Gingrich Accuses Romney Campaign of Being a Campaign
Giant toddler Newt Gingrich is in full crybaby force today, effectively doing a number on himself while attempting to do a number on vague front-runner Mitt Romney. On the CBSEarly Showthis morning, Gingrich sort of called Mitt Romney a LIAR. This followed some other not-nice-to-Mitt comments he made on last night's Piers Morgan show on CNN. But it took CBS anchor Norah O'Donnell to spoon-feed the actual word "liar" into Gingrich's mouth. And Newt Gingrich had no problem with that.
Discussing the super PAC ads that essentially dismantled Gingrich's Iowa campaign (and perhaps national campaign ... have patience), O'Donnell was basically trying to get Gingrich to repeat his claim that Romney is a duplicitous (triplicitous?) scoundrel. The exchange went as follows:
O'Donnell: You scolded Mitt Romney, his friends who are running this Super PAC that has funded that, and you said of Mitt Romney, 'Someone who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to you when they are president.' I have to ask you, are you calling Mitt Romney a liar?
Gingrich: : Yes.
O'Donnell: You're calling Romney a liar?
Gingrich: Well, you seem shocked by it. This is a man whose staff created the PAC, his millionaire friends fund the PAC, he pretends he has nothing to do with the PAC - it's baloney. He's not telling the American people the truth.
Um, Newt. Just because you don't have your own super PAC (to our knowledge) doesn't mean you can attack a super PAC as some extraordinarily evil thing! But the real problem is not the bait-y "liar" comment but the fact that he is essentially faulting Romney for running a political campaign. He goes on to say:
I just think he ought to be honest with the American people and try to win as the real Mitt Romney, not try to invent a poll-driven, consultant-guided version that goes around with talking points, and I think he ought to be candid. I don't think he's being candid and that will be a major issue.
Is not "poll-driven" and "consultant-guided" the very definition of a political candidate? The nail in the coffin is Gingrich's delusional belief that there is a "real" Romney. All told, Newt is starting to sound more like an election-night CNN pundit than a candidate, as he glumly rehearses for the role he intended to play all along, just more lucratively than ever before. [CBS via The Caucus]