Thanks Jon. I thought I was the only one arguing with the TV screen for John King to pull his head from his ass and point out the patently obvious.

Yes, Fourth Estate, you do look this obsequious in the face of power. Worst part is, you are doing this to Newt Gingrich....during a debate.

King should have blindsided him with that further on during the debate.

Plus, CHARACTER COUNTS, remember?

ManateeGag: As much as Newt is a total douche canoe (thanks wil), he's right. A presidential debate should not be opened with a personal question to a candidate about their past marriage. If the moderator didn't suck, he would have slipped it in when they got around to values and sanctity of marriage.

Why not?

Where's the rule on that? Who says that issues of the day cannot be personal? After all, Gingrich himself went after Clinton for cheating on HIS wife.

I don't see why you can't open with that question. Please enlighten me.

cameroncrazy1984: Where's the rule on that? Who says that issues of the day cannot be personal? After all, Gingrich himself went after Clinton for cheating on HIS wife.

The part that blows my mind, is how on earth did the ""liberal media"" miss covering that 50 megaton stink bomb furing the late 90's.

Someone explain this shiat to me.

unlikely: ManateeGag: right. A presidential debate should not be opened with a personal question to a candidate about their past marriage. If the moderator didn't suck, he would have slipped it in when they got around to va

If a candidate was running on a platform of family values and had a history of attacking the rights of some people to marriage because it somehow degrades the sanctity of marriage, then it would be a valid question.

It wasn't a SMART question.

The SMART way to do it would have been to have him go on about the sanctity of marriage in a gay context first and THEN ask him about his own marriages.

Its a valid question, it just shouldn't be the opener. Wait till Newt does his family values bullshiat, then ask.

However, the right would be crying about gotcha moderators and demanding why democrats aren't asked the same thing.

Cognitive dissonance? In the GOP?

Quelle surprise!

ManateeGag: As much as Newt is a total douche canoe (thanks wil), he's right. A presidential debate should not be opened with a personal question to a candidate about their past marriage. If the moderator didn't suck, he would have slipped it in when they got around to values and sanctity of marriage.

These debates need people with balls moderating them instead of the usual sycophants they have. This is when I truly miss Tim Russert.

Newt stands for defending the sanctity of marriage.

His infidelity shows how false he really is, how insincere and hypocritical he is.

The guy was scared of Newt, SCARED! I just hope Obama has his big boy pants on when it comes to debating Newt. As idiotic as his response was, he certainly kept up appearance for 90% of Americans. Not easy to debate an eloquent blowhard, no matter how non-sensical his answers are.

heinekenftw: ManateeGag: As much as Newt is a total douche canoe (thanks wil), he's right. A presidential debate should not be opened with a personal question to a candidate about their past marriage. If the moderator didn't suck, he would have slipped it in when they got around to values and sanctity of marriage.

These debates need people with balls moderating them instead of the usual sycophants they have. This is when I truly miss Tim Russert.

Newt stands for defending the sanctity of marriage.

His infidelity shows how false he really is, how insincere and hypocritical he is.

No, he loves the sanctity sooooo much. That's why he did it three times.

hinten: The guy was scared of Newt, SCARED! I just hope Obama has his big boy pants on when it comes to debating Newt. As idiotic as his response was, he certainly kept up appearance for 90% of Americans. Not easy to debate an eloquent blowhard, no matter how non-sensical his answers are.

Doesn't matter anyway, we haven't had a real debate since the 40's.

I love Maddow's comment about the space-time continuum.

Good, he's dead then.

I like 'Clinton penis scavenger hunt.'

That King fella is a world class pussy.

Lost Thought 00: He's Born Again (or whatever the Catholic equivalent is), all his past sins are forgotten and no longer can be used as a judgement against his character. He is a new being, and only sins since his conversion may be applied to his record.

Gosh, that's handy.

The question was relevant so far as Gingrich went after Clinton and claims gay marriage is wrong. Cheating on your sick wives kind of challenges his credibility and King should've gone after that.

Thank God someone in the media said it.

ALL King had to do was say something along the lines of "OK, well then, let's take a quick vote. Are all the other candidate's OK with Mr. Gingrich's implicit request to remove the topic of family values from this debate? Please raise your hand if it makes you as uncomfortable as Mr. Gingrich, and we'll be happy to oblige."

He could have destroyed Newt right there.

For Christ sake, the political issue isn't Gingrich's infidelities (which I couldn't give two shiats about), but rather his hypocrisy.

Why was it fair for him, as Speaker of the House, to hound Clinton about the Lewinsky affair and seek impeachment, when he was having affairs of his own? Why was it fair political game to ask Clinton about, but not Newt? How can he run on a family values platform and denounce gays as threatening the sanctity of marriage, when he is a serial adulterer?

These are the questions that are fair to ask of Newt. Get a spine, John King.

1. Cheated on his first wife. Asked for a divorce while she was in the hospital recovering from surgery so he could openly frolic with his mistress.

2. At least until recently continued to try and pin the first divorce on his wife, lying about who initiated and pressed for the divorce even though records entered with the court explicitly state that his wife did not want the proceedings to continue.

3. Cheated on his second wife while she was ill. Left her for Calista, his then-mistress, after she refused to enter into an open marriage.

4. Spent $70,000,000 in taxpayer money first on a failed Whitewater fishing expedition that turned up nothing worse about the Clintons than questionable real-estate skills, then on a crusade to prove the President engaged in extramarital activity even as he was well into his own affair at the time.

5. Was censured and fined in an overwhelming and bipartisan (395 to 28) backlash against his ethical lapses during his time in government.

There is no debate here. There is no relevance to when the question was asked or how it should have been set up. This man is a disgusting and immoral monster and he's proven it repeatedly over the course of 30 years by engaging in despicably selfish acts in both his public and private lives that few of us would ever even consider. That's all there is to it. He is an evil person and that the right is supporting him is just the be-all end-all evidence that the entire notion of any moral majority in this country is absolute and utter bullshiat that a lot of very bad people use to try and trick themselves into thinking they're not evil little monsters.

Does anyone else want Jon Stewart to host a debate?

Remember him going after Tucker Carlson?

Please Jon Stewart - host a debate.

John King should be smarter than this. Either you're a reporter and you pin Newt down over this, or you're a totally neutral moderator and you don't bring it up at all. What you DON'T do is open the issue, then immediately abandon ship. What the hell did he think was going to happen? That Newt was gonna be totally cool with it and respond timidly and politely?

I seriously wonder what happened behind the scenes before the debate. Like, if King had orders not to press it too hard. Because if not... wow.

Oh, come on. Jon Stewart must know what's behind this farce. He's in the media/entertainment/news complex. He must know that these Republican schmucks - no matter how ridiculous and self-evidently crazy or otherwise full of sh*t - must be made to seem legitimate in order for the two-party duopoly to be made to seem legitimate. What good is a two-party duopoly without two parties, and how would the media/entertainment/news complex sell soap and rake in billions in election advertising revenue if there was no staged "contest" between pre-approved legitimate-seeming candidates from the establishment parties? Jon Stewart is a good actor and showman. His outrage and flabbergastery seems almost genuine in this piece.

canyoneer: Oh, come on. Jon Stewart must know what's behind this farce. He's in the media/entertainment/news complex. He must know that these Republican schmucks - no matter how ridiculous and self-evidently crazy or otherwise full of sh*t - must be made to seem legitimate in order for the two-party duopoly to be made to seem legitimate. What good is a two-party duopoly without two parties, and how would the media/entertainment/news complex sell soap and rake in billions in election advertising revenue if there was no staged "contest" between pre-approved legitimate-seeming candidates from the establishment parties? Jon Stewart is a good actor and showman. His outrage and flabbergastery seems almost genuine in this piece.

skilbride: Does anyone else want Jon Stewart to host a debate?

Remember him going after Tucker Carlson?

Please Jon Stewart - host a debate.

Ah, but would the candidates agree to it?

Solid Muldoon: [i165.photobucket.com image 319x211]


♪♫♪♫The Freaks Come Out At Night♪♫♪♫

Splinshints: [www.ybig.ie image 450x338]

Guided Democracy (aka "inverted totalitarianism") (new window)

Aidan: Lost Thought 00: He's Born Again (or whatever the Catholic equivalent is), all his past sins are forgotten and no longer can be used as a judgement against his character. He is a new being, and only sins since his conversion may be applied to his record.

Gosh, that's handy.

That's that plenary indulgence type shiat these guys use all the time.

SacriliciousBeerSwiller: Thank God someone in the media said it.

ALL King had to do was say something along the lines of "OK, well then, let's take a quick vote. Are all the other candidate's OK with Mr. Gingrich's implicit request to remove the topic of family values from this debate? Please raise your hand if it makes you as uncomfortable as Mr. Gingrich, and we'll be happy to oblige."

He could have destroyed Newt right there.

Yep. But he didn't. Cause he's a hack.

unlikely: ManateeGag: right. A presidential debate should not be opened with a personal question to a candidate about their past marriage. If the moderator didn't suck, he would have slipped it in when they got around to va

If a candidate was running on a platform of family values and had a history of attacking the rights of some people to marriage because it somehow degrades the sanctity of marriage, then it would be a valid question.

It wasn't a SMART question.

The SMART way to do it would have been to have him go on about the sanctity of marriage in a gay context first and THEN ask him about his own marriages.

Yup. Lure him in with "I want to protect marriage!" and ask how he'd like to implement such laws. Then point out that he'd still be with his first wife instead of his third, rather than asking him a question.

I like The Daily Show and Jon Stewart, but why is there always one female audience member who shrilly over-laughs at every single quip?

Alphax: skilbride: Does anyone else want Jon Stewart to host a debate?

Remember him going after Tucker Carlson?

Please Jon Stewart - host a debate.

Ah, but would the candidates agree to it?

Stewart? No. Colbert, maybe, they're pretty farking stupid.

Lost Thought 00: He's Born Again (or whatever the Catholic equivalent is), all his past sins are forgotten and no longer can be used as a judgement against his character. He is a new being, and only sins since his conversion may be applied to his record.

Rug Doctor: John King should be smarter than this.

No, he's on CNN. CNN has been at full-scale war with human intelligence for decades now.

You know when I first saw that Gingrich was running I thought "Great, another joke candidate". Now he's winning, WTF America? And how do you let him come out ahead with that question? You are the moderator, tell him to shut up until you get your point across.

King should have said "Sorry, sir, but asking public officials about their sex lives has been considered acceptable since the '90s."

I wanna see the first moderator to ask Gingrich about his claim that the Paul Ryan plan is "Right Wing Social Engineering." Watch Gingrich claim it never happened and is a false quote, the moderator cues up the clip of him saying it, and then Gingrich get furious that they completely edited it out of context to hurt him and it is the most offensive crime ever perpetrated against a candidate ever.

Sad thing is you know the moderator would apologize for manipulating the video like that (that = fully uncut and in context) when accused by Newt.