Newt Gingrich should save his outrage for some of his own offensive comments, but here we go.

In a Nightline interview, Gingrich’s second wife Marianne says that Newt wanted an “open marriage” so he could be married to her and date Callista, who is now married to the GOP presidential candidate. Newt and Marianne were divorced after she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

So at last night’s South Carolina debate, when CNN reporter and debate moderator John King asked him for a response to the allegations, he went off on King and the “news media.” The other night, we went to Mediabistro’s “Meet the Teachers” event where one of the attendees talked about being prepared for an “unexpected” question. It sounds to us like Gingrich had some rehearsed anger here, making sure to deflect attention away from the issue (though he said the story was false) and onto distaste for the “elite” news media.

“It’s as close to despicable as anything he can imagine,” he says. He was “appalled” and “astounded.” How’s about you give us all a break Newt Gingrich?

Read more

Photo: Reuters

Things have entered the realm of the preposterous for the GOP candidates doing battle in New Hampshire, with Mitt Romney’s opponents going to possibly self-destructive lengths to knock him from the frontrunner position.

As we mentioned in today’s Morning Media Menu, Rick Perry’s team made a downloadable ringtone available that repeated the Mitt Romney line “I like being able to fire people.” (The line stems from a response Romney gave during a campaign event.) Tons of outlets reported on the ringtone’s availability, but if you click on any of the links now, an Error 404 message pops up. Maybe even they think they went too far?

Newt Gingrich, picking up on his weekend debate zinger, has launched a website, stopromneyspiousbaloney.com. I like using the word “baloney” as much as the next guy (and “malarky,” which the AP no longer recognizes) but it’s a one-time-use-only word. And this whole move is just infantile.

Read more

Image: Reuters

Just when you thought 2012 couldn’t get any better, it’s Iowa caucus day. As MSNBC’s First Read blog notes, turnout is everything in these political matters. And the candidates are doing everything they can to make sure the votes come in, like physically transporting people to polling sites so they can cast their votes.

The Ron Paul and Rick Perry campaigns are providing voters with transportation, and Mitt Romney’s camp is providing transportation “for special circumstances.”

But before voters can get to the polling locations, the candidates, unfortunately for them, had a few more days to make their cases.

Read more

Herman Cain’s weekend farewell speech has been sliced and diced to determine how many different absurd things happened while he was at the podium.

The departing presidential candidate’s quote from the 2000 Pokémon movie during the speech was, by far, the standout. Specifically, he quoted the Donna Summers song “Power of One,” which plays during the closing credit of the film. The Daily Beast did a closer analysis (ha), showing that the origin of the quote was at first thought to be the Olympics. It was only after closer inspection that the song’s true origin was revealed.

Seems like a simple lesson, but it’s surprising how many times we see that it has to be repeated — choose your words wisely. Ill-conceived tweets, interviews gone bad, catchphrases that go awry — these are all the result of poorly chosen words.

Read more

Photo: AP

When The Donald announced that he wasn’t running for President back in May, we’d hoped we were done with his political antics. But alas! He has re-inserted himself into the fray with the announcement that he will be moderating a GOP debate in Iowa on December 27. More than that, he’s billing himself as the GOP’s ultimate endorser.

“Some magazines have said I am the single most important endorsement a presidential candidate can have. I don’t know if that’s true, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t say that to brag; I just tell it like it is,” Politico quotes him saying.

A couple of candidates aren’t buying it. Jon Huntsman has declined (Trump says he’s the decliner), with Huntsman’s peeps sending a message on Twitter: “Lol. We look forward to watching Mitt and Newt suck-up to The Donald with a big bowl of popcorn.”

And Ron Paul’s campaign chairman (oh you Ron Paul!) also responded, saying Trump’s inclusion “is beneath the office of the Presidency.”

Haha. But seriously, you know Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn what they say.

Read more

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty is in. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is out. The latest Pawlenty video is a lot less ominous than his previous one, but a better video won’t win him the White House. Another announcement, yet the race for President on the GOP side is still a muddled.

Read more

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Donald Trump has made it official, via statement issued today, that he will not be running for President. While maintaining his “strong conviction” that he could win office, he said in that statement, “business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector.” Translation: I got a ton of publicity, NBC picked up my show for another year, so I’m done with my political show and we can now return to our regularly scheduled episode of The Apprentice. Peace out.

But before that statement he issued another video statement in support of Mike Huckabee‘s decision not to run, which had the Meet the Press roundtable panel in hysterics. (You can watch that above.) Huckabee announced Saturday night at the end of his show (and just in time for the Sunday morning political programs) that he wouldn’t be running.

“Mike, enjoy the show. Your ratings are terrific, you’re making a lot of money, you’re building a beautiful house in Florida. Good luck,” said Trump. Wha?

Read more

It can be a good thing to seed a story with reporters and the public. But Newt Gingrich totally took the bite out of his big Wednesday announcement about running for President by announcing it repeatedly yesterday.

Gingrich’s spokesman Rick Tyler told everyone yesterday that they would be making the big announcement on Twitter and Facebook tomorrow. Then Gingrich will be on Fox News‘ Sean Hannity program that night to talk about it some more. But Gingrich already wrote a post on Facebook yesterday saying: “Be sure to watch Hannity this Wednesday at 9pm ET/8pm CT. I will be on to talk about my run for President of the United States.” Also, the AP has done a whole segment about it, which we’ve attached above.

Then Gingrich will be further announcing his announcement on Friday with an appearance at the Georgia Republican Party Convention on Friday. This strategy makes no sense.

Read more

We continue to find Donald Trump repellent, yet he manages to keep our attention with his nonsense.

The latest from his absurd campaign to tell us whether he’ll be campaigning for President: He may make an announcement during the season finale of The Celebrity Apprentice on May 15. So he’s set up a win-win here for ratings (in theory) — people will watch to find out who wins the show and/or they’ll tune in to see if this joke on our electoral system will come to an end sooner rather than later. And if he doesn’t make the announcement, he’s set himself up for more media attention; Yahoo News says he might have a press conference instead.

Even more ridiculous than this situation (and his hair, and his recent statements about President Obama and “the blacks”) is the fact that polls show him leading the Republican pack.

Read more