Newt Gingrich sometimes sounds like a broken record with his constant attacks on the media. During the very first Republican presidential debate last August, hosted by Fox News, Gingrich accused host Chris Wallace of playing “Mickey Mouse games” with “gotcha questions.” At the end of September, Gingrich blamed the media for his then-floundering campaign, and just last week he tried to hit CNN’s Wolf Blitzer for asking about Romney’s tax records.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, and all of Gingrich’s anti-media rants are getting pretty repetitive, so today the candidate tried a new angle: he vowed not to participate in any general presidential debates if they’re moderated by reporters, because all reporters support President Obama.
“As your nominee, I will not accept debates in the fall in which the reporters are the moderators,” he promised at a Florida rally, MSNBC reports. “We don’t need to have a second Obama person at the debate.” Is Gingrich implicitly saying his former colleagues at fair and balanced Fox News aren’t reporters? Sounds like it.
Gingrich, fond of calling himself a historian, must be forgetting that the official presidential match-ups, currently organized by the independent Commission on Presidential Debates, are moderated by journalists. Always. Ever since John Kennedy and Richard Nixon’s seminal televised 1960 face-off, reporters from the major networks, and sometimes newspapers, have played referee in the presidential candidates’ various public deliberation. That’s just how it’s done and if someone wants to be president, they have to deal with that reality.
Besides, who else would moderate the debates? Who does Gingrich suggest? A six-year old child? An unbiased foreigner with no direct stake in the election? The plastic cow that attended his Iowa rally? Or would the candidate, keen on a sci-fi moon colony, prefer super computer Watson moderate? Should we just program some random questions into a computer and hope the candidates stay on message and within time constraints?
Gingrich’s suggestion is ridiculous. It’s also presumptuous, because there are still months until the Republican nominating convention, and even if he can hang on through primary season, Gingrich still has an uphill battle before trying to throw his weight around at any kind of general debate. And even if he does clinch the nomination, Gingrich has no choice but to deal with reporters-as-moderators. Of course, Gingrich knows this and he’s simply spouting a hypothetical impossibility to get some media-hating right-wing love ahead of tomorrow’s Florida primary, where, if polls are to be believed, he’ll be trounced by Mitt Romney.
Meanwhile, as an added bonus, here’s a version of “Creep” featuring an assortment of images and commentaries on Gingrich’s “Cry Baby” problem:
Image via Dallas News‘ Michael Hamtil.
January 30, 2012 at 3:58 pm, Austin Johansen said:
Where’s Trump when you need him?