It turns that now it has been proven and Newt Gingrich has admitted he was wrong about the witnesses he had to rebut his ex-wife’s allegations and ABC’s response to his purported offer to bring them foward. A slight inaccuracy — but, hey, it allowed him to puff up his big melodramatic moment against the press and hit that good, old hot button that helped him with the South Carolina primary. This confirms King’s reputation as a serious journalist and Gingrich’s history as someone who is not (ahem) accurate but never let that stop him from finding ways to channel resentment and anger.
Here’s the CNN bit where John King nails down the facts about the witnesses and Gingrich and Gingrich’s shaky appearance when pressed on this issue:
And that’s the way our politics works. Who cares about inaccuracy? What matters is to try to find a justification to articulate it, and the hot buttons are hit — and you win an election.
It’s as easy as G-O-P.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.