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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

2012 Today in Newt Gingrich's Selfless Battle on Behalf of Rude Audiences

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 4:15 PM

As I told you yesterday, Newt Gingrich has threatened to pull out of future Republican debates unless the audience is allowed to bellow, weep, and cheer every time he throws them a disingenuous applause line. Gingrich even framed it as a free speech issue, which is total bullshit.

CNN told Huffington Post (via Poynter) that applause will be welcome at tomorrow night's debate, but it can't become a free-for-all:

"As we have done in the past, CNN will ask the audience to be respectful of the candidates," a CNN spokesperson said. "We have always said that if audience reaction such as shouting or booing interferes with the debate or with the candidates’ answers, we will ask the audience to refrain."

I wonder if Gingrich will take this as an assault on his liberties, too. Either way, tomorrow's debate should be an interesting one, especially since Gingrich and Romney are running neck-and-neck.

Comments (8) RSS

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Audience participation in the republican debates is the best part. Fuck the Golden Rule!

Posted by sisyphusgal on January 25, 2012 at 4:31 PM

HOW MANY DEBATES WILL THERE BE??!! This is NUTS.

Posted by Patti on January 25, 2012 at 4:59 PM

Newt can't afford to pass up the free airtime.

Posted by MrBaker

on January 25, 2012 at 6:02 PM

"interesting" like mitch daniels.

Posted by Max Solomon on January 25, 2012 at 7:04 PM

They should hand out those noise maker things they use in soccer games.

Posted by Spindles on January 25, 2012 at 7:30 PM

@5 do long as they don't let them take them to soccer games,I'm fine with that

Posted by Will in Seattle

on January 25, 2012 at 7:46 PM

I want to know what happened with Newt`s Grand Jury Inditement in 2009 in Texas over the Deaths of those inmates, which was linked to the private jail companys he owns.

Posted by slug ger on January 25, 2012 at 10:26 PM

ANOTHER fucking debate? How many of these each week can anyone watch?

Well, in my case, that would be "zero." But I'm not even going back to skim the Live Slog archives for jokes any more.

Posted by ScrawnyKayaker on January 26, 2012 at 5:43 AM