Newt Gingrich

As NewsBusters previously reported, Bill Maher spent the bulk of his final program Friday disgracefully attacking Republicans.

After saying on HBO's Real Time, "Jon Huntsman can suck my c--k," the host played a satirical movie trailer about Newt Gingrich which concluded with the announcer calling the former Speaker of the House "a fat womanizing blowhard" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Appearing on Thursday's Tonight Show, MSNBC's Chris Matthews went after the Republican presidential candidates one by one, asserting Herman Cain's "bad, bad behavior" with women, Rick Perry being "not even competent to be in this – on that stage," and a "hypnotized" Michele Bachmann being a "strange person."

Even host Jay Leno got in on the GOP bashing, claiming the Republican Party had become so conservative that "even Reagan could not get elected" in a primary race. Matthews touted Reagan as a liberal: "He was pro-choice in California....He raised taxes. He did a lot of things that these people won't do anymore."

Jon Stewart, on Thursday's Daily Show, repeatedly mocked Rick Perry for his, as he put it, "brain turd" moment at this week's CNBC debate. However, Perry wasn't the only GOP candidate Stewart made fun of. Everyone from Perry to Santorum took a hit. The only candidate Stewart didn't mock was Mitt Romney, whom the Daily Show host declared to be the winner of the whole race. "It's over! Indecision 2012 Mercy Rule Edition. Because in presidential primaries, as in little league, if one team is up 10-0 in the third you call it a day an you head over to Friendly's for some Fribbles and some food poisoning."
                                             
Stewart initially teased his audience with the Perry clip by calling it: "Rick Perry's now infamous ABC Wide World of Sports agony-of-defeat-worthy brain turd." Then he went on to savage the other GOP contenders on his November 10 show. (video after the jump)

During Wednesday night's presidential debate, Newt Gingrich could barely restrain his amusement as co-moderator Maria Bartiromo defended the liberal media's reporting of the economy.    

Bartiromo took umbrage after Gingrich's asserted, "What is amazing to me is the inability of much of our academic world and much of our news media and most of the people on Occupy Wall Street to have a clue about history." The CNBC journalist responded by huffing, "I'm sorry, but what is the media reporting inaccurately about the economy?" An incredulous Gingrich mocked, "I love humor disguised as a question. That's terrific." [ See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Joe Scarborough has escalated his running war with the conservative blogosphere.  Clearly stung by being branded a RINO—among other things—Scarborough lashed out at "conservative bloggers" this morning.

Springboarding off his handicapping of the GOP presidential primary, in which he asserted that only Romney, Gingrich and Huntsman have a shot, Scarborough said: "I'm right all the time. And I know my Republican party better than you know your Republican party and it pisses you off and I understand why it would. Because you're always calling me a RINO and I'm always right about my party and you're always wrong."  Video and more after the jump.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich demonstrated Tuesday why every liberal media member in the country is scared to death of him winning the nomination and going head-to-head in a debate with Barack Obama.

When CNN's Piers Morgan tried to play his normal cocky role of knowing more than his guest, the former Speaker of the House smartly replied, "I've been involved with politics since 1958, I helped grow the modern Republican Party of Georgia, I helped create a national majority, and you're explaining to me the reality of politics" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ABC, CBS and NBC have continued their overly positive coverage of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protestors, devoting a massive number of stories (81 in just the month of October) to the leftist, anti-capitalist movement. This is a far cry from the coverage they initially gave the Tea Party protest, granting them a scant 13 stories all of 2009. More troubling, the radicalism and criminal acts at some of the protests have been virtually ignored by the Big Three networks.

This was bound to happen given the overwhelming disparity in the number of soundbites (19 to 1 ratio) devoted to those who were sympathetic to the OWS cause. A staggering 190 (80%) soundbites were given to those who were in favor of the Occupiers, only 10 (4%) soundbites featured those who were critical of the movement, 38 (16%) were neutral. In addition, nine guests on the morning shows appreciated the OWS crowd, to just one against (Newt Gingrich).

Appearing on Monday's NBC Today, Newt Gingrich took co-host Ann Curry to task for grilling him on allegations against Herman Cain: "...when the news media goes and finds an anonymous report about an anonymous incident...and you decide that matters more than every other issue in the campaign, that may put your judgment in doubt, as you, being the institutional news media." [Audio available here]
 
Curry began the segment by wondering: "...to have a Republican nominee for president, with unanswered questions about sexual harassment, what would it do to your party's chances of defeating Barack Obama?" Gingrich shot back: "What does it mean to the elite news media that nobody in the country ever walks up to us and raises questions you all raise?" [View video after the jump]

PBS's Mark Shields on Friday took some childish swipes at Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.

During an Inside Washington discussion about who might be next to challenge Mitt Romney for the GOP presidential nomination, Shields said, "Don't count out the chubby fellow from Georgia, Newt, the rehabilitated Newt Gingrich, carrying along a bogus IQ and some other baggage" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Wednesday's Early Show, CBS's Erica Hill downplayed the instances of violence and bigotry found at Occupy Wall Street protests as simply "the actions of a few," after GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich denounced the "frightening level of anti-Semitism in some of these gatherings." Hill questioned Gingrich over his supposedly "pretty outspoken words" about the left-leaning movement [audio clip available here; video available below the jump].

The anchor raised the demonstrations towards the end of her interview of the former House speaker, after Gingrich claimed that "people are pretty sick of the lack of civility...they watch Washington, they watch gridlock, [and] they watch a president who's more comfortable on [Jay] Leno than he is in trying to govern the country." Hill replied that "people, too, are fed up, as we know- we see a lot of this with the Occupy Wall Street protests. The latest CBS News/New York Times poll finds that 46% of Americans say that their views reflect a sentiment that most Americans share."

There are softballs and then there are softballs.

On Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory teed one up for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that was specifically designed to mock the Republican presidential candidates while allowing her to brag uninterrupted about the foreign policy successes of Barack Obama (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews despises many conservatives, but saves some of his most vitriolic comments for Newt Gingrich. On Wednesday's Hardball, he slammed the Republican presidential candidate as "demonic."

Discussing Gingrich's debate answer to a question on health care, Matthews trashed, "You know, the demonic aspect of the person of Newt Gingrich– and I do mean that– he speaks with a forked tongue where you see both forks at the same time."

Hours before Republican presidential candidates faced off in Tuesday's debate in Las Vegas, Martin Bashir took a swipe at six of them.

On the MSNBC program bearing his name, the host said that since Mitt Romney is "the inevitable candidate," the rest of the contestants are auditioning "for future employment" at Fox News (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich during Tuesday's Republican presidential debate once again went after one of his favorite targets - the media.

In response to a question about the Occupy Wall Street protests, Gingrich said, "Everybody in the media who wants to go after the business community ought to start by going after the politicians who have been at the heart of the sickness which is weakening this country (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo):

Joining PBS host Charlie Rose as a questioner tonight at the Washington Post debate is Post reporter Karen Tumulty, who wrote for Time magazine for  quite a while. On the Post website, she promised "No gimmicks, no gotchas, just a discussion that is as serious as the issues that Americans are dealing with on a daily basis."

But Tumulty has a history of uncorking some liberal hosannas, hailing Obama's "conspicuous candor" and lauding Al Gore's documentary as the work of "a laptop-wielding ninja whose PowerPoint could rescue the planet from the forces of greed and indifference."  But Newt Gingrich was the "pompous thug of late-night cable." Last December, Tumulty was clearly in a "gotcha" mode with former Sen. Rick Santorum, describing him as a "notorious" fire-breather on social issues:

CBS's Erica Hill channeled the overblown worries of liberals about influence of the Tea Party on Thursday's Early Show, asking Newt Gingrich, "The Tea Party has really made some big inroads...But there's a feeling by some folks that this very small group of people is starting to control the conversation. Do there need to be more voices at the table, in general, at this point?"

Hill brought on Gingrich to discuss his new Contract With America package, due to be released later in the day. Just as in The Early Show's interview of Herman Cain the previous morning, the anchor flattered her guest by congratulating him for his good showing in a recent poll, but wasted little time before launching a critique of one known part of his proposal, thinly veiled in conservative language:

The left is already out attacking last night's CNN Tea Party debate, with the New York Times leading the way as it cried "the first event hosted jointly by a major news organization and a Tea Party group" has "left some questioning whether the network had gone too far in reaching for centrist credibility." That charge only makes sense in a liberal world view that thought Brian Williams' biased performance at last week's NBC News/Politico debate was somehow soft and uncontroversial.

In fact there were far more liberal questions (13) to the GOP candidates at this Tea Party debate than there were conservative-oriented questions at the NBC News debate last week (just one). The Tea Party gets credit for helping restore balance to the agenda, but it's not like liberal ideas were shut out.

For reasons that are still inexplicable, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library agreed to partner up with NBC News, parent organization of the uber-left-wing network MSNBC to televise tonight's Republican presidential debate. While NBC representative Brian Williams had more than his share of sneering biased questions, it was Williams's co-moderator, Politico editor John Harris, who laid on the snark in his attempts to bait and attack the candidates.

Such unbalanced questioning is par-for-the-course for Republicans competing at the national level. More often than not, they take it in stride. Tonight, though, Newt Gingrich was having none of it as he went full-on after Harris's attempts to insert Gingrich into a non-existent debate about an individual mandate to purchase insurance at the national level that Republicans simply are not having. Video and transcript follow.

In the view of the New York Times, everything that ails our nation is caused by Republicans.

Consider Saturday's editorial disgracefully titled "Magical Unrealism: In the Iowa Debate, Republicans Fled From the Truth About the Damage Caused by Their Party":

Editor's Note: What follows is NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell's thoughts on who won, who lost, and who should just pack it all in following last night's Republican presidential debate in Ames, Iowa.

Gingrich: The winner. Wasn't even close. Showed why Obama would pee in his pants having to debate this man.

Santorum: Also a winner. Showed most passion, and took on and beat up other candidates. But was it enough to keep him alive?

You really have to wonder what debate Mark Halperin was watching Thursday evening.

Appearing on Friday's "Morning Joe," the Time magazine and MSNBC political analyst declared former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney the winner of the Republican presidential debate in Iowa, and actually gave former House Speaker Newt Gingrich - who many thought stole the show - only a C+ (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews as usual had four guests on the weekly syndicated program bearing his name.

When he asked them which of the current Republican candidates could end up being a great president, nobody chose to identify a single one (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Good Morning America's John Berman on Tuesday offered a condescending, dismissive take on how the money "obsessed" presidential candidates spent their Fourth of July. Yet, four years ago, the same program offered a fawning look at what Barack Obama did on Independence Day.

After mentioning Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich, Berman suggested that the Fourth of July could be "a chance to take a break from their recent big obsession, cash."

The journalist quickly followed this up by noting that the President has raised $60 million. Berman pointedly explained, "...Though he spent the day with men and women whose value is beyond priceless." (This was a reference to Obama's speech to U.S. troops at a barbeque.)

On Wednesday's All Things Considered, NPR's Ari Shapiro let The Daily Show's John Oliver and The Washington Post's Dana Milbank cast aspersions on some of the declared 2012 Republican presidential candidates and their surrogates. Oliver mocked the talking points of a Ron Paul spokesman as "pointless" and "meaningless," while Milbank derided the candidacy of Herman Cain.

Host Melissa Block introduced Shapiro's report about the White House correspondent's first visit to a post-presidential debate spin room, and gave a hint of its overall mocking tone: "The spin room might be a good name for an amusement park ride or part of a fun house. That makes it a perfect fit for a presidential campaign, which can get a bit wacky even in these early days."

In a June 16 story for the Politico, Molly Ball surveyed the existing GOP presidential field and essentially buried them all as pathetic losers who couldn't even carry their home states. The article headlined: "The GOP's Unfavorite Son Primary" detailed how current candidates Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and even undeclared ones like Rick Perry and Sarah Palin would have trouble winning statewide races.

Yes, you read that right. According to Ball, Perry could struggle to beat Obama in Texas and Palin could fall to the President in Alaska.

Ball began her story this way:

Appearing on Fox News's On the Record Wednesday night, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich slammed NBC News for its reporting earlier that day that Callista Gingrich was a main cause of the exodus of Gingrich staffers last week: "I believe NBC owes Callista an apology....I think the program this morning was totally irresponsible and personally reprehensible..."     

Host Greta Van Susteren asked Gingrich: "What was her role in the campaign prior to the departure? What is her role now? And had there been any internal conflicts with Callista and any of the people who left?" Gingrich responded: "Look, Callista and I have a very similar relationship to Nancy and Ronnie Reagan. And people blame Nancy Reagan for things that Ronald Reagan did."