Even if you have not watched many of the Republican presidential debates, you've probably seen the video of Newt Gingrich's feigned outrage at CNN's John King in the debate right before the South Carolina primary. Analysts seem to agree that it was one of the key moments in that debate, and many have claimed that it propelled Gingrich to victory in South Carolina.
Gingrich's tantrums are nothing new, but in this context they provide more evidence of what is becoming a central Republican strategy. Whenever one faces a difficult question - or even an easy question one doesn't want to answer - attack the media. Whenever one is caught lying or confronted with an example of one's own hypocrisy, blame the media.
This strategy assumes that the audience will accept two dangerous myths:
- The mainstream news media has a liberal bias, leading them to treat conservative candidates unfairly, and
- The job of the mainstream news media is something other than informing voters (i.e., fact-checking is not something we expect them to do).
When the audience is composed of the sort of conservative activists likely to attend a Republican presidential debate or viewers of Fox "News," making these assumptions is fairly safe. But how do they play for a general audience?
I sincerely hope that this strategy will fall apart when it is used in a general election context. Don't most of us want the news media to check facts and confront politicians of either party with their own lies and hypocrisy? Don't most of us wish the media would do more to keep our politicians honest?
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