Why does anyone take Newt Gingrich seriously?

[mudplanet]

From Bluegal at Crooks and Liars:

I was aware that Newt Gingrich was having an affair with Callista Bisek while impeaching Bill Clinton for the same exact thing. I was also aware that Vanity Fair Magazine had referred to Ms. Bisek as the Speaker's "frequent breakfast companion." I did not know that his extramarital affair lasted six years. I believe Newt Gingrich did pay the $300,000 fine leveed by the House Ethics Committee. I also remember that he resigned in disgrace to the House of Representatives, whether he has any shame or not.

Explain to me why ABC News and Politico are able to discuss his potential 2012 candidacy without leaving laugh-spittle all over their pixels.

http://crooksandliars.com/bluegal/whynewt

I wish someone would explain it to me. Also, why the media still considers Ronald Raygun to be "a genius and our greatest president" when his administration is noted as having them highest number of political appointees (his hand picked choices) indicted and convicted of any presidential administration in history, or how someone can call Ollie North a "hero" when his single accomplishment is having materially supported a genocide comparable to the one Pol Pot carried out.

[Andy823]

1. Well...

Nobody in their right mind does! It's only the right wing crazies that do!

[gateley]

2. There are some questions that just don't have a logical answer. nt

[Demeter]

3. That's Entertainment

(he sells papers--just like Sarah Palin)

[yellowcanine]

4. "...why ABC News and Politico are able to discuss his potential 2012 candidacy without leaving

laugh-spittle all over their pixels."?

Poorly developed sense of irony?
No sense of humor?

Both?

[bbgrunt]

5. It is part of the corporate agenda.

[defendandprotect]

6. Too often, Keith Olbermann will also cover these people ... from Newt to Palin -- !!

and they don't do it by putting them up in a corner -- and putting a line

thru their photo -- they do it by giving them full screen .... and permitting

whatever they've said to be heard in full content!

Very often, I just turn it off --

[jljamison]

7. not that it matters to the ultimate question about credibility

Technically bil clinton was impeached for lying under oath and not for having an affair. Newt never had to answer the question under oath. Doesn't mean he isn't a scumbag for what he did (and Clinton too for that matter, if only he hadn't...)

I think the real question is, why is it so much harder for a person on the right side of the political spectrum to be dispatched out of the mainstream media as having no credibility? A conservative being conservative still maintains their credibility. However, if a liberal does something liberal, they are a whack job. I'm sure if Howard Dean threw his hat in for 2012 or 2016, the media would still bring up his primal scream. yet Newt gets taken seriously.

If Nancy Pelosi has cheated on her husband, divorced him, and married the partner, she would be laughed out of politics for good. Not Newt. Not Vitter. Not Ensign (though he is close). The Governor of South Carolina is leaving politics, but his story is so extreme, you could not even make it up for a novel.

Yet more counter-evidence to the myth of the liberal media.

[Skittles]

8. same reason they take Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber seriously

because they are fucking idiots

[awoke_in_2003]

9. "I wish someone would explain it to me"...

two things- relatively short attention span of most Americans, and the medias insistence on not calling people out when they outright lie (even when they have the tape to back them up)