an open marriage (or two previous wrecked ones) if he wasn’t a defense-of-marriage candidate who goes around talking about family values and how kids ought to be janitors because they’re all in broken homes and who once led the impeachment of a President for lying about cheating on the only woman he’s ever been married to. I.e. it’s not the sexual adventuring and rampant cheating, it’s all the hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness he garlands himself with.
January 21, 2012, 11:54 amJohnArmstrong says:
Reporters and editors are by and large, centrist or left-leaning to some degree; publishers/owners are almost universally right of center to far-right. fact – you can look it up
January 21, 2012, 2:03 pmDave Creek says:
I have to wonder if the people cheering for Gingrich’s line also rose up in indignation during the coverage of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal.
January 21, 2012, 9:39 pmH. E. Parmer says:
That would be the Liberal Media which gave Clinton a free pass on Whitewater and that Lewinsky kerfluffle, right? The ones who were so in the tank for Gore in 2000 they never labeled him a serial exaggerator or snarked about “earth tones”, and then demanded a recount in Florida, no matter how long it took? The tenacious skeptics who scoffed at formulations like the Axis of Evil and the War on Terror, who did their level best to scuttle our grand Iraqi adventure with incisive, adversarial journalism from the likes of Judith Miller. The attack dogs who tore the Swift Boaters to shreds, and laughed the ACORN smear out of town?
Just so we can get our definitions straight, you understand. ‘Cause there’s been nothing even remotely like that happening in our own dimension.
But really, this notion that media owners are helpless pawns of reporters’ and editors’ liberal bias is so completely unhinged it’s got to be parody.
God knows I’ve heard variations on Robert’s factoid (though oddly, never an actual citation of a verifiable source) often enough over the last thirty years. Then again, the last three decades have also taught me that it’s hard to go wrong by applying the “Lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics” standard to any figures quoted by the Right.
January 21, 2012, 11:11 pmStefan Jones says:
Comedian Frank Coniff put it succinctly:
“Tonight South Carolina passed a referendum saying it’s okay to cheat on your wife as long as you’re sufficiently racist.”
You know what is most horrifying about all this? I honestly think Gingrich is one of the least objectionable contenders for GOP nomination. This is less praise for Newt as sick-hearted disbelief at the menagerie that has thrown their hats in the ring.
January 22, 2012, 12:59 amSteven says:
Actually, Dave, many of us did. Please note, though, that it was during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal that much of this information about Newt and several other members of the Republican caucus came up. It is the hypocrisy that we are noting, not their actions. Congressmen (also Congresswomen…they just haven’t had as long to do it), and presidents, have been doing these things for a long time. Grover Cleveland paid for taking care of an out-of-wedlock child for his mistress, and his opponent used that against him in the presidential elections. If I remember correctly, he won that election in part because he owned up to the affair, as well as to doing the “right thing” by his love-child. Many liberals/moderates I knew at the time who otherwise supported Clinton’s policies stopped supporting him and became critics of him for his actions (primarily for his lying about the affair…which I thought showed poor judgment on his part).
January 22, 2012, 9:48 amEllen Asher says:
Eric is right; it was Newt’s first wife who had cancer. Marianne Gingrich has multiple schlerosis. So this charmer has now left two wives when they became seriously ill.
January 22, 2012, 11:16 amRobert Nowall says:
H. E. Parmer:
Here’s a link to the stats about media bias, somewhat updated:
http://www.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp#The%20Media%20Elite
This was the survey I was thinking of…the “eighty nine percent” probably comes from somewhere else.
January 23, 2012, 4:19 pmH. E. Parmer says:
Thanks for the link, but I’m not sure it proves much. Most of the surveys quoted are — to say the least — informally conducted, and except for one or two, seem to involve very small samples. At some point, it would be nice to have an actual statistician look into the bigger studies.
Even if the figures aren’t biased, I can see a couple of problems right now: The first is that it’s quite possible to be liberal (and identify oneself as such) on some cultural issues, while still holding very conservative views on economic, domestic and foreign policy. Also, “voted for the Democrat” is a rather forced equivalency for “liberal”, especially when every Democratic candidate after McGovern — arguably the most liberal in the social and foreign policy sense in the last two generations — has gone to ludicrous lengths to establish their centrist hawk bona fides.
No one outside of Fox News claims there’s such a thing as an “unbiased” journalist. But I’d be a lot more sympathetic to complaints about liberal bias in the media if, for example, Newt Gingrich was the pariah instead of John Edwards. Or the Sunday talk show guest list wasn’t stacked 2-1 in favor of Republicans and conservatives, regardless of who controls Congress and the White House. Or if the radio airwaves weren’t dominated by Rush and his clones. Or if every major outlet hadn’t subjected us to a week of over-the-top hagiography when Reagan finally shuffled off this mortal coil. Or gone gaga over a bunch of ignorant, hysterical loudmouths playing Revolutionary War dress-up, while giving the crickets treatment to much larger demonstrations against the Right.
If there’s a liberal bias to the media, then judging from the results it’s one hell of an ineffective bias.
January 25, 2012, 10:28 pmRobert Nowall says:
H. E. Parmer: “Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion, but nobody’s entitled to their own facts.” And did you know there are more Democrats than Republicans at Fox News?
January 28, 2012, 10:49 am