NBC and ABC Hit Gingrich For 'Outrageous' Child Labor Comments That 'Left Some Critics Slack-Jawed'
On Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams fretted over comments made by Newt Gingrich about providing school jobs for inner-city students: "The Newt Gingrich that a lot of folks will remember from his speakership days back in the '90s was back on display making statements about controversial issues that left some of his critics slack-jawed."
In an interview with the former Speaker aired on Thursday's ABC World News, chief White House correspondent Jake Tapper similarly cautioned: "And then the other concern has to do with your propensity to make outrageous, interesting, however – whatever adjective you'd like to assign – remarks, the most recent one about child labor laws, for example, being stupid."
After Gingrich reiterated his proposal to have school children in poorer neighborhoods do part-time work in their schools, from helping in library to doing janitorial work, Tapper pointed out: "But Democrats could very easily take that comment and say, "Newt Gingrich wants inner city kids to become janitors at age 10." Gingrich replied: "And the correct answer is that's a lie."
On NBC, Williams transitioned to the Gingrich story by announcing the "wild unsettled race going on within the GOP." Chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd described Gingrich's comments as, "quintessential Newt... making broad assertions and diving into issues that haven't been front and center..."
Here is a full transcript of Todd's December 1 report:
7:07PM ET
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Now we turn to the presidential campaign trail and the wild unsettled race going on within the GOP. The Newt Gingrich that a lot of folks will remember from his speakership days back in the '90s was back on display making statements about controversial issues that left some of his critics slack-jawed. Our report from NBC's Chuck Todd.
CHUCK TODD: Former Speaker Gingrich was quintessential Newt in Iowa today, making broad assertions and diving into issues that haven't been front and center, like child labor laws and the work habits of the poorest Americans.
NEWT GINGRICH: Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works.
TODD: Those remarks came as Gingrich tried to clarify his claim at Harvard two weeks ago that child labor laws are quote, "truly stupid."
GINGRICH: You have kids who are required under law to go to school. They have no money. They have no habit of work. What if you paid them part-time in the afternoon to sit at the clerical office and greet people when they came in? What if you paid them to work as the assistant librarian?
TODD: Meanwhile, Herman Cain met with the influential New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper, admitting that he never told his wife about a 13-year friendship with a woman who says it was an affair. Cain denies that but says he still hasn't talked to his wife about it in person or decided whether to quit running.
HERMAN CAIN: I haven't had an opportunity to sit down with her and walk through this with my wife and my family. I will do that when I get back home on Friday.
TODD: Still, if actions speak louder than words, it appears Cain plans on staying in. The superpac supporting him is set to debut one of the most unusual TV ads of the year, citing a lie detector.
ANNOUNCER: The media won't tell you what one of the foremost lie detector experts in America said about Herman Cain.
T.J. WARD: From my exam, he is being truthful. The allegations of saying that she'd been sexually assaulted by him did not occur.
TODD: The establishment frontrunner Mitt Romney was off the early state campaign trail. He paid a visit to former President Bush 41, former First Lady Barbara Bush, as you see in this photo today, trying to flaunt those establishment credentials. He didn't come away with an endorsement, Brian. Of course the entire Bush family has been staying on the sidelines so far.
WILLIAMS: Alright, Chuck Todd in our Washington newsroom tonight. Chuck, thanks.
- Kyle Drennen's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
Obama Shill
Submitted by Kleenex on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 5:55pm.
Williams is so predictable anymore. NBC is run like Pravda.
ahhh, and so begins their
Submitted by WarEagle66 on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 10:03pm.
ahhh, and so begins their attempt to destroy gingrich.
Let them work, in may help
Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 5:57pm.
Let them work, in may help them, if not it can be considered paying forward on future welfare benefits and prison room and board.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SGBlack101
Most liberals are slack-jawed by the truth.
Submitted by drsamherman on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 5:58pm.
Brian Williams is the Baghdad Bob of NBC.
Libs remain stupid.
Submitted by Aubrey on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 6:06pm.
So children should not learn a strong work ethic at an early age? Guess not with the liberal economic policy of food stamps and unemployment for life.
Well....
Submitted by dydx on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 6:12pm.
....if it were a job on an organic farm shoveling horse manure or at some (former, lol) OWS site peddling a power-generating bicycle I bet the libs woulda made an exception.
What he said is true, an
Submitted by ant on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 6:10pm.
What he said is true, an entrepeneuring youngster in the inner-city isn't going to make a dime shoveling-snow for crack-heads and welfare queens, and they're not going to get hired by the few Korean family-owned stores. I can understand the Democrats fright over this, paying a child to do work at a school he has to be at anyway will cut into those $300,000 administrator salaries and the $905,000. severance packages for those financial administrators that put their districts millions of dollars into debt. Can't have that.
Maybe my memory is failing, but there seems to be a heck of a lot more stories about everything these candidates do and say then I've seen on Obama before and after 2008.
work? -- Maynard Krebbs
Submitted by markprice1983 on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 6:14pm.
Why work when all you have to do is assemble a flash mob and help yourself to whatever you want from any merchant unfortunate enough to be located in your vicinity?
Who creates these anti-Republican memes the media uses?
Submitted by OxyCon on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 6:20pm.
There's obviously collusion going on throughout the media similar to Ezra Klein's Journolist in which a large group of connected media people are pushing anti-Republican memes.
This isn't a coincidence.
Just as with the exposing of Journolist, there needs to be a mole on the inside to reveal what is going on. My hunch is that many of the producers are behind these memes.
Oxy...Fenton Communications
Submitted by celator on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 6:50pm.
Oxy...Fenton Communications is collusion center for these folks. Radical lefty activist David Fenton, founder, was the official photographer for the Weather Underground. Not all, but many of the phrases and talking points used by the far left and the MSM come from Fenton. Here's a couple of little write ups about them and a list of some of their clients. George Soros is one of their clients (true).
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fenton_Communications
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=814
Shocking!
Submitted by DontFeedTheTrolls on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 6:24pm.
Heaven forbid some poor kid would have to wash the chalkboard and clap the erasers, or fetch books for the librarian.
Oh my, how "outrageous"...
Submitted by krendler on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 6:40pm.
Tapper: "But Democrats could very easily take that comment and say, "Newt Gingrich wants inner city kids to become janitors at age 10."
Uhhh, who cares how the Democrats could twist a very straightforward and sensible statement?
Democrats will call you a racist for advocating fiscal responsibility. So what?
Are we supposed to refrain from making perfectly sensible and rational statements, simply because the purpose in life of our liberal friends is to be outraged? They're going to be outraged no matter what.
Well if Newt's critics were
Submitted by tcm14 on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 7:03pm.
Well if Newt's critics were slack-jawed, then that means they weren't saying a word, which is a good thing. So let them be slack-jawed.
Personally, I thought they
Submitted by Rowane on Sat, 12/03/2011 - 12:43am.
Personally, I thought they were always slack-jawed...a bunch of slack-jawed mediots.
You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything. (Aaron Tippin)
And so it begins...
Submitted by dmills on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 7:10pm.
Right on que, the professional hitmen -mainstream media- under retainer by President Obama turn their collective attention to the latest GOP frontrunner. Newt is smarter then them so the Palin protocols won't work. I wonder which plan they'll implement? Hmmm...
So
Submitted by grammajane on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 7:17pm.
teaching kids at a young age to be responsible is a bad move? When kids see their parents running to the mail box on the first of every month to get their free check is a good move? Williams, do you have a brain or any common sense what-so-ever?
Brian Williams is pure
Submitted by jkwtrading on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 7:24pm.
Brian Williams is pure scum...
Foolish Democrats!
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 7:24pm.
Come to think about it, my very first job was in the school lunch room at Catholic School. It paid for my lunch and nothing more.
Did I mention I enjoyed it?
At good ole St. Henry's all
Submitted by irishguy on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 9:37pm.
At good ole St. Henry's all of us kids were expected to clean up after ourselves in the lunch room and the boys would fold up the chairs and stack them on the tables every day after lunch. Didn't get paid, it was just expected of us. We enjoyed folding & stacking the chairs, used to make a race out of it.
I'm getting slack-jawed
Submitted by katiejane on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 7:38pm.
over how little the MSM even try to hide their disdain for Republicans any more.
My guess is most of these
Submitted by irishguy on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 9:32pm.
My guess is most of these "critics" are slack jawed most of the time.
Newt is right on this one
Submitted by Marcus Porcius on Sat, 12/03/2011 - 2:40am.
That's what they really hate. He's right.
http://www.theconservativereview.com/2011/12/02/gingrich-is-right-kids-e...
"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." G.K. Chesterton
www.theconservativereview.com
Two Views
Submitted by Keith Phillips on Sat, 12/03/2011 - 5:27am.
First view. As a boy of 13 in Independence, Mo., I got up at 3am 7 days a week to work throwing papers out of truck. I did the same thing again at 3:30pm (only one delivery on Sunday). I had fun doing this and I got paid the vast sum of 14.50 a week. My father, who grew up in the Depression, had a like story. He got a college degree by going to night school and advanced in the Standard Oil Co. I grew up to become a Director of Information Systems.
Second view. As a boy of 13 in Independence, Mo. I did nothing at all except school, which I didn't like. Never learned that the world didn't owe me everything. Got a job at a burger joint, went on welfare a couple of times, and joined the OWS people.
Which view would be better for me and the country?
In the 80's
Submitted by ahusser on Sat, 12/03/2011 - 7:38pm.
I was a plainclothes cop on the streets of DC. Ran into very young drug dealing suspects (runners etc). Had more cash on them than I as an adult ever had and that didn't include the bling. Of course not all youngsters were involved in the drug or other criminal trade but those many that were were paid very well and, in the way of kids, looked up to (recruiting them was a strategic business move on the adults who ran the trade as the juvenile justice system is much more lenient than the adult one.) How are you going to inculcate generations of kids into a work and education ethic working for minimum wage when it is much easier to not work (welfare etc.) or to be involved in a lucrative criminal enterprise.
"Somehow, I told you so, just doesn't quite say it." Will Smith in 'I, Robot.'