Media must not protect Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich routinely styles himself as an intellectual and a historian. Even though he has proven himself worthy of neither distinction, the mainstream media has continuously and shamelessly let him get away with it.

At a campaign event last November, testing out a line he'd surely be quick to use in a general campaign against President Barack Obama, Gingrich launched into a discussion of Obama's days as a community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s, casting Obama as a proponent of "Saul Alinksy radicalism." This part of Obama's background has been tossed around by conservatives since the 2008 election as an argument that Obama lacks experience in the private sector and has committed his career to what some conservatives call a destructive politics of class warfare.

Two months later, the electoral landscape of this long, bizarre and increasingly acrimonious campaign has changed drastically. Having placed fourth in both the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary and winning South Carolina, Gingrich remains bereft of the antics of Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, and now faces just two opponents in his competition to secure the non-Mitt Romney position. After a pro-Romney super PAC launched a barrage of anti-Gingrich ads ahead of the Iowa caucus, many media commentators began to wonder if Gingrich was still pursuing the nomination rather than simply gunning for Romney's destruction in an act of vengeance. It sure began to seem that a political feud for the ages was brewing.

It is in this context that we saw Gingrich make his most ridiculous rhetorical move yet in response to Mitt Romney, who declared on Jan. 9 to the Chamber of Commerce in Nashua, N.H. that he likes "being able to fire people." Like many thoughtlessly worded one-offs, this was quickly taken out of context and used against Romney to paint him as an out-of-touch corporate suit who pursued wealth without a hint of the people's best interests in mind. It was a soundbite that any savvy liberal strategist worth his salt would pounce on. But Gingrich led the charge instead, branding Romney and his firm, Bain Capital—along with the profession of private equity in general—as "plundering" and "exploitive."

Newt Gingrich cannot have it both ways and, as an "intellectual," he should know this (and probably does); a 2008 profile of Obama's days as a community organizer in the Altgeld Gardens housing project in Chicago in the National Review describes community organization as "the practice of identifying a specific aggrieved population…and agitating them to become so upset about their condition," so that they take effective political action. Or, as Alinsky called it, "[whipping people] up to a fighting pitch." Can we look at Gingrich's polemics on Romney and Bain and not see them as a demonstration of community organization tactics writ large and tied into the grievances of the still young 99 percent movement? I don't think so. Talking heads on CNN or Fox may have commented on the novelty of a Republican sounding the clarion of working class plight, but they did nothing to contrast his new position with the stance he had forcefully taken not so long ago (and likely will again).

On Jan. 12, just as the campaign in South Carolina was heating up, the New York Times website published a blog post by Arthur S. Brisbane, titled "Should the Times Be a Truth Vigilante?" As a piece of self reflection by a major publication, the post was refreshing but frustrating. In it, Brisbane noted that an opinions columnist such as Paul Krugman "clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie." He then asked the question, "Should news reporters do the same?"

The mere fact that this question must be asked highlights the degree to which mainstream news and print media have thoroughly abdicated their duty to provide the public with accurate information, instead choosing to cultivate simplistic narratives and gloss over inconvenient facts to make their stories digestible. Their resources are needed more acutely than ever, especially when candidates have become willing not only to flip-flop on the issues with abandon but also to use words such as "socialism" in ways that rob them of their intrinsic meanings. Instead these vital resources go wasted, such as when in 2010 Gingrich posited Obama as a radical "anti-colonialist" whose views are "outside our comprehension"—a charge which makes sense only in a bizarro parallel universe where we all proudly stayed on as colonies of the United Kingdom. News reporters, more often than not, take these words at face value and present them to their audience as substantial, legitimate arguments.

Of course I am not breaking any new ground when I say that Gingrich is a self-absorbed, hypocritical blowhard. That much has been clear since the 1990s. What has become remarkable, however, is how much the media shelter Gingrich and others like him, whether deliberately because they are lazy, or simply because they are structured to do so.

Take last Thursday night, for example. At the final debate before the South Carolina primary, Gingrich blasted CNN moderator John King for questioning him about a late-breaking revelation from an ABC interview with his previous wife, Marianne Gingrich, that he asked for an open marriage. Seeing a rise in polling numbers thanks to his performance at Monday night's debate, Gingrich could understandably have reacted to the revelation with humility or dodged the question altogether. Instead, he went on the attack. "I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to…attract decent people to run for public office," Gingrich declared without an ounce of cognitive dissonance.

It is important to note that, according to a variety of sources, officials at ABC were debating until the final day whether they would even air this interview before the primary. Given that the interview was touted from the beginning as a "bombshell" and, possibly, a career-ender for Gingrich, how could ABC possibly justify sitting on it when it could provide crucial bits of information to voters in what could be a game-changing primary? 

Somewhat surprisingly, Gingrich's response to King resonated with the normally conservative, values-focused South Carolinians and led to his victory in South Carolina, bringing about the first ever instance of three different candidates winning the first three Republican contests. This would have been a laughable proposition even a week before the South Carolina vote, when a Reuters/Ipsos poll of the state had Romney a massive 25 points ahead of Gingrich.

The narrative of Mitt Romney as the inevitable Republican nominee is, to put it bluntly, the most boring scenario imaginable, as media outlets realized early on. The feud that erupted between Romney and Gingrich is a vastly more interesting story, one that would make sense for the media to keep alive as long as it can, especially if Gingrich can get lucky enough to establish momentum heading into Florida and continue picking up delegates heading into the thick of primary season. With events seemingly conspiring on Gingrich's behalf, including the endorsement of Rick Perry (and let's not forget Chuck Norris), and Romney's bewildering evasiveness on his tax returns and clumsy handling of the Bain Capital issue, one wonders what sorts of accommodations the media will make next to keep the story going.

—Lane Kisonak '13 is a political science major.