Drudge Screwed Up ABC's Plans for the Marianne Gingrich Interview

RUSH: All right, folks, I just saw the Marianne Gingrich video, and I think, I'll be honest with you, I think the Democrats may have to give Newt a second look here. Well, follow me on this. Newt Gingrich, aside from the budget deal in '95 and being made to ride in the back of Air Force One, Newt got along with Clinton pretty well, if you recall, and Newt treated Hillary with respect, even sat on the couch with Nancy Pelosi. Now, there's an accusation out there that Newt wanted an open marriage, just like Bill and Hillary. And in fact, Newt even had the politeness to ask permission for it. Do you think Bill ever did that?

Now, if Newt can hold onto enough of the Republican base, he might take 20% of the Democrat vote with this. You know how this stuff is a resume enhancement in the Democrat Party. I wouldn't make too many snap judgments here. I don't understand why the media's pretending to be so upset about these charges coming from Marianne. I mean, it's all about sex and how many times are we told that somebody's sex life, even if they're president, doesn't matter. It's nobody's business as long as it doesn't affect the job. And how about all the sex stories from Obama's former girlfriends? That's right, what stories, what former girlfriends? In fact, have we ever found out anything about any of his students when he supposedly taught law at the University of Chicago or buddies at Harvard Law Review? I mean, we still don't know anything. "Mr. Limbaugh, this is very clever of you trying to disguise the fact that Mr. Gingrich is..." No, I'm just reacting here. In fact. I got a great note.

I got a great note from a friend of mine. "So Newt wanted an open marriage. BFD. At least he asked his wife for permission instead of cheating on her. That's a mark of character, in my book. Newt's a victim. We all are. Ours is the horniest generation. We were soldiers in the sex revolution. We were tempted by everything from Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice to Plato's retreat, Deep Throat to no fault divorce. Many of us paid the ultimate price, AIDS, abortion, or alimony for the cultural marching orders we got. Hell, for all I know we should be getting disability from the government." That's from a good friend of mine, "Newt's slogan ought to, 'Hell, yes, I wanted it.'" (laughing) I'm sharing with you how some people are reacting to this.

Now, of course, we're not gonna get ABC News -- in a race, by the way, with NBC now. ABC, how about this. We were told ABC had been very concerned about the ethical implications of airing their hit piece on a Republican candidate right before an important primary election. I almost wrenched my back laughing at that, that the ABC suits were in an ethical fight, in a conundrum? I wonder, oh, my God, what to do, what's the ethical thing to do here? If there was any debate at ABC, it was over when would be the best time to do it so as to cause the most harm. That was the only debate.

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. And that money in Caymans story, if you read all the way to the end of it, that story was irresponsible, journalism malpractice, 'cause if you read the beginning of the story, the implication, they didn't allow you to draw an inference. There was a direct implication that Mitt was hiding money, sheltering money away from the tax man, saving it for himself, making sure he avoided US taxes, cheating. Then if you read all the way down to the end of the story, you get to the 12th and 13th paragraphs, you find out in the ABC story, it's all legal. Yeah. If you read all the way to the end of the ABC story, then you got the news that it was all legal, that there was nothing unusual about it, and that many Americans park money in the Caymans and pay taxes on it.

The people who park money in the Caymans and don't pay US taxes are, quote, unquote, foreigners. But investing in the Caymans is like investing in Montana. It's like investing anywhere else. It's after-tax dollars that you put there, and you invest, and they grow, and ABC points all this out. So here's what I think. Here's what I think was going on. I think that ABC, in a race with NBC to curry favor with Obama, and to also hold onto the mantel of taking out Republicans. Remember it was ABC and Brian Ross, our old buddy ABC and Brian Ross who took out Mark Foley over the page stuff in 2006. Well, we haven't heard from him much since. They don't investigate Democrats. And so now it's the Republican primary and then we got this mess out of Iowa where it looks like Santorum won it. There are eight caucus areas where they just said, "Ah, to hell with it. We don't know where the votes are. We agreed here that before the end of this thing was over that Romney's gonna be the winner."

They did a recount, got Santorum the winner by 34. Now there's a massive call, "All right, Iowa, you've blown it, why should you go first when you can't even get it right." So you got Santorum winning Iowa. You've got Romney winning New Hampshire, but that was expected. Now you've got Rasmussen with Newt polling ahead of Romney in South Carolina. Rick Perry pulls out this morning, endorses Newt. Perry was drawing 4% in the polls, so you don't know, even if all 4% go to Newt, what difference does that make. So 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. Drudge, on the 14th anniversary of posting the Lewinsky story, runs his story last night that ABC's got this Marianne tape, and they're in this big ethical debate over when to run it, which forced them to move it up. In my opinion -- I'm guessing -- but from everything I've read, I think that their decision was to wait 'til Monday on the Marianne thing after South Carolina, 'cause the indications are that Newt was gonna win there or get very, very close, and if that happened, it would be because ABC thinks they took Romney out this week with all the stories that they've run on the Mormon church and the 15% tax rate and the Caymans and who knows what else.

Do you know, somebody has assigned a reporter to check into the polygamy of Romney's grandfather. Yes. Yes. Apparently Romney's grandfather had multiple wives, so they got somebody looking into that. Meanwhile, we don't even know if Obama has really lost his virginity yet. It's a good guess, but we don't really know. We know nothing. We don't know anything. We know Jeremiah Wright, which they swept under the rug; Bill Ayers, which they swept under the rug. We know about Tony Rezko, Rod Blagojevich, and that's about it. We don't know whether Obama's father had multiple wives at the same time, or the grandfather. The point is we don't know and there's no curiosity.

There's no curiosity anywhere in the Drive-By Media to find out any of that stuff about Obama. There hasn't been since he came on the scene. In fact, I'll tell you what this is. You remember when Obama ran for the Senate... Obama, to win election, his opposition has to be neutralized or taken out. He doesn't win straight-up-and-up elections. When he won the Senate race in Illinois, remember, they found somebody to release sealed court records on his opponent's sex life; and that guy had to pull out 'cause it was so embarrassing, and the Republicans sent in Alan Keyes. Well, I mean, Obama's basically unopposed. That's what's happening here. Obama cannot run on his record.

Now this Keystone pipeline? Even the Washington Post is scratching its head over a guy who says he cares and cares about jobs, and then makes sure that there is not gonna be any pipeline; and Obama's problem with this is, in addition to everything else, we've said he's all-in on green energy. If he allows oil to be piped in here in record amounts it just puts the kibosh on his whole green energy movement which is oriented toward money for him, in addition to the transformation of the country. I think Obama's father did have numerous wives. There have been stories about that, but we're not sure 'cause the media just ignored it. But Obama only wins elections through the politics of personal destruction.

What ABC is doing is they're clearing the field here. That's what this week was about. That's what the Marianne Gingrich interview is about. Now, a lot of people said, "Well, how'd they get hold of Marianne Gingrich, Rush? Duhhh, how come they found her?" She basically gave interview to Esquire magazine in 2010 that had some of this stuff in it. So she's been out there with this, but the Esquire magazine interview did not launch. But I'm sure that ABC... How many ex-wives of Democrats has ABC sought out? They just don't do it. So they know what they're doing. They know they've got a president who can't win on his record. Now, that's another thing. This always gets me. Are journalists monogamous? Are journalists faithful? Are they clean and pure as the wind-driven snow?

This is what's always fascinated me. These people, the sports writer guys, the news media guys, they all get to sit in judgment as though they live perfect lives -- and then when you try to turn the focus on them, "Oh, no, no, no! I'm just the reporter. What -- what -- what I do doesn't matter." It certainly does because you are not reporting. You're passing judgment. But there's never been an investigation of, say, Brian Ross and who he is. You know, how did he get his grades? Where did he go to school? How did he get out of school? How did he get the job at ABC? Who does he know? How did he whatever? We never get that about journalists, and when you try? Ooh, they have a conniption fit! I know what some of you leftists think: "You're really going a long way here to avoid talking about Newt."

No, I don't need to talk about him. What needs to be said about Newt? It's out there. It's out there. I don't know. Fifty percent of the country has been divorced. I don't know. (interruption) You have to think with Values Voters, yeah. Got any Values Voters? (interruption) Well, they knew that Newt was divorced. They knew the first divorce story and they've been told how that was blown out of proportion and wasn't true in a lot of ways, but, yeah: They've known that Newt played around. They knew that Clinton played around. (interruption) That's another thing. I think the question I'm dealing with here is, "Do you think it will hurt Newt?"

At some point (and we've seen it before) there's gonna be a mainstream media backlash.

I don't know whether this is enough to cause it, but at some point if this keeps up there will be a huge backlash against the media to not let them clear our field. So we'll see. We'll see how it manifests itself. I think, of what we've seen so far from the Marianne Gingrich stuff, the thing I didn't know... Snerdley, maybe you did. You're much more focused on sex than I. You might have known that Newt had asked for an open marriage. (interruption) Okay, I didn't know that. That I didn't know. Most of the other stuff, I did know. I also know that Marianne Gingrich... I've seen places shortly after Newt was made Speaker with Mary, social weekends and so forth, and she was never comfortable with the public eye -- and that bothered him. He thought it limited his future.

She didn't like the media, she didn't like the focus on her life, so she just wasn't comfortable with the public eye -- and I know that he said, "Well, you knew what you were marrying." So there's two sides to all this, but... (interruption) Yeah. Well, that was Connie Chung and what happened to Newt's mother when she said some things about Hillary, but the point is: Yeah, all of this is out there. There's really not a whole lot new here. So we'll see, and how it plays out is anybody's guess. I've gotta take a break. Folks, hasn't that 21-hour break yesterday to today been a little too long? Haven't you been eagerly awaiting this? And don't downplay this note I got from my buddy who's in his fifties, and I'll read it to you again here sometime during the program. Lots to do here. Lots to do, lots audio sound bites, and I'm eager, I'm eager to hear you people on the phone today. So just buckle up and at the same time relax and have fun.

RUSH: Yeah, the Washington Post says they've got their own Marianne Gingrich interview coming, and it's a separate one. We don't know when it's coming, but they say that it is. Here's a headline from the New York Times: "Former Gingrich Wife Says He Asked for Open Marriage." Now, folks, this is the same New York Times that never ran one article about John Edwards cheating on his cancer-stricken wife. Do you remember ABC, CBS, NBC, Washington Post, New York Times would get nowhere near the John Edwards story? That was a National Enquirer exclusive, and the mainstream media was dragged kicking and screaming to it. Hell, Newt was married to Marianne for 18 years. Do you realize that's a lifelong commitment in Hollywood terms? That's a lifetime marriage, in Hollywood.

I don’t think that the “open marriage” request is really even new. I think that it has simply been re-phrased. I think that Newt just admitted his infidelity and said that he didn’t want to give up the mistress. I doubt that he referred to it as an “open marriage”.

I remember all of that being brought up while the Democrats were fighting the Contract with America campaign. None of it is really new. I just didn’t pay that much attention then, and I don’t think that it deserves much attention now.

Do you remember how they even followed Newt with some kind machine to tap into his cell phone calls? Some of the Democrats ended up paying big bucks on that one.

I certainly don't look to Rush for moral guidance, but he was clearly being extremely sarcastic when he opened with this today.

Once again it was about the hypocrisy of the left and mocking the absurd by being absurd.

Did anyone see the high school year book pictures that Drudge has up, now? He thinks that the nerdy ‘70s picture of Rick Santorum is some kind of reflection on who he is now. The only thing really interesting about the picture is that Santorum graduated from high school in Illinois.

Of course Matt feels good about it. You have to realize Matt Drudge and Ann Coulter are in the tank for the gay agenda, which is why they are voraciously supporting the world’s father of gay marriage, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Drudge is the one who forced this story out of ABC before the primary where it could help Mitt the most. Rush is probably right that the mainstream media agenda was to make Mitt lose this primary. Drudge tried to save Mitt. He also trumped up the story far more than ABC was by including that ancient quote about her taking down Newt’s presidential campaign, which dates to the mid-90s years before they got divorced. It’s shocking how out of context and misleading that quote was when you look where it came from (basically a humorous quip of her saying she didn’t want to be First Lady in the position that Hilary was at the time).

It’s pretty surprising to me that the gay agenda has been what’s driving at least some of the Republican anointing of Romney, but at least in the case of closet case Drudge and “fab hag” Coulter, it’s now blatantly obvious why they’re doing this.

What amazing presumption on the part of all the Rush-bashers. In the 15-years I’ve been following him I’ve never heard accusations of infidelity. And since we don’t have the details about who filed for divorce or why, it’s a leap to suggest that infidelity was the motive and pure judgementalism to impugn his character without having the facts. This is particularly ironic coming from conservatives who get this kind of treatment from the media regularly.

If the Republicans don’t take off the gloves and go after the Dems and the media with every knife in the drawer (including the rusty ones), then we will lose the country. This is no time for Marquis of Queensbury rules.

One thing about Newt, I don't think he will be "polite" like McCain was in 2008, and it scares Obama. If Newt wins the nomination, he's going to want to win. His team will talk to people from Obama's past, and get to the bottom of it. Then use what they find in political ads.

Thank you. Sometimes a written transcipt leads the reader in a 100 percent opposite direction than what the listener hears.

Rush is certainly not going to get all “holier than thou” about the mistakes Newt has made, but I didn’t think he would endorse that behaviour as he friend does.

Thanks.

ABC News was exposed last year as a hostile work environment and a den of sexual harassment.

The 241 insider testimonials have all since been scrubbed from the original story's website, but some of the comments have been captured at this post in the FR thread.

ABC News is the LAST place with any credibility to discuss someone else's marriage.

-PJ

One thing about Newt, I don't think he will be "polite" like McCain was in 2008, and it scares Obama.

You don't THINK he will?

"I don't want to bloody his nose. I want to knock him out!"

Reading through the posts, I'm not seeing much in the way of conservative values. I mean, if Gingrich abandoned his wife (shortly after a diagnosis of MS) and/or if he wanted an "open marriage"; THEN he made choices and he is RESPONSIBLE for his actions.

Personal responsibility, that is what we conservatives continuously and continually stand for.

Anything less, and we are no better than the lying Democrats (and arguably worse, because we allegedly know better).

Personal responsibility.

It applies to everyone, including Newt.

he actually has the look of an alcoholic, not meaning to be rude here

Yup, Multiple Sclerosis is what you get when you drink too much. And if your husband dumps you just after being diagnosed with MS (while informing you of an affair that he has been having), why should you be bitter? You should be happy and cheerful about it.
Hope the sarcasm does not come off as "rude".

Hell, for all I know we should be getting disability from the government.

No, you shouldn't!

There can be no doubt that this is a hit job by the media on Newt, but this is pretty mind-boggling stuff from Rush, even if he is probably trying to be funny here. In his best interests he should move on to other topics, IMO, because he is spewing a lot of amoral nonsense on the subject of Newt's infidelities.

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