Newt has revealed himself to be the proverbial naked emperor. Instead of having no clothes, he apparently has no debate skills.
Today, he appeared on Fox and Friends to complain about Brian Williams asking last night’s debate audience to hold any applause until the commercial breaks:
In an interview with the morning show “Fox and Friends,” Mr. Gingrich said NBC’s rules amounted to stifling free speech. In what has become a standard line of attack for his anti-establishment campaign, Mr. Gingrich blamed the media for trying to silence a dissenting point of view.
“I wish in retrospect I’d protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And I think he took them out of it because the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate.”
You see, for all of his talk about wanting to go toe-to-toe against Obama in a series of seven thousand Lincoln-Douglas style debates, Newt doesn’t want to debate Obama. He wants to preen for the camera and act like a pompous jerk. He wants to debate the media and bask in the glowing approval of the debate audience members who think the librul media is trying to turn them in to socialists.
First of all, if Newt is such a big ideas historian, why doesn’t he understand what free speech is? Asking the debate audience to hold their applause until the commercial breaks is no more an infringement of their freedom of speech, than is asking a movie audience to shut the hell up for the duration of a movie. Freedom of speech implicates government infringement on protected speech. It has nothing to do with whether or not Brian Williams can tell a bunch of rowdy motherfuckers to shut the hell up for fifteen minute increments.
Second of all, that Newt doesn’t want to attend debates unless he’s guaranteed the right to play to the crowd (while lying through his teeth, mind you) doesn’t bode well for his future debates with President Obama (if that’s how the Republican primary shakes out).
Newt’s idea of a debate is to talk about Reagan, to talk about his supposed historian street cred, to talk about Reagan some more, and be a jerk to the moderator. And you know what? The audience wants to see that. Hell, I wanted to see that last night because I found the debate to be BO-RING as compared to the South Carolina debate. The standing ovations that Newt received in the South Carolina did not relate to any substantive issues, they related to his unabashed dickish behavior. Newton acted like a dick (to John King and then to Juan Williams), and the audience (well known itself for acting like a giant dick… twice) applauded him for it. (And let’s not forget that the next day, Newton gladly accepted praise for putting that uppity negro with the Mexican name in his place.)
While the raucous debates that we’ve seen over the course of the Republican primary may be more entertaining, they’re not truly debates. Debates like last night’s are always going to be boring when debate participants prefer to lie and attack one another than to talk about the actual issues. Also, debates are bound to be boring if the moderators don’t challenge the debaters when they lie. How many moderators have allowed Mitt Romney to claim that President Obama doesn’t have a jobs plan as if the American Jobs Act somehow ceased to exist? How many moderators are going to roll over when Newt summons up faux outrage at moderators who dare ask questions about his past relationships and extramarital dalliances? (Never mind that he is touting himself as the family values candidate, and that his excuse for “falling from grace” was that his passion for America made him cheat on his wives. Let’s just accept that as true. Why the hell not?)
Last night’s display was less about debating, and more about reciting talking points, (and Newt wasn’t even very good at that — see the video clip below, particularly at the 4:00 minute mark.)
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If Newt cannot debate — that is — if he cannot make an argument and provide facts to back it up while at the same time refuting the argument of his opponents and providing facts to back up his refutations, then he needs to stop puffing his feather and pretending like he could wipe the floor with Obama in a Lincoln/Douglas debate. Real debates don’t involve a peanut gallery. It’s not a rock concert or a comedy show. It’s an exchange of ideas through argument. Now, maybe Newt doesn’t have any ideas. I haven’t heard any. I’ve just heard him talking about how awesome Reagan was and how he’s been in government since World War II. He name drops and talks about how much ass he kicked in the mid-nineties, but that’s about it. I don’t think Newt can debate. Last night, he was lost without an unruly audience to punctuate his condescension with rowdy applause. He was even rendered speechless for a few painful seconds. (Seriously — watch the above clip at the 4:00 minute mark.)
That’s why Newt is threatening to boycott debates where the audience can’t participate. And that’s why his demand for Lincoln/Douglas debates is so laughable.
Sure, Newton might be able to corral enough assholes to sit and cheer while he insults entire swaths of people (invented Palestinians, Spanish-speakers with their ghetto language, lazy blacks with their food stamps), but that type of nonsense won’t work against someone trained to debate. Someone who has argued in court. Someone who doesn’t need an entourage. Someone who can make an argument without being a dick.
That someone is Barack Obama.
woot! obama 2012!
no problem:
see ya
To paraphrase Seth Meyers – debating Barack Obama is like challenging Aquaman to a fight in the ocean. Obama walked into a Republican Party get together and literally smacked around the entire GOP and left them speechless at their own forum. He swatted Hillary Clinton and John McCain back in 2008. Newt Gingrich could barely stand up to Bill Clinton.
For the former Speaker of the House think that he could easily go toe to toe with Obama in debating shows Newton Leroy Gingrich is a even bigger self-delusional, egomaniac than we even imagined. And think that he’s going to accomplish such a Heruclean task with the kind carnival barker theatrics that pass for debate in the GOP primaries, he’s an even dumber egomaniac than we could have possible imagined.
Obama isn’t a single issue freak show like Santorum or Ron Paul and he isn’t a cardboard cutout of an actual human like Mitt Romney. And he’s light years a head of the short yellow bus you called early primary challengers.
Let’s be honest, if Gingrich is struggling to get past these circus freaks in the nomination with his experience and pedigree – Obama’s going to eat him alive. Whether its Gingrich or Romney, they’re both going to learn what a real campaign looks like when taking on Obama.
Thank you! All I have to add to your comment is AMEN!!!
“Newton Leroy Gingrich.”
hilarious.
Newt cant handle the G.O.A.T. Presidents, thats why he needs the Jerry Springer crowd to boost him up.
That boring ass debate showed how weak he was, and he cant stand that and dispels his argument he can take on Obama
Gingrich fans are all in a tizzy over the prospect of him debating Obama. The problem is that Newt keeps saying shit that isn’t true. Watch: Obama will trounce him, he’ll cry victim again, and we’ll hear nothing but debate response from Gingrich *between* debates. Pathetic, really.
No live audience whatever, Newtrino. Let’s see how your bluster plays then.
Newt is typical of the Republican contestants this season in that he is shooting for lowering the bar for discourse to literally the bottom of the pit. And when it hits that floor, Newt (or one of his contemporaries) is going to grab a shovel and start digging.
They’re trying to ride a wave of ignorant indignation among the demographics that they, their industrial complex allies, and their progenitors, worked to cultivate. They helped make a population stupid, uneducated, hateful, and phobic of nearly everything possible to be phobic of. Now their strategy is to try and reap the rewards of what they’ve sown. It doesn’t matter if every word that comes out of their mouths is a fallacy or a weasel tactic; the people whom that is blatant to aren’t the ones they’re speaking at.
As in the relevant scene from ‘Thank You For Smoking’, the secret of Republican debate and oration is: you don’t care about convincing the guy across the table. You only care about swaying the audience, and the less the audience knows the better. Yank on their ignorance and pull for all it is worth.
You see, for all of his talk about wanting to go toe-to-toe against Obama in a series of seven thousand Lincoln-Douglas style debates, Newt doesn’t want to debate Obama. He wants to preen for the camera and act like a pompous jerk. He wants to debate the media and bask in the glowing approval of the debate audience members who think the librul media is trying to turn them in to socialists.
And why the GOP brane trust are terrified he will get the nomination, and end up getting 27 percent of the popular vote, creating a dem tidal wave of epic proportions. It is such delicious irony, watching the GOP reap what they’ve sewn.
Newt’s “big ideas” are basically wingnut madlibs – “Gay and Secular Fascism,” “Islamic Atheist Socialism”. They don’t have to make a logical sense, they just have to tickle the scared parts of his followers’ brains. I would love to see Obama tear apart Newt’s apocalyptic shtick and show it up for the flaccid nonsense it is.
Sorry Newt. No bigots to feed your fat ass ego on tv. You’re boring, gross, and outdated. The only thing that loves you is Callista and bigots.
Oh, any progressive who was actually worried about Barack Obama handling Newton Leroy, and beem listning to Tweety fellate Newton Leroy on live TV every evening, watch the SOTU again…….
Ole Newton Leroy aint got shit, has never been shit, wont ever be shit.
Newton couldnt handle Bill Clinton, he thinks he can take on Spock after getting smacked down by Kirk
It would be, as Jon Stewart referred to something similar some years back, an “ass-handing-to” – and not in Newtrino’s favor!