How coincidental. No, actually, how convenient. By now, everybody's heard the news broken by the Drudge Report about Newt's ex-wife Marianne sitting down with ABC News, saying she could end her ex-husband's career with this single interview. And not to connect the two, but this news broke in the evening, after Romney released his latest hit-pieces using former failed cowards of Congress to attack Gingrich's time as Speaker, one claiming he's unreliable, the other claiming he's undisciplined. Now, I should preface this by admitting that I'm not the biggest Gingrich fan (although he's probably my second pick at this point in time), but it seems oddly convenient for the media to swoop in on the same day, right after some relatively hard hitting ads have been cast against Newt by the Romney campaign, to seemingly drive the nail in further. Moreover, the unethical behavior of ABC News is astonishing, with its initial report that "now a "civil war" has erupted inside of the network, an insider claims, on exactly when the confession will air!"
ABCNEWS suits determined it would be "unethical" to run the Marianne Gingrich interview so close to the South Carolina Primary, a curious decision, one insider argued, since the network has aggressively been reporting on other candidates.
A decision was tentatively made to air the interview next Monday, after all votes have been counted.
Then the update from Drudge came, informing us that the AP reported ABC is now likely to air the segment Thursday on NIGHTLINE. How ethical.
Of course, I'm being a little facetious. This is neither odd nor astonishing at all. It's typical & predictable. Might I remind folks of the savagely false and sexist attacks launched and permeated by the media against Herman Cain when he was surpassing Romney's frontrunner status heading towards Iowa (of course, they didn't count on Santorum, but that's another story, and let's stick to this one). Haven't heard a peep out of those supposed accusers since he dropped out, have you? Of course not, because that was the media's goal from the start. It took several weeks, but they finally got there, and now they could care less about those ladies (I use that word in the loosest of terms). Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not blaming Romney for this. I'm saying that our driven liberal media was directed to take out the perceived threat to Obama's preferred election rival. To borrow a line from the Great One, "Yeah, I said it!" Speaking of, Levin had a few things to put into perspective surrounding this topic last night as well (via theRightScoop).
However, Gingrich has proven to be a much tougher cookie to crumble. So why not release this news (once again, using a female, because it worked before with their colleagues Politico) immediately following some of the most hard hitting Romney ads against the former Speaker? You know, after he's already been perceptually tenderized, even if there is little merit or truth to them. Too soon, too obvious? Probably, but once the news leaks, they have to run with it, right? Particularly when their chosen challenger is at risk of losing South Carolina.
Folks, please tell me that you can smell the stench from wherever you might be located? The Media is out to destroy any and all conservative challengers, however fantastic or imperfect they might be, to assure that the man they have chosen to be Obama's challenger, Mitt Romney, will make it through the primaries to face their President. Now, you'd be just as hard-pressed to get this admission from any of the media participants, as you would be for the Republican establishment wing that supports Romney to admit that their candidate is the preference of the other side, or for that matter, that either would have liked nothing more than to see every conservative knocked out of the running much sooner. Afterall, you have been paying attention to the setup for the inevitable attacks against Romney, right? OWS, Bain, and the current Cayman Islands story, which was effectively derailed by Drudge's ABC News leak yesterday...this is all the initial legwork before the outright onslaught comes. They don't have a mystery woman for him, they're intending to hit him head-on with the full weight of class warfare that far too many have bought into. And again, Big Media is all to happy to oblige.
ADDENDUM: Hmmm, pretty interesting theory from Rush:
"I'm gonna tell you what I think. I think Drudge messed 'em up. 'Cause I think the plan, if you look at the news yesterday, the news yesterday was all Romney. Has Romney got money in the Caymans? Romney gave money to the Mormon church, Bain Capital, 15% tax rate, all of that was ABC News. ... I think the objective of ABC was to take Mitt out this week, or to just do damage. And I think they were saving Marianne Gingrich for Monday after the vote, after Newt wins or theoretically wins South Carolina, then they run the Marianne interview, and that takes Newt out of, and then who we left with? As far as they're concerned, Santorum and Ron Paul. And they think, okay, that's it, Obama's won now, and there's nothing the Republicans can do."
Regardless, Newt seems to be handling the ex-wife interview effectively, as theRightScoop reports, "he’s basically got his daughters on his side and he’s going to let them defend him. That’s very smart and will go far in bolstering his credibility over that of his ex-wife."
Also, Jeffrey Lord chimes in with some integral insight in understanding ABC's hypocrisy & motivation:
If ABC News is intent on playing this game, then in an era where the mainstream media has lost their monopoly, it is perhaps time to remind all of the way ABC personnel handle these stories when they involve -- ABC News itself.
Exhibit A: The late Peter Jennings [and] radio star Don Imus's once hotly controversial talk at the 1996 White House Correspondents Dinner [joking about Jennings' private life/marital problems].
Exhibit B of ABC News hypocrisy in this area? That would be, of course, the hiring of ex-Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos as an ABC anchor, now at Good Morning America.
No, the "news" tonight will be this hit piece on Newt Gingrich's private life. Decided old news indeed. Except for two very important things that make running this hit piece 72 hours before the South Carolina primary a necessity for ABC News.
1. Newt Gingrich is a conservative.
2. Newt Gingrich is not an anchor for ABC News.
