On the night of the results of the Nevada Republican Caucuses last evening, Fox News and Matt Drudge appeared to deliver a double sucker-punch to Newt Gingrich, in spite of the fact that the former House Speaker came in a distant 2nd in the voting.
Mitt Romney won with 43% of the vote in a state where delegates will be awarded according to a sliding scale based upon how many votes the various Republicans candidates were able to garner.
Gingrich received 25% of the vote, Ron Paul 19%, and Rick Santorum 12%.
Romney was expected to win the state by a comfortable margin as he did during the 2008 race for the Republican nomination, which he eventually lost to John McCain.
Following the results of the vote last evening, Gingrich gave a news conference in the presence of his supporters in Nevada. This writer listened to every word of the Speaker's remarks and his subsequent question and answer session with reporters. As always the Speaker was fast on his feet, speaking without notes or a teleprompter, and determined not to allow the mainstream media to set the agenda for either him or his opponents.
But Fox News saw it differently.
During last night's panel analysis with Bret Baier following the vote, the Fox analysts in one accord trashed Newt's performance. Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, A.B. Stoddard, and Stephen Hayes gave thumbs down to the Gingrich news conference, even going as far as describing it as 'strange.'
A sticking point in the panel's analysis was Gingrich's statement that he was surprised that Mitt Romney went as negative as he did in the weeks leading up to the Florida primary.
The panel reacted as if Gingrich had stated he was surprised Romney went negative at all. One panelist claimed that if Gingrich was blindsided by negative campaigning, one wonders where he has been all of these years in politics, where mud-slinging is the order of the day.
But the Speaker never said anything remotely resembling the panel's portrayal. He stated he was shocked by the level of negativity coming from Romney and the outright lies Romney told during the debates and in his TV ads--a far cry from claiming, as the Fox panel erroneously reported, that he was blindsided by negative campaigning.
"I have never seen anything like it in all my years in politics, spanning a 30-year career," Gingrich stated.
The panel appeared to be shocked that Gingrich was shocked about Romney's level of negativity. Yet they were quick to blast Gingrich for going negative on Romney in order to defend himself from attack, providing even more evidence that the network is 'in the tank' for Romney.
As for Matt Drudge, the infamous Internet news aggregator delivered a 2nd punch at Gingrich this morning as he posted a story claiming that Gingrich 'rambled' during his remarks last evening.
But it was a news conference, not a traditional victory or concession speech. It is difficult for a candidate not to appear to ramble when he or she takes questions from the media, questions that are all over the board covering a myriad of issues that may or may not be connected.
Gingrich, in fact, handled the media very well. He answered the questions directly. He castigated reporters for asking questions that contain erroneous assumptions. He joked with individual reporters.
In short, it was classic Gingrich, nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly not 'strange' or 'rambling' as the Fox panel and Matt Drudge would like for the public to believe.
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