Does Newt Gingrich understand how threats work? He has worked himself into a lather over the part during last night’s GOP debate when moderator Brian Williams went all Mother Superior and instructed the Republican audience to hush for once in its life and wait for a commercial break to applaud, which meant that all of Newt’s usual smirking laugh lines about poors and minorities were met with a giant room full of awkward silence, AS THEY SHOULD BE. He therefore officially threatens to no longer participate in any future Republican debates if the audience is asked to behave itself. Which, REALLY? In that case, we’d say the media basically has a moral obligation to America to take him up on his offer.
Whine whine whine whine whine, via the NYTimes:
“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.”
No, Newt, a presidential debate is not a contest between the candidates and the moderator. The debates are a contest between the candidates. This is a Fundamental Historical Fact that Newt Gingrich does not understand, like so many others.
“We’re going to serve notice on future debates,” he told Fox. “We’re just not going to allow that to happen. That’s wrong. The media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want to.”
Hahahaha and here is the fun correction at the bottom of the NYTimes story, because even they cannot keep all of Newt’s affairs/wives/lies straight:
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated whom Newt Gingrich is said to have asked for an “open marriage.” It was an ex-wife, not his current wife.
FOR ALL WE KNOW, at this moment. [NYTimes]
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Do you promise, Newt? Really? It's not like you kept any of the promises you gave your wives.
Make him a vow to let his clappers clap, decide you love the country too much to allow the thunderous applause. Explain that we need a Buick candidate, not a Jaguar. Easy. Next!
He must have seen that cell phone commercial where the teen-aged girl gives her boyfriend the "silent treatment" by calling him a hundred times a day to tell him she's giving him the silent treatment.
Newt's the teen-aged girl.
"The media doesn’t control free speech."
No, just Rupert Murdoch.
I found it interesting that he felt the need to go on Fox and Friends to throw his hissy about how Brian Williams treated him.
Any other news(?) organization won't put up with his bullshit.
And yet, Newt's core constituency are the same people who get so very mad when "those people" are loud and disruptive in movie theaters.
Dude, it's a debate, not a paid advertisement for your candidacy.
I thought that's what the little Fox News logo was doing on the wall behind him?
BTF:
Oh – you mean unlike those FOXPAC infomercials where the candidates give their contribution website address a couple of times a minute?
Newt is turning into Cartman. "Screw you guys, I'm goin home"
Seemed more like an advertisement than a debate to me. Rummy and Grinch got almost all the face time.
Your move, media.
Good luck with that shit. They're just selling a product – the time of journalists doing anything honest and useful ended about 20 years ago. Juan Williams should've hung Newtie from the rafters, but it ain't gonna happen.
The way things were goin', back there, it was nothing short of a miracle that Newton Pigboy didn't string poor Juan up by his dewlaps.
relax newt. you can't yell 'Fire' in a crowded theater but you can burn a cross in back of it.
Sometimes Newt makes rooting for him REALLY hard…
This is bad news for the liquor stores that did a bang – up business last night. Ricky and Grandpa just can't give an entertaining catfight the way Newt does.
I really don't give a fuck if Newtie has an open marriage – as long as he keeps the crapper door(s) closed.
Next debate should have a laugh track.
indeed. the entire thing is a blooper reel
Brilliant. Do it like an old-fashioned sitcom. Hilarious.
Tom Bergeron as moderator.
"Yakety Sax" when going to and from commercials…
Even better, make it Big Bang Theory's laugh track. Or, as nbc keeps insisting, its live studio audience.
Or a Gong.
I'd love it if each candidate had their own theme music. Mittens gets the theme from the Munsters, Newt gets the theme from Benny Hill, Rick gets the theme from Little House On The Prairie and Ron Paul doesn't get any, since no one gives a fuck about him anyway.
Nice!
I think a variation on the Addams Family TV show theme song would cover them all:
They're creepy and they're kooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They're all together ooky,
The GOP family.
Their house is a museum
Where people come to see 'em
They really are a scream
The GOP family.
(Newt)
(Astute)
(A hoot)
So get a bitches' brawl on
A corndog you can gnaw on
We're gonna pay a call on
The GOP Family.
And yet they make me want to cry.
Maybe they can have a debate in the Ed Sullivan Theater and give each of the debaters their own buttons for the signs that tell the audience to "APPLAUD." That would be fun.
And please let an insider hack those buttons so that the audience is directed to "BOO!" at regular intervals…
While Letterman is taping. He'd skewer them.
Dear Lord, please let the next moderator enforce the rules…
After Brian AND Juan Williams got slapped down, think the next moderator should be Serena. Anybody booed her, she'd backhand 'em out of the room.
Diamanda Galas. Four piercing octaves of fury, plus the black-leather-clad Dyke Squad for rapist-burning. Should clear the halls in no time flat.
I cannot upfist you enough for the DG mention.
Yay, a fellow fan! I love that woman. She is wicked crazy.
Nobody puts Newt in the corner. Bill Clinton learned that. Woe betide anyone who tries to make him sit in the back of a plane.
Can I just make him sit in the back of a zinc-roofed hut in MetroManila?
Fine, the next debate is at the Apollo theater.
I can walk there in about 8 minutes, get threaded next door and yell obscenities at Newt, that sound like a fun-filled evening.
Be careful. He might try to make you wife number 4. Or is it 5?
If, big fucking if, I happened to get roaring drunk and ended up naked with Newt, consummation would be impossible because my vagina would slam shut and he would end up banging his tiny dick on my leg.
Oh, Lizzie! My partner's complaining because I'm laughing so hard the bed's shaking!
The media doesn't control free speech. People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want to.”
So, is that an open invitation for OWS to show up and mike check the next debate? Or is it only "free speech" that agrees with him that the media doesn't control?
I think he's saying that the next debate should be held in one of the shrub's so-called "free speech zones".
Republican Debate audience members are people too, my friend…(oh wait)
Thank you thank you thank you, K B-J, for reminding the world that alternating press conferences among candidates for their party's nomination for president are not "Presidential Debates."
Presumably, Newt would be totally cool if part of the audience were to loudly BOO or honk vuvuzelas over all his answers as is their right? No? Weird.
Fucking 1st Amendment, how does it work?
Or jump up and fire their pistols in the air like Yosemite Sam.
I thought Perry dropped out.
It only works one-way for these fucks.
And ONLY for them. Fuck everybody ELSE's freedom of speech.
Yes, how dare the media expect that the audience be thoughtful and attentive to what the candidates are saying. Don't they know that the only way anyone can deal with Newt is if they hollering as loud as they can so that they don't actually have to listen to him?
Newt does Tinkerbell: "People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want." So, the pasty, flatulent marshmallow man is now a fairy princess. Thank you, Newt!
Well, now the image of Newt in a short, sleeveless green dress, flying around the room, is lodged in my head forever. Thanks for that.
And now, thanks to both of you, it's lodged in mine. Anyone wanna play daisy chain?
What's next? Will Mitt Romney demand that the moderators not tell the audience to stop snoring when he is speaking?
No, he'll just demand all the hard questions go to the other candidates.
"I said all that racist shit and no one did the wave. BULL SHIT ON YOU."
-Newt Gingrich-
Petulant porcine pontificator is petulant.
Apt alliteration's artful aid …
OK Newt. We'll let the audience applaud if they like something, but if they are unhappy, they get to use tasers and pepper spray on the candidates. Now, that's a debate I'll watch.
I'll bring the pepper spray. What's wrong with rotten tomatoes, though?
Tomatoes are picked by the Browns.
Not as nutritious as pepper spray.
Pepper spray is food my friends (so says Fux News).
What was the name of that skanky dimbo who claimed "Pepper spray is a vegetable, basically" or something like that live on Fox? Retchin' Morgan? Tracy Bumpass? Something weird.
I'm in favor of anything that burns when in comes into contact with the eyes or skin. If rotten tomatoes are acidic enough to cause serious pain, throw those rotten tomatoes.
Why bother? Pepper spray is a vegetable.
Guns, ftw!
Second Amendment remedies kick ass baby!
Yeah, let's *survey* his big fat ass!
Poor Newton. Poor, poor, Newton. He has a sad. Is it because his huge dome is full of shit? Or, maybe because he alone knows what is best for America? The world may never know.
…is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates…
I sure as fuck am!
I promise I'll applaud if Newt comes to the next debate in his furry frog outfit.
Newt is hell bent on reminding us why we hated him so much by the time he left the House.
“I wish in retrospect I’d protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong,” Mr. Gingrich said
Yes, of course, it's all about what NEWT GINGRICH THINKS. Surely we should have understood this by now.
Demagogues don't like quiet rooms.
Those are for discussing income inequality.
Yes, but most of them would benefit from one. With several feet of padding.
How boorish can ya get…In other news…Newt unmasks himself with one of his concubines at a weird Republican bestiality sex swap party…Pass the Santorum shots
Noted legal mind Uncle Remus calls this the "Briar Patch" gambit.
Also, that pic… if Newt had a lick of self-awareness, he'd switch costumes with Marianne.
I sorta picture Newt in a Pedobear costume.
Dang. Next thing you know they'll be banning the torches and the white hoods. 'Merica!
Keep that wingnut blood-lust flowing, Newtie.
Nananananananananananananananana – Batshit!!!
Newt eliminates facts and fills up the gaps with charm.
You call that "charm"?
Normally, I'd say call his shitty bluff. But since all he wants is to let a bunch of yahoos get all riled up and lynch mob-y while he baits Romney, I say we do it his way.
Newt is a furry. No news there, but now we have photographic evidence.
This cocksucker should just cave in to his impulses and start having all his rallies in beerhalls.
You know who Else had their rallies at beer halls?
Sam Adams?
The dueling fraternities at Heidelberg University?
Putsch libel!
Putz libel.
Oh, wait. You can't libel that putz.
Wait, are we sure that's him? Because he's smiling, but his face isn't collapsing in on itself like I know it has to.
Yes, Newt, shut the fuck up.
Because debates and church are supposta be like WVU football games. Full of cheering, face paint, a drunk fist fight here and there OH! and a beachball being batted around.
Wait, that doesn't look like Callista at all. Did she used to be a brunette?
Yeah, she was a brunette, before she came down with a raging case of feline leukemia.
Explains a lot, actually.
Well, then Gnewt will be kicking her to the curb any day now.
That was her original head, not the aftermarket upgrade we see on tv.
That's Mistress #1/Wife #2, not Mistress #2/Wife #3.
Applause has never really allowed for the full expression of audience appreciation at Republican debates and rallies. But this thoughtful invitation to audiences to use, say, a chorus of vuvuzelas, some of those compressed-air ship horns, and maybe a little Diamanda Galas turned up high on a few hundred ghetto-blasters just might help people get to the right level of enthusiasm.
Les Litanies du Satan. So apropos.
They could go creative and use rim shots on a snare drum at the appropriate racist zingers. Or laugh tracks, with an applause button. Or hell, Loony Tunes sound effects would be even better. I don't fucking know. Fuckers.
http://www.sadtrombone.com/
As his ex-wives and numerous mistresses will tell ya, "Ya jus can't trust 'em". Basically, the fucker lies.
Newton LeRoy throws a hissy – again.
Newt, this can't end well for you. Inviting audience reaction will require you start screening each and every audience member.
The logical end of all this nonsense, of course, is an R. Budd Dwyer moment.
Newt is more likely to pull a small nuke out of the manila envelope.
Once he shuts it, can a SWAT team swoop in and weld* the foul and hateful orifice/source of all idiocy shut? Please.
*yeah, flesh will not weld, but it should melt into place if heat is applied long enough
"People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want to."
Newt then added,
"But if they're dirty hippies standing on a public sidewalk, then beat and mace the s**t out of them."
Better (and Republican!) idea= Let the audiences bring their free speech guns to these pre-debates….
Why keep the audience quiet? They only cheer for stuff that makes normal people hate them more.
Somebody must've gotten him to realize what a bloodbath is in store when President Obama debates him. Any excuse to slither out of that reality check will do.
Yeah, I get the same feeling. Nothing with this weasel is as he says it is. I wonder if he's beginning to realize that he can't beat Romney's ground game. He's got to win a helluva lot more than just South Carolina to debate Obama. Right now, he's got the largest number of delegates, but FL is a winner-takes-all state, and it is HUGE. If Mitt takes FL, Newt's gone, baby, gone, pretty much.
How about if the audience wants to boo? Is that okay according to The Newt's Rules of Free Speech? Or how about if I were in the audience and decided to stand up on my seat and drop my pants and invite Newt to kiss my ass? Is that okay? No? Free Speech! Free Speech!
BTW, I'm so grateful to have the strength to crawl into the Wonkette room and get some much-needed laffs after my first week of working again in four years for crissakes. Love all y'all Wonkers!
Congrats for the work! Stay tough. It can be exhausting/stressful at first.
I am up for a job this very minute. I hope your comment brings me luck.
I blame Obama for the apparently improved economy that would finally provide a job opportunity for a 59-year-old geezerette who's been out of work for four years. Best of luck to you Raven! Keep us posted.
In my mind you are a 32 year old whippersnapper.
In my mind too, LL. Unfortunately, not in body and spirit.
Wow! That gives me hope.
Keep hope and change alive, I say.
And you didn't share! Congratulations, and good luck!
Here, a good luck hug. Knock their socks off, you can do it!
An old, beloved but now defunct radio station (KFAT) used as a catch-phrase "work sucks, but we need the bucks". Congrats, I think, but I feel your pain.
Yeah, it's good. Cool job, not much money but sweet sweet health insurance and other bennies. It's sad to be pushing 60 and not have health insurance in this the best of all possible countries.
Hey, girl! Good to see ya again!
Love you too, welcome back, and don't let work grind you down!
Thanks MittBorg! I'll try to crawl back in here again tonight when I return from the salt mines. Now I'm off to fix my lunchbox and see if I have any wearable clothing items. Can't sit around in my bathrobe til noon anymore, dammit.
Think of those wonderful bennies! I used to keep a picture of my house on my desk at work. It reminded me that I had to put up with the assholes I worked with because I wanted that house and loved it with all my heart and soul.
What an idiot. Romney's just going to say "I'll be there. If Newt doesn't want to be there, he can stay home." Newt's painted himself into a corner.
PS: This exposes how Newt's so-called "Lincoln-Douglas Debates" would really work: two guys shouting it out in front of a "Jerry Springer Show" type audience.
I can tell you from my knowledge of history that Lincoln and Douglas both sided against the liberal media.
That would only happen if 'the media' doesn't immediately cave to Gingrich's demands. Which they will.
The Newtwit doesn't have to ask Calista for an open marriage, because it was in the prenup.
Calista doesn't care what he does. Look at her. She doesn't give a shit. Newt finally bagged himself a honey badger.
Newtwit – I regret that I only have one upfist to give for this comment.
I think that she's a replicant, Have you ever seen her move a facial muscle?
The older models are incapable of empathic response.
I'm guessing 2nd Gen, maybe early 3rd. Newtwit isn't rich enough to afford one of the newer pleasure models.
Are you sure about your facts?? I was sure the Lincoln Douglas debates were a big halla-baloo between Douglas and the Nieue Amsterdaam Gazzetteer with Lincoln having very little role at all.
Here's the way it works. Ask Ole Newt a tough question about one of his ex-wifes and debates are supposed to be dignified affairs.
But when it comes to the audience, it is supposed to be a barn burnin' campaign rally.
Last night on PBS someone said how Robert MacNeil (or maybe the other one) used to tell audiences before a debate that if anyone made an outburst he would have the camera focus on that person and embarrass the shit out of them.
But then PBS is a tool of the radical left.
People are no longer embarrassed by their misbehaviour and stupidity. They have lost all sense of shame.
Gotcher applause right here, newt.
Oh, baby. You sure know how to get me hot.
How dare that evil evil media not pick his side and kiss his ass! Portraying the truth without trying to paint him, constantly, in a flattering light, why, that's just not what the first amendment is about!
Surround the stage with wire mesh, framed by two by fours, with straw scattered around the floor, and free salted in the shell peanuts and beer in bottles in wretched excess for the audience, and no access to the bathrooms for the duration of the debate, It would be fun to see how these guys deal with the base on the bases' terms. When the debate is done, they can just take a skid loader and clear the debris like they clean barns and some bars I have known of. Or just burn it down (The Roof The Roof The Roof is on Fire! But we don't need no water let the candidates burn, burn motherfuckers burn!)
It worked for the Blues Brothers.
I read something today that made sense. It said that Gingrich wasn't really a good debater, that he was a good stage actor. And without an audience he is lost.
'The media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want to.”
Also to yell out, "Fatass!", or "Adulterer!", or "Eat shit, Newt!", because, you know, free speech.
So, it's not enough for this big, fat, whiny, 70-year-old titty baby to suppress any possibility of dissent from his audience? His bloated ego needs so much fluffing that they actually have to be hooting and hollering and stomping their feet, like they were at a NASCAR rally, and cheering wildly for everything that Newtie says and does?
Why, yes, I believe that's his point.
AHAHAHAHAHA!! That's exactly right. He's a whiny-assed titty-baby screaming for his sugar tit.
No one has ever put it better than the Austin Lounge Lizards in their classic "Gingrich the Newt." Google it and turn up the volume.
I kind of agree with Newt. The only thing that made this circus half-way entertaining is the often inappropriate whooping and hollering of the audience, like some Roman Colosseum. I'd much rather they keep this thing Showtime at the Apollo as opposed to the Lawrence Welk Show. If you're not going to let the candidate and the audience interact with one another, why even have a crowd for a televised debate in the first place?
Newt's right; he gets it. These things are nothing more than spectacle, so the Very Serious People need to stop pretending that they are anything more than mindless entertainment. If we wanted to know their positions on issues, we'd go read their soulless websites or read their terribly written memoirs.
Just sayin'…
Mr. Moderator, Tear Down This Wall!
Newt should get fair and equal treatment – like the kind Gary Hart got.
All I can say is, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLEGGCF4UPs&fe…
(start at 4:00).
The Gingrich, in about 2 millenia ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLEGGCF4UPs&li…
(good part runs from 4:00 to 5:11).
Poor Newt! The moderator is against him, the Democrats are against him, his ex-wives are against him, the Media is against him, and for what? Being a world-class douchebag, for starters, kiddo.
Presented for your consideration, a 30th-century town-hall style meeting, featuring what may be a distant descendant of the Gingrich, starting at 4:00 and running to 5:11. Here is the clip.
Mmmmmmmmmm. Teen-age girls.
Oops. Did I think that out loud?
Not only incredibly talented but she has one great intellect. And she's is NOT intimidated by anyone. I used to listen to her "Plague Mass" endlessly. It really sucks that she doesn't perform very much here in the U.S. anymore.
I just learned about Ms. Galas thanks to MB and LP above. Yowzer!! For the uninitiated, here's a clip from 1994 with John Paul Jones (Led Zepplin), introduced by Jon Stewart – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0AIjnQ8t30 – it's very, uhhhh, original.
She does all her own sound stuff, her own lighting, plays her own music, and rips those incredible four entire fucking octaves for all she is worth. I have Plague Mass on the Pod, but you really need to be sitting down alone to appreciate it. You know (of course you do) that she wrote that for her brother, right? It's a helluva fucking piece.
It gives me a huge SAD that she doesn't come here much, but I did catch here a few years ago, you just have to watch her performance schedules like a hawk.
Four octaves, baby. And she writes and scores and produces and plays all her own stuff and does her own sound and lighting, too.
Thank you. You might want to edit your email address out of it, though.
Thanks – I'm kinda new at this here stuff and plus, I'm ignert, LOL.
No probs, sweetie, just making sure you don't get trolled or worse.
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