Quote and Comment

January 21, 2012

Newt Gingrich does media criticism. (It begins at 1:03 in the clip.)

“In the two debates we had here, in Myrtle Beach and in Charleston, where people reacted so strongly to the news media, I think it was something very fundamental that I wish the powers that be in the news media would take seriously. The American people feel that they have elites who have been trying for a half century to force us to quit being American and become some other kind of other system.”

Focus on what Gingrich is saying here: It’s not just that journalists are a liberal elite, or that we have a left wing press that is hostile to conservatives like Gingrich. He has gone well beyond Agnew’s complaint. The people in the news media are in effect a fifth column— traitors who are trying to “force” upon Americans a society that is fundamentally (a key word in the Gingrich lexicon…) un-American.

Not just an elite, worthy of being despised by regular people. Not just left wing, which is sufficient to provoke outrage on the right. But un-American, an alien force that is powerful, dug in and committed to stopping Gingrich, as well as the other Republican candidates.

Our journalists know whether they are trying to “force us to quit being American.” Let’s see if they challenge Gingrich on his claims.

11:00pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZdoMYyF9iuRd
(View comments)

(Notes: 29)